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I am using the Alt key very often and I do like the HUD and want to keep both.

This is my problem: I always use Alt+D in Chrome to access the URL bar and I'm doing this very fast, but then HUD annoyingly pops up.

When pressing ALT + Tab very fast the HUD won't pop up, but if pressing ALT + D just as fast the HUD will pop up.

Is there a way to make it work like when pressing Alt+Tab, but with Alt+D? or edit the timer for how long I have to press until it won't pop up?

Jeggy
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    Why don't you just change the HUD key to something else? I have my HUD key set to Alt+Z – Seth May 04 '14 at 17:09
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    Like @Seth mentioned, changing the HUD key combination is an alternative. – Rohith Madhavan Dec 12 '14 at 22:46
  • yea, i know. I've tried that, but I was hoping for a way to get it to work like when using ALT+TAB, because I do use HUD often, and I like how fast and easy it is, by only tapping on the ALT key. I would really love to find a way of getting it to work without changing the HUD key and without annoyingly popping up when doing ALT+D. – Jeggy Dec 12 '14 at 22:55
  • When I press ALT+F4, ALT+TAB, ALT+½ it doesn't pop up. And in Chrome ALT+{a number} to change tab works great, even if I do it fast, it's just ALT+D that is not like this, I really want to be able to add that functionality to ALT+D :) – Jeggy Dec 12 '14 at 22:59
  • I couldn't really understand what you want accomplished. My version is 14.04 and I see that my HUD key is Alt+L. I tried setting it to just Alt, but it gets disabled. I set it to Alt+D and now when in Chrome, pressing Alt+D gets the HUD, pressing it again gets the address bar. Pressing just the Alt key gets the application menu. So, what's your issue? – Sri Dec 14 '14 at 09:24
  • @Sri http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts I believe it is default as Alt, but it may be they changed it, and he upgraded to 14.X. When it is set up like this it can interfere with regular shortcuts, because it has a short amount of time before it issues the command to open HUD, so when you press something like Alt+D it will just open the HUD, and the shortcut isn't loaded. – No Time Dec 16 '14 at 15:18
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/350026/why-there-is-a-delay-between-when-a-key-is-pressed-and-when-it-is-accepted I am not sure if this answer will help, or if 14 has this still. Within Universal Access, go to slow keys and increase the response time. Unfortunately this would affect keystrokes globally (all your input would be affected), but it may be a temporary fix until another solution comes in. – No Time Dec 16 '14 at 15:26
  • Or simply change shortcut in chrome not to use Alt. – VRR Apr 28 '15 at 18:36
  • URL bar can also be accessed with Ctrl+L , i believe – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy May 02 '15 at 19:13

2 Answers2

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There are several ways to go about this. Here are three options I can suggest you to try. It really depends on how you prefer to go about it for your system.

System Settings - Option 1

Change what key calls your HUD or completely disable it like so:

System settings… 

 1. -> Keyboard 
 2. -> Shortcuts tab 
 3. -> Launchers

Assign a new key to “Key to show the HUD" or Disable

enter image description here

There are alternate solutions for editing your system settings in this Q&A How do I modify or disable the HUD's use of the Alt key? .

Program Driven - Option 2

Maybe try editing your global hotkeys with a program.

xbindkeys | With this option you'll have to know how to call capabilities though shell commands.

(Other suggestions? Leave a comment and I'll add it.)

Programming Driven - Option 3

Here is a answer on SO that you may find useful regardless of what you do. This is a good answer to review especially if you choose to do this on your own programmatically along with this: Q&A How can I programatically show/hide my app window with global shortcut key?.

Community
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Brandon Clark
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There is no difference between alt-tab and alt-d behaviour.

I tested this numerous times on 14.04. The only tricky part is that you have to make sure to press and hold the alt first. So don't press d first. You can see that every time you open the HUD, you have typed a d somewhere.

alt - tab works in the exact same way...

Fabby
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Merlijn Sebrechts
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