How to fix IntelliJ Idea not closing tabs by Ctrl+F4?

Question

I happen to use IntelliJ Idea 10.5.2 with Scala and SBT plugins to code in Scala on an XUbuntu 11.10 system with Oracle JDK 7.

And I can't close editor tabs with Ctrl+F4 (while right-clicking on a tab shows this shortcut for closing).

Any ideas about the reason probable and a way to fix?

Answer 1

If anyone happens to have this problem in other DE, e.g KDE Plasma 5, it binds CTRL+F4, specifically to switch to Desktop 4. This can be disabled or changed to another shortcut in System Settings > Workspace > Shortcuts > KWin > Switch To Desktop 4

Answer 2

If you are using a Dell laptop where the F4 keys is used to 'mute' the sound. Muting the sound with the F4 key will disable the F4 key.

Try to unmute, function key 'fn'+F4 to unmute (lamp is not lit on key).

Then you can use CTRL+F4.

Answer 3

Adding a new answer to this old question as duckduckgo brought me here. This shortcut can be edited quite easily on any version of Xfce (4) which has the Settings Editor app (tested on XUbuntu 18.04).

Launch Settings editor, and on the left column (channel) select xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts. Now on the right find any entry with the value <Primary>F? (primary means ctrl). Some entries can be deleted by pressing the reset button (the ones under xfwm4->custom). While you are at it, you might want to remove all the <Alt>F? bindings too (except Alt+F4).

The entries under xfwm4->default cannot be deleted, but the trick here is to edit the entry and remove any value.

I've read that this was editable in previous versions, but the value was in a text file somewhere (just sharing this in case anyone is using an older version of Xfce).

Answer 4

Looks like xfce uses Ctrl+F4 as global shortcut that gets captured before it's propagated to IntelliJ. See this page for how to change shortcuts.

Alternatively you can also change the keybindings in IntelliJ. Use 'File|Settings' and got to 'Keymap' in the settings window. The 'close' action is bound to Ctrl+F4