I used the keyboard settings Keyboard | Application Shortcut | Add and set the command to 'xscreensaver-command -lock' and the key to the power button. This used to work in the previous versions of xfce, but the setting is now ineffective. Pressing the power button performs the default action (present shutdown options) instead of my configured action. As a result my colleagues are tempted to fiddle around with my unlocked desktop system and are deterred only by the depth of their respect for my amazing terminal logins. I also cannot map Ctrl+Insert (which I mapped to xsel|xsel -b). The version installed is as with ubuntu "precise" 12.04: ii xfce4-settings 4.8.3-1ubuntu3 graphical application for managing Xfce settings The bug came with the upgrade from ubuntu-"o". I suspect this may be a change in the ordering of default mappings vs custom mappings.
Hello, Re the power button, I think it is already grabbed by xfce4-power-manager so it can't be grabbed by xfsettingsd to perform your custom command. We should show a warning though. Control + insert works fine in my jeromeg/keyboard-shortcuts git branch, if you get a chance to test it and confirm that I would appreciate. Cheers, Jérôme
I have disabled the power button in power manager ("do nothing") and I can assign custom keyboard shortcuts to it. This works most of the time, but after running for a few days, something tends to breaks this mapping. The functionality is restored after a reboot, and usually works fine again for a few days...
As pointed out in comment 1 this is just the regular conflict between multiple apps grabbing the same key. As pointed out in comment 2 this can be avoided by setting the power manager to "Do nothing". (If there are problems with that then this may indicate that there is a bug with that option in the power manager.)