TOPIC: COMPUTER KEYBOARD
Resolving a Linux Mint and Windows keyboard shortcut conflict encountered when using SAS Enterprise Guide in a remote Citrix session
20th February 2026
Here is a gotcha, slight though it is, that caught me when working in SAS Enterprise Guide on a Windows system to which I was connecting from Linux via Citrix. What I wanted to do was use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + U to convert text to upper case in the program editor, only for it to produce a black square and nothing else.
What I was encountering was a clash in keyboard shortcut assignments. On Linux Mint, CTRL + SHIFT + U activates Unicode character input mode. The black square was there for me to enter a hexadecimal code to add a character that my keyboard would not facilitate in normal circumstances. While the facility clearly has its uses, it was getting in my way and a solution had to be found.
Taking the simple route, I changed the keyboard shortcut to avoid the clash. Though others may want to go further than this, that was enough for me. At the command line, I issued the following command so that I could accomplish this:
ibus-setup
In the application screen that appeared, I navigated to the Emoji tab. To the right of the Unicode code point box, I clicked on the button with four dots. That led me to another dialogue box where I could change the modifier keys. Thus, I unchecked the box for SHIFT and ticked the one for SUPER (the Windows key on many keyboards these days) instead, before clicking on the OK button to confirm the setting. With that completed, I closed the IBus Preferences screen.
Now, I had CTRL + SUPER + U instead of CTRL + SHIFT + U. This meant that the CTRL + SHIFT + U in Enterprise Guide worked exactly as I expected it to do. A baffling situation had been resolved to leave me working without intrusion.
Locking your computer screen faster using keyboard shortcuts
11th January 2026
When you are doing paid work on a computer, locking one's screen is a healthy practice for ensuring privacy and confidentiality while you are away from your desk for a short while. For years, I have been doing this on Windows using the WIN (Windows key) + L keyboard combination. It is possible on a Mac too, albeit using a different set of keys: CTRL (Control) + CMD (Command) + Q. While the Lock Screen item on the Apple menu will accomplish the same result, a simple keyboard shortcut works much, much faster. On Linux, things are a lot more varied with different desktop environments working in their own way, even making terminal commands a way to go if you can use a heavily abbreviated alias.
Keyboard remapping on macOS with Karabiner-Elements for cross-platform work
20th November 2025
This is something that I have been planing to share for a while; working across macOS, Linux and Windows poses a challenge to muscle memory when it comes to keyboard shortcuts. Since the macOS set up varies from the others, it was that which I set to harmonise with the others. Though the result is not full compatibility, it is close enough for my needs.
The need led me to install Karabiner-Elements and Karabiner-EventViewer. The latter has its uses for identifying which key is which on a keyboard, which happens to be essential when you are not using a Mac keyboard. While it is not needed all the time, the tool is a godsend when doing key mappings.
Karabiner-Elements is what holds the key mappings and needs to run all the time for them to be activated. Some are simple and others are complex; it helps the website is laden with examples of the latter. Maybe that is how an LLM can advise on how to set up things, too. Before we come to the ones that I use, here are the simple mappings that are active on my Mac Mini:
left_command → left_control
left_comtrol → left_command
This swaps the left-hand Command and Control keys while leaving their right-hand ones alone. It means that the original functionality is left for some cases when changing it for the keys that I use the most. However, I now find that I need to use the Command key in the Terminal instead of the Control counterpart that I used before the change, a counterintuitive situation that I overlook given how often the swap is needed in other places like remote Linux and Windows sessions.
grave_accent_and_tilde → non_us_backslash
non_us_backslash → non_us_pound
non_us_pound → grave_accent_and_tilde
It took a while to get this three-way switch figured out, and it is a bit fiddly too. All the effort was in the name of getting backslash and hash (pound in the US) keys the right way around for me, especially in those remote desktop sessions. What made the thing really tricky was the need to deal with Shift key behaviour, which necessitated the following script:
{
"description": "Map grave/tilde key to # and ~ (forced behaviour, detects Shift)",
"manipulators": [
{
"conditions": [
{
"name": "shift_held",
"type": "variable_if",
"value": 1
}
],
"from": {
"key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde",
"modifiers": { "optional": ["any"] }
},
"to": [{ "shell_command": "osascript -e 'tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"~\"'" }],
"type": "basic"
},
{
"conditions": [
{
"name": "shift_held",
"type": "variable_unless",
"value": 1
}
],
"from": {
"key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde",
"modifiers": { "optional": ["any"] }
},
"to": [
{
"key_code": "3",
"modifiers": ["option"]
}
],
"type": "basic"
},
{
"from": { "key_code": "left_shift" },
"to": [
{
"set_variable": {
"name": "shift_held",
"value": 1
}
},
{ "key_code": "left_shift" }
],
"to_after_key_up": [
{
"set_variable": {
"name": "shift_held",
"value": 0
}
}
],
"type": "basic"
},
{
"from": { "key_code": "right_shift" },
"to": [
{
"set_variable": {
"name": "shift_held",
"value": 1
}
},
{ "key_code": "right_shift" }
],
"to_after_key_up": [
{
"set_variable": {
"name": "shift_held",
"value": 0
}
}
],
"type": "basic"
}
]
}Here, I resorted to AI to help get this put in place. Even then, there was a deal of toing and froing before the setup worked well. After that, it was time to get the quote (") and at (@) symbols assigned to what I was used to having on a British English keyboard:
{
"description": "Swap @ and \" keys (Shift+2 and Shift+quote)",
"manipulators": [
{
"from": {
"key_code": "2",
"modifiers": {
"mandatory": ["shift"],
"optional": ["any"]
}
},
"to": [
{
"key_code": "quote",
"modifiers": ["shift"]
}
],
"type": "basic"
},
{
"from": {
"key_code": "quote",
"modifiers": {
"mandatory": ["shift"],
"optional": ["any"]
}
},
"to": [
{
"key_code": "2",
"modifiers": ["shift"]
}
],
"type": "basic"
}
]
}The above possibly was one of the first changes that I made, and took less time than some of the others that came after it. There was another at the end that was even simpler again: neutralising the Caps Lock key. That came up while I was perusing the Karabiner-Elements website, so here it is:
{
"manipulators": [
{
"description": "Change caps_lock to command+control+option+shift.",
"from": {
"key_code": "caps_lock",
"modifiers": { "optional": ["any"] }
},
"to": [
{
"key_code": "left_shift",
"modifiers": ["left_command", "left_control", "left_option"]
}
],
"type": "basic"
}
]
}That was the simplest of the lot to deploy, being a simple copy and paste effort. It also halted mishaps when butter-fingered actions on the keyboard activated capitals when I did not need them. While there are occasions when the facility would have its uses, it has not noticed its absence since putting this in place.
At the end of all the tinkering, I now have a set-up that works well for me. While possible enhancements may include changing the cursor positioning and corresponding highlighting behaviours, I am happy to leave these aside for now. Compatibly with British and Irish keyboards together with smoother working in remote sessions was what I sought, and I largely have that. Thus, I have no complaints so far.
Adding line breaks in Excel in a Citrix Windows session on a Mac
18th August 2025
Today, I tried connecting to a client system using my Mac Mini. Everything went well, aside perhaps from some resizing, apart from something more crucial: adding a line break in a cell in an Excel spreadsheet. The usual combination of ALT+ENTER was not doing the needful. Instead, I needed to use CMD+OPTION+ENTER, as it would be on a Mac keyboard. Since I use a Windows one inside, it looks like this: WIN+ALT+ENTER. It was only by looking through the options for the Citrix Workspace app that came upon this after being prompted to do so by ChatGPT, itself not supplying the fully correct information that I needed. Now, all I need to do is remember to use the correct keyboard shortcut, and I am away.
Stop Microsoft Edge warning you before quitting on macOS
15th August 2025
My new client only supports Microsoft Edge for logging onto their systems. Thus, I needed to install that onto my iMac and Mac Mini devices for those occasions when I am not using a Windows device (as it happens, I have yet to try that with Linux). However, Edge issues a warning on exiting it using the CMD+Q shortcut, the quickest way to do that and safer than clicking on the red X on the top right of the application as I have found with other situations on macOS (incidentally, that is similar to using the CMD+W keyboard shortcut). To get rid of the warning, I needed to go to Settings > Appearance > Browser behaviour and features > Warn before quitting with ⌘Q. Once there, it was a matter of toggling the setting to the off position and I was done. However, placing that under Appearance remains an odd decision to me.
Reactivating Touch ID on an iMac when the options are greyed out in System Settings
23rd October 2024
Recently, when the battery in my iMac keyboard ran out of charge, I merely connected it to the all-in-one system using the supplied cable. However, a software upgrade meant a system restart, which lost the ability to unlock the iMac using the Touch ID.
When I went to Touch ID & Password within the Systems Settings app, I found all the options greyed out, preventing me from restoring things that way. The result was that I needed to disconnect the cable before turning off the keyboard in advance of turning it back on again. That was enough to restore Touch ID usage; the settings were not only activated but turned on for me. It is a little lesson on how different things can be for a new Mac user.
Quickly changing between virtual desktops in Windows 10
12th October 2018
One of the benefits of running Linux is the availability of virtual desktops, and installing VirtuaWin was the only way to get the same functionality on Windows before the launch of Windows 10. For reasons known to Microsoft, they decided against the same sort of implementation as seen in Linux or UNIX. Instead, they put the virtual desktop functionality a click away and rather hides it from most users unless they know what clicking on the Task View button allows. The approach also made switching between desktops slower with a mouse. However, there are keyboard shortcuts that address this once multiple virtual desktops exist.
Using WIN + CTRL + LEFT or WIN + CTRL + RIGHT does this easily once you have mastered the action. Depending on your keyboard setup, WIN is the Windows, Super or Command key while CTRL is the Control key. Then, LEFT is the left arrow key and RIGHT is the right arrow key. For machines with smaller screens where multitasking causes clutter, virtual desktops are a godsend for organising how you work, and having quick key combinations for switching between them adds to their utility.
Keyboard shortcut for Euro currency symbol on Windows 10
21st April 2018
Because I now have business dealings in Ireland, there is a need to add in the Euro currency symbol to emails even though I based in the U.K. and use U.K. keyboard settings. While there is the possibility to insert the symbol in Microsoft Office and other applications, using a simple keyboard shortcut is more efficient since it avoids multiple mouse clicks. For some reason, CTRL + SHIFT + E got into my head as the key combination, but that turns on the Track Changes facility in Word. Instead, CTRL + ALT + 4 does the needful and that is what I will be keeping in mind for future usage.
Killing a hanging SSH session
20th April 2018
My web hosting provider offers SSH access that I often use for such things as updating Matomo and Drupal, together with more intensive file moving than an FTP session can support. However, I have found recently that I no longer can exit cleanly from such sessions using the exit command.
Because this produces a locked terminal session, I was keen to find an alternative to shutting down the terminal application before starting it again. Handily, there is a keyboard shortcut that does just what I need.
It varies a little according to the keyboard that you have. Essentially, it combines the carriage return key with ones for the tilde (~) and period (.) characters. The tilde may need to be produced by the combining the shift and backtick keys on some keyboard layouts, but that is not needed on mine. So far, I have found that the <CR>+~+. combination does what I need until SSH sessions start exiting as expected.
Carrying out a hard reset of a home KVM switch
20th March 2017
During a recent upgrade from Linux Mint 18 to Linux Mint 18.1 on a secondary machine, I ran into bother with my Startech KVM (keyboard, video, mouse and audio sharing) switch. The PC failed to recognise the attachment of my keyboard and mouse, so an internet search began.
Nothing promising came from it apart from resetting the KVM switch. In other words, the solution was to turn it off and back on again. That was something that I did try unsuccessfully. What I had overlooked was that there were USB connections to PC's that fed the device with a certain amount of power which was enough to keep it on.
Unplugging those USB cables as well as the power cable was needed to completely switch off the device. That provided the reset that I needed, and all was well again. Otherwise, I would have been baffled enough to resort to buying a replacement KVM switch, so the extra information avoided a purchase that could have cost in the region of £100. In other words, a little research had saved me money.