In Gedit, I installed the line_tools plugin. It uses Ctrl+D to duplicate the the current line. When I pressed Ctrl+D, it did the opposite! It deleted the line instead!
It turns out that Gedit has an unlisted (not in the menu) shortcut-key: Ctrl+D, which deletes a line.
It is quite simple to change any menu item's shortcut-key in Gedit by enabling Editable Menu Accelerators, but I can't change this delete-line action's key, because there is no menu item for it!
How can I override this delete-line action? .. and what other unlisted actions does Gedit have? .. and why is it (they?) unlisted?
PS: The developer of the 'line_tools' provides the plugin with Ctrl+D set to 'Duplicate'.. I assume he tested it; which would suggest that there was no such clash circa 2008-01-30 (the timestamp on the downloaded line_tools.py )
2 Answers
I like the idea to do a binary edit. However the process described above seems too cumbersome.
Here is a much simpler and more reliable way:
sudo sed -i "s/delete_from_cursor/_elete_from_cursor/g" /usr/bin/geditI've found a workaround for this particular Ctrl+D shortcut...
It was interesting to see that most on the site where I found it have been a Notepad++ users (me too :), where Ctrl+D was the "delete-line" shortcut...
The "fix" involves a simple mod to the 'gedit' binary... It changes one byte of a name, so that the shortcut reference becomes invalid...
This frees-up the Ctrl+D shortcut, and allows the plugin to function normally, and the new Ctrl+D menu-item is editable.
The only side-effect appears to be that a "Warning" is issued, which you can see if you start 'gedit' from the terminal...
Because this is a "hack" (in the roughest sense of the word), it is possible that there could be other side-effects, eg. maybe something doesn't get cleaned up properly... but I'll be using it...
Here is the 2-minute hack:
(The fix will need to be re-applied when gedit is updated)
# Make a backup of 'gedit' binary
sudo cp /usr/bin/gedit{,.before-ctrl+d-hack}
# Hexedit the 'gedit' binary ...(I've used 'ghex2`)
gksu ghex2 /usr/bin/gedit
# In 'ghex2'
# Find the string: delete_from_cursor
# Replace it with: #elete_from_cursor
#
# Save the binary, and exit...
#
