Xfce Forum

icygqaftmzzi

Member

Registered: 2023-07-11

Posts: 1

How to temporarily unbind keyboard key combination

I play a game on my endeavourOS that uses the Ctrl+F3 key combination. But when I press the combination while in game, the game gets minimized and the focus goes to the workspace that's bound to the xfce desktop.

How do i disable this key combination automatically when the game is in focus?

KBar

Member

Registered: 2021-11-05

Posts: 689

Re: How to temporarily unbind keyboard key combination

I used to have two configs that I would switch between work and gaming, sort of like a keyboard profile. As a simple solution, you can create two aliases in ~/.bash_aliases for the following commands:

# Unbind the keys:
xfconf-query --channel xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts --property '/xfwm4/default/<Primary>F3' --set ''

# Rebind the keys (assuming the action was indeed 'workspace_3_key':
xfconf-query --channel xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts --property '/xfwm4/default/<Primary>F3' --set 'workspace_3_key'

The way that you would execute these commands is entirely up to you. You can just type in the alias for the first command before your gaming session, you could create a launcher on the panel for toggling it, you could create a new keybinding for switching between the two modes, etc.

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jacksonmark

Member

Registered: 2026-03-20

Posts: 1

Re: How to temporarily unbind keyboard key combination

You can use xbindkeys to temporarily disable the Ctrl+F3 combination while playing your game. Here’s how:

Install xbindkeys:

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sudo pacman -S xbindkeys
Create a config file:

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xbindkeys --defaults > ~/.xbindkeysrc
Disable the key combination: Add this line to ~/.xbindkeysrc:

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"true"
    Control + F3
Restart xbindkeys:

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killall xbindkeys
xbindkeys
This will disable Ctrl+F3 while your game is in focus. You can remove the line later to restore the functionality. Enjoy your game!

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