Gnome : How to Assign Keyboard Shortcuts

When I moved from Windows to Ubuntu, I was assuming that VirtuaWin keyboard shortcuts would work as is. To my surprise, there were no keyboard shortcut to switch directly to specific workspace. Right click on workspace applet didn’t help, since it only allowed me to configure number of workspaces. Off course, shortcuts to move to next workspace are defined as Ctrl+Alt+Arrow (Depending on specific arrangement it could be right, left , up or down arrow)

To define shortcut to move to specific workspace directly, you need to go to System->Preferences->Keyboard shortcuts. Select Window Management Category. Here one can define the shortcuts. There are entries for Switch to Workspace 1 and Switch to Workspace 2. But both are disabled. It is very easy to assign the shortcuts. Click on the row, and just press the desired key combination. On VirtuaWin, I was used to Alt+<num>, but that was already taken by Firefox to move to specific tab. So I decided to use Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+2.

I was able to define shortcut for Workspace 1 and Workspace 2 (Since there are two workspaces defined in the  default configuration). When I created additional two workspaces (2×2 matrix) I am unable to assign shortcuts to workspace 3 and 4. (For now I’m using Arrow based shortcuts to move between the workspaces)

Productivity enhancing Software – Part I

This is first part of series of posts, in which I will be writing about the software that I use on day to day basis. These software help improve my productivity and I hope that these will help you too.

I like to experiment with new stuff. I’m always trying to improve myself personally as well as improve my productivity. (This is also the focus of my other blog) This leads me to try various tools/utilities that would help me achieve either of these two goals. So I download a lot of software, I install and try most of them, I keep very few of them. I keep the ones which I find myself using regularly. Others are uninstalled and downloaded version deleted, to make space for more downloads

Over a period of time, some of these tools have become indispensable, ones I can’t live without. I have changed my primary work machine three times in last 10 months. So each time I get a new machine, I install these must-haves on them the first. (Off course that is right after I change my WinXP to look more like Windows Classic. I hate WinXP default look. To each his own.)
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