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LyXmodifierKeys

Customized modifier keys with the LyX user interface

The LyX editor provides a graphical user interface that allows you to access all important features through menus and toolbars. However, power users will find themselves making heavy use of keyboard shortcuts. To distinguish keyboard shortcuts from regular text or math input, LyX uses "modifier keys".

LyX recognizes three modifier keys:

• Shift
• Meta
• Control

The actual name and location of these keys on the keyborad is platform-specific. For example, on Windows computers, the ALT key plays the role of the LyX Meta key.

LyX uses bind files to associate combinations of modifier and regular keys with certain LyX functions. Bind files don't know about the platform-specific physical location of your modifier keys.

Sometimes it can be desirable to re-define the physical modifier-key assignments. E.g., this could apply to people who are used to UNIX keyboards and have trouble finding the Control key on a Windows keyboard. This cannot be fixed with bind files.

This kind of problem appears on Macs with LyX under the Qt interface. A Mac-specific discussion is given on a separate page.

LyX