Missing Applications Menu in Awesome (- gnome)

Question

I installed awesome. Love it. It's super fun and makes life as convenient as a window manager ever possibly could, without caving in to the ways of the smart-phone computer.
I cheated a bit and had it set up as the window manager for gnome. Not complaining, it makes a few things easier to work with, and it's a bit more stylish. Just thought I'd shoot out one small question...
When awesome is started like this:
exec ck-launch-session awesome
I found I was able to get a very nice applications menu by typing fn+F5
When started alongside gnome in GDM, however, this functionality is gone. I'm guessing that conflicts with something gnome usually does when fn+F5 is pressed (change monitors? idk not important...)
The point is, I really liked that awesome menu!
Granted, it's not the best keybinding in the world. I'd love to change it! But I can't find it anywhere in rc.lua! The config file for awesome contains no instance of "F5" or "Super_L,"or any other form of reference to either of those keys. But it works when I ditch gnome and startx instead!
(Checking my work with xev:
KeyPress event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
root 0x14d, subw 0x0, time 1387524, (762,-16), root:(763,0),
state 0x0, keycode 133 (keysym 0xffeb, Super_L), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
KeyPress event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
root 0x14d, subw 0x0, time 1651773, (716,-9), root:(717,7),
state 0x0, keycode 71 (keysym 0xffc2, F5), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
Anyways, I'm a bit confused by this situation. If anyone knows a tip for where to find that application menu again with an awesome gnome session, this is the most welcome place in the world to share it!
~~~~~=:)
EDIT: "Mod4+p" also does the trick in awesome; also doesn't work with the desktop environment.
I found
-- Menubar
awful.key({ modkey }, "p", function() menubar.show() end)
in rc.lua after all!
Still confused as to why menubar is cancelled out by gnome...
Last edited by Kebertx (2012-04-17 04:54:58)

Answer 1

Tom, thanks for the input so far. Explain exactly what you mean by "Depends on how I'm doing it".
Forgive me for pressing the issue but I want to know exactly what is going wrong during the install process to cause this issue. What preparation needs to be done before running the installer besides the usual permissions repair before and after the install is complete. How would you install from the CD?