AltGr enables shortcut mode like Alt on Linux

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I am using Matlab R2014a Student Version on my Arch Linux x86_64 Notebook. It has a german Keyboard, so for the []-brackets I need to press AltGr+8 and AltGr+9. But typing a bracket also enables the shortcut-mode in Matlab, every Toolbar button gets a nice white box with a key, like when pressing the Alt-Key. So the next key press gets captured by the Matlab GUI leading to unintended actions. Intendet behaviour would be to have shortcut-mode only enabled with the Alt-key and not also with AltGr.
Does anyone else here experience similar or perhaps related problems? I have read about problems where people are not able to use the AltGr-key at all but the solutions mentioned in these threads did not make a change. I went through all the pages in the settings dialog but did not find anything related. Can somebody here help me please or drop a hint?
Addition: pressing AltGr+8 does create the character. But in addition to that, it also enables the shortcut-mode which I then turn off by pressing just AltGr. But this is really annoying and I am fairly shure it is not the intended behaviour...

Answers (2)

Gaute Hope
Gaute Hope on 11 Dec 2014
My issues were fixed by using Openbox directly (and not LXDE at least) as well as setting the keyboard using setxkbmap (and turning off any keyboard setting app running in any panels).
$ setxkbmap no # since I have a norwegian keyboard
this is using java-7-openjdk
$ archlinux-java status
  1 Comment
Ced
Ced on 4 Nov 2015
Great, thanks, setxkbmap did the trick for me!
A list of all language shortnames can be found here:
For sublanguages and multiple languages, one can use the syntax
setxkbmap 'sublang(lang1), lang2'
e.g.
setxkbmap 'us(en),de'
to get the US-version of English + German.
PS: I am aware that this is the Win32 language list, but I believe the names are the same (someone please correct me if that's not true), and the UNIX standard 639-2 somehow didn't list the sublanguages nicely.

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Lawrence Gatley
Lawrence Gatley on 14 Sep 2018
Edited: Lawrence Gatley on 14 Sep 2018
A simple fix that worked for me is to use Strg + Alt + 8 instead of AltGr +8. Strg +Alt +9 instead of AltGr + 9. No menu jumping. Extra button, but it types easy enough.

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