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By default, when one holds down Alt and drags with the mouse, it will move a window in KDE/kwin. Is there a way to disable this for a particular application?

I know there's a lot of application overrides (click top left window icon > Advanced > Special Application Settings), but I can't find one to disable this alt key. The closest I can find is to disable global keyboard shortcuts.

Brad Patton
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gatoatigrado
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  • Actually, the primary motivation for my question is now nil. I wanted to use the alt keys when running `x2go`, but I think the problem was in fact that the server wasn't using the alt+drag actions. When I switched from `gnome-desktop` to `unity` (by running `sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop` on the server), everything started to work as expected -- the alt keys now interact with the "guest" windows in x2go, rather than my client desktop's windowing system. – gatoatigrado Apr 18 '13 at 22:58

3 Answers3

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In the KDE System Settings for Window Behavior, change the Window Actions for Inner Window, Titlebar, & Frame. With the modifier key set to Alt, set the left button to Nothing. You can also reassign the action to a different modifier key.

See also: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=109085

Bradd Szonye
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    Is there a way to do this for individual applications? It's a useful feature generally, but some applications use alt+clicking, and it conflicts... – naught101 Feb 17 '16 at 08:20
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    Just change _Alt_ key to _Meta_ – isalgueiro Jun 12 '17 at 17:39
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    In case someone is searching the setting: Start "System Settings", then look at Workspace->Window Managment->Window Behavior->Window Actions->Inner Window, Title bar & Frame, and there you can select "Nothing" for "Left butotn", "Middle button", "Right button" and "Mouse wheel" with the modifier key "Alt" (or choose an alternative modifier key). – Frank Buss Nov 07 '20 at 11:56
  • Thanks for this! Alt + drag isn't enabled in Garuda Linux, so I was actually looking to turn it on. Turns out, Garuda changes it to Meta as its default rather than Alt, so good to know where this setting is burried! – Caleb Hawn Nov 03 '22 at 23:11
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although Bradd's answer is correct, if you want to disable alt for just one application/window, you can go to window behaviour -> <application> -> appearances & fixes and check "Ignore global shortcuts" there.

haja
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    The problem with this approach is that it disables all global shortcuts. So, I can't for example switch between desktops with my shortcut when the particular window is active. – user1456584 Jan 15 '20 at 09:50
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There is some setting in kde, where you can choose what key should be used for the window dragging.. I switch it over to the win key - It really works well.

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Martin Andersen
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