[GoLUG] Simulating Alt+Tab in a Qemu guest VM

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

One of the biggest pains in the posterior about using a Qemu guest VM
is that Alt+Tab is captured by my host X, not my guest X. Being
forced to reach for the mouse every time I switch windows is a serious
productivity blocker. I use LXDE on the guest, Openbox on the host.
LXDE is a "desktop environment" that uses Openbox as its "window
manager".

So I added the following to the guest's ~/.config/lxde-rc.xml:

==========================================
    <keybind key="W-Tab">
      <action name="NextWindow"/>
    </keybind>
==========================================

After restarting X, this enables the Windows key plus tab to switch
windows. It's not grabbed by the host, because the host has no
definition for W-Tab. I didn't even have to erase the existing hotkeys
for NextWindow: They're stolen by the host anyway.

The Windows key is right next to the Alt key, so it's easy to remember
and easy to reach.

I assume this type of thing would work with any window manager, but of
course I use only one so I can't say for sure.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
http://444domains.com