Custom Shortcuts not working

[appreciatethehelp]

Libreoffice 6.2.3.2
OSX Mojave 10.14.4

I know this is not a new topic, however a lack of solutions in old threads has prompted me to create a new post on the issue.

So I was having a play around with creating some custom keyboard shortcuts, to discover that most of the custom ones I made didn’t work (not all, but most).

FAILURES:
I made new shortcuts for Merge Cells & Split Cells (Option 1 & Option 2 respectively) specified for use in Calc. however neither of these shortcuts respond; if one selects a group of cells then uses said shortcut to merge them, the number 1 is simply typed into the upper left-hand cell, indicating that the shortcut isn’t responding. I removed the old custom shortcut for Merge Cells then created a new one: Shift Option 6, which also didn’t work. The original shortcut for Merge Cells did work though (command F12? - could someone let me know what the original was? I’ll put it back the way it was so that I can at least use that shortcut for now) before I removed it to make way for the new one.

I thought perhaps there was another shortcut for Libreoffice (as opposed to specifically for Calc) that was interfering; do conflicting shortcuts between “Libreoffice” and “Calc” affect each other, or does an individual suite (e.g Writer, Calc etc.) use only it’s own shortcuts? It makes sense that “Libreoffice” shortcuts would affect all different suites. I’d test this myself, but so many shortcuts don’t work that it’s hard to distinguish between shortcut clashes and inherent bugs/errors that might cause the shortcut not to work.
In this line of thought I checked shortcuts specified for “Libreoffice”; Option 1 & Option 2 weren’t assigned to anything, ruling out the possibility of a clash causing a lack of response in the new shortcut.
Do these particular modified keyboard shortcuts work for you guys? Any ideas why mine isn’t working?

Further, all shortcuts I made, designated for use in “Libreoffice”, for the various Zoom functions: 50, 75, 100, 125 & 150 percent didn’t work using Shift Option 1/2/3/4/5. Neither did custom shortcuts for Zoom In & Zoom Out with Command +/Command -, even after the previous Shortcuts pertaining to them (Insert rows & Insert cells, if I remember correctly) were removed.

SUCCESS:
I modified the shortcut that toggles the Sidebar on and off in Writer to Command F5, which works just fine.

Is there a good workaround to get past these modified shortcut issues, or perhaps a good rule of thumb as to which key combinations in modified shortcuts are likely to work and which aren’t? I’m stabbing in the dark at the moment!

Thanks.

[anon73440385]

I’m not familiar with Mac OS X, but I assume it is probably the same as with Linux and it’s frequently used desktop environments (KDE, Gnome). These desktop environments have their own global keyboard shotcuts and these take - at least in my case - precedence over shortcuts defined in applications. This they won’t work in your application (here: LibreOffice). Just an example: I’ve a KDE shortcut F9 to start my scanning program. Whenever I try to Recalculate in Calc, my scanning program starts. In that sense: The interference issue is not Interference of shortcuts defined in Writer and Calc but Interference of shortcuts defined in desktop manager and LibreOffice application.

[robleyd]

You might find this Apple Support article, which I found via web search, useful to determine what shortcuts are used by the OS

[appreciatethehelp]

Yeah I thought there was perhaps some interference from the System shortcuts defined in System Preferences > Keyboard.

The problem is that most of the mac shortcuts are unmodifiable; they can’t be accessed to be adjusted- only a limited amount of them can. In fact, most of the keyboard shortcuts for Mojave can’t even be viewed on the mac- the list Robleyd linked (of which I already have a copy from running into this issue before) is the only way I’ve found to even view the shortcuts used by the OS.

This means, to make a new shortcut on LO work, one must check to see which shortcut keys aren’t used by the OS (by using a search on the page Robleyd linked), and choose from these, meaning one ends up having to use an inconvenient keyboard shortcut, which kind of defeats the purpose a bit.
For example I’d like to use Command F and Command D for Merge Cells and Split Cells respectively, as this shortcut can easily be performed with one hand, and is a common function.

[Lexy]

Shortcuts are somewhat broken on my macOS Catalina installation of LibreOffice 7.1.5: Some shortcuts appear to be hard coded, and ignore customize settings. For example, no matter what I set +R to, it always produces “Align Right”. -R is not a macOS system keybinding, so this seems to be a LibreOffice bug.

[Sc321Gen]

My experience with Mac is that the shortcut combination which is not working is not due to LO, rather it is due to Mac since most likely this shortcut is pre-assigned. Try going for another shortcut for the same and I think you will be successful.
That’s what my experience says.

[CaveMan]

I am in the same boat. I have mapped ~20 keyboard shortcuts to macros I have created in Windows and when I try to map them under MacOS some work others don’t. Really frustrating.