Xpra: Ticket #425: Can't use Alt+ shortcuts in application running inside xpra

Actually i found alot of tickets with similar symptoms, but did not find any solution or workaround.

Currently i experience a problen using IDE shortcuts with Alt modifier. All of them appeared on xpra side as Alt + Meta + SYM instead of Alt + SYM. And that's cause an issue to use any Alt based shortcuts.



Fri, 30 Aug 2013 13:05:31 GMT - Antoine Martin: owner changed

Keyboard is meant to get an overhaul in the next release, hopefully we can address this bug too. Please add more info as per wiki/Keyboard


Mon, 07 Oct 2013 15:16:17 GMT - Antoine Martin: status changed; resolution set

Not heard back - closing.


Wed, 09 Oct 2013 22:53:13 GMT - alas: attachment set

alt test with keyboard Test inside xpra session (0.10.4)


Wed, 09 Oct 2013 22:54:07 GMT - alas: attachment set

alt test with keyboard Test windows local (via xpra 0.11 test tool)


Wed, 09 Oct 2013 22:59:01 GMT - alas:

With windows machine alt+(numbers) allows typing of non-English characters, such as alt+(0241) = ñ.

Inside xpra session, the shortcut doesn't work (and I'm not aware of any other tricks to use non-English characters, aside from typing them locally and copy/pasting them into an xpra session).

Haven't tested to see if OSX option+(character) shortcuts work, but I imagine they don't.

Attached screen shots from keyboard Test tool, inside xpra session vs. windows local. Let me know if you need more extensive samples, which I can type or somehow copy as needed.


Thu, 10 Oct 2013 06:21:29 GMT - Antoine Martin: status changed; milestone set; resolution deleted

Re-opening. Thanks for the details. Not sure what the OP's client OS was since he never followed up. Sounds like win32.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input - this is platform dependent and the default X11 input method does not provide a way of entering unicode via numeric values.

See also: GTK+ is an ISO 14755-conformant system. The beginning sequence is Ctrl+⇧ Shift+U and the ending sequence is ↵ Enter or Space. Programs based on GTK+, such as GNOME applications, support Unicode input. - this is no good for us unless we can change the beginning sequence...

This may well require the development/enhancement of an X11 input method to be able to emulate the client's behaviour on the server. (ie: windows Alt+num)


Sat, 17 May 2014 14:42:56 GMT - Antoine Martin: status changed; resolution set

I am closing this ticket because the OP never followed up.

The windows input method is now in a new ticket: #572


Tue, 19 Aug 2014 04:28:44 GMT - Antoine Martin:

Note: 0.14 includes new features related to keyboard input and layout selection:


Fri, 01 May 2015 04:47:43 GMT - Antoine Martin:

Duplicate of: #572

See also: #817, #661, #634, #286.


Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:34:17 GMT - Antoine Martin:

Maybe this is a duplicate of #1119, which was backported to v0.16.x - without feedback from the OP, we will never know.


Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:51:50 GMT - Antoine Martin: milestone changed

Milestone renamed


Sun, 21 Aug 2016 09:55:49 GMT - Antoine Martin: milestone changed

Milestone renamed


Sat, 23 Jan 2021 04:55:04 GMT - migration script:

this ticket has been moved to: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/issues/425