How do I prevent xfce terminal from grabbing the Alt key?

[Chris G]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2010 at 08:36:57PM +0100, Mike Massonnet wrote:
> 2010/11/2 Chris G <cl at isbd.net>:
> > On Tue, Nov 02, 2010 at 05:37:44PM +0100, Mike Massonnet wrote:
> >> Hi Chris,
> >>
> >> 2010/11/2 Chris G <cl at isbd.net>:
> >> > How can I stop xfce terminal (i.e. xfce4-terminal) from grabbing the Alt
> >> > key for its own purposes?
> >>
> >> Did you had a look in the preferences dialog? Edit > Preferences.
> >>
> >> There is an option in the Shortcuts pane "Disable all menu access keys".
> >>
> > Yes, I tried that and it had no effect at all.  I've just checked again
> > and that box is checked and I most definitely can't use the left Alt key
> > in the xfce4-terminal.  If I run (for example) an xterm *from* the
> > xfce4-terminal then the Alt key works as expected in the xterm window.
> > So it's not my environment causing the problem, its xfce4-terminal.
> 
> Can you please tell us what version you are using (I remember having a
> bug with git at a moment, but not lately). Plus let us know what
> shortcut is not working as expected, is it Alt+<LETTER> or only a
> niche shortcut, currently it is known that Alt+Shift+<NUMBER> switches
> the notebook tab.
> 
> If you run from git, can you pull and rebuild first?
> 
I'm running the default xfce4-terminal on xubuntu 10.04, i.e. the one
installed from the standard repositories.

It reports itself that it is: Terminal 0.4.3.

It's not that shortcuts are not working, it's that xfce4-terminal is
'stealing' any key entered with the left Alt key. So instead of getting
a character appearing when I hit Alt + <a key> I get nothing in almost
every case.  So, for example, if I'm in an old-fashioned xterm and I
hold the Alt key down and hit each key across the bottom of the keyboard
I get a series of characters as follows:-

    Üúøãöâîí¬®¯

(in case the intervening mail systems are not perfect that's:-
    U with an umlaut
    u with an acute accent
    o with a line through it
    a with a squiggly thing on top
    o with an umlaut
    a with a circumflex accent
    i with a circumflex accent
    i with an acute accent
    line with a corner
    "Registered" symbol
    Overline

If I do the same in an xfce4-terminal I get *nothing*.

-- 
Chris Green