Arch Linux

ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 924

[SOLVED] Cannot get key-combo to start application in Awesome WM

I had this working perfectly for years until I blew up my system and had to do a reinstall. I also lost all of my backups, so there's no help there. I cannot figure out why it won't work, now.

I have tried two slightly different ways in my rc.lua:

awful.key({ modkey,  "Control"  }, "w", function () awful.spawn(firefox) end,
              {description = "start Firefox", group = "applications"}),

or

awful.key({ modkey,  "Control"  }, "w", function () awful.util.spawn(firefox) end,
              {description = "start Firefox", group = "applications"}),

Neither way gives an error when I restart Awesome, but typing Win-Ctrl-w does not start Firefox. Typing Win-r then firefox on the menu bar does start Firefox.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Is awful.spawn or awful.util.spawn the wrong thing to use?

Last edited by ratcheer (2025-08-22 21:55:32)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,703

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot get key-combo to start application in Awesome WM

awful.key({ modkey,  "Control"  }, "w", function () awful.util.spawn("firefox") end,
              {description = "start Firefox", group = "applications"}),

nb. the quotation marks around "firefox"

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ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 924

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot get key-combo to start application in Awesome WM

That works, perfectly. Thank you very much.