Virtual console keyboard shortcuts versus desktop environment keyboard shortcuts

I'm using Mate as my desktop environment (X being started using startx). To open the "Run Application" dialog in Mate I press the keyboard shortcut Alt-F2. However that switches me to the second virtual console. To get back to my X session (9th virtual console) I need to press Alt-F9. When I do that, I do get back my Mate desktop environment and I do see the "Run Application" dialog, but the intermediary switch to the second virtual console is really annoying.

Is there a way to assign a different keyboard shortcut to virtual consoles? Or for the desktop environment keyboard shortcuts to take precedence to the virtual console ones?

Running FreeBSD 12-stable, using the vt(4) console as suggested by section 5.4.3 of the FreeBSD Handbook
 
Switching from X is handled by X server itself. Also it's alt+shift+f[1-12] rather than alt+f[1-12].

Or for the desktop environment keyboard shortcuts to take precedence to the virtual console ones?

Virtual terminal doesn't (or at least shouldn't) receive any input.
 
Start X without desktop environment with X -retro and see whether it still misbehaves.

X -retro starts X: grey background with an X as a mouse cursor, though nothing else. However Alt+F[1-8] still switches to the virtual consoles.

Alt-F1 switches to the virtual console I started X ( X -retro or startx) from. It says (not sure if it is relevant):
Code:
(II) AIGLX: Suspending AIGLX clients for VT switch

Oh, and I'm running with: kern.evdev.rcpt_mask=12 in sysctl.conf and the xorg-server patched with the xorg-server-udev.patch patch from Bug 222609 - x11-servers/xorg-server: Add UDEV option to support evdev devices autodetection
 
This whole evdev/libinput thing might be the, self inflicted, cause. I think I'll need this patch as well Bug 220562 - [patch] x11-servers/xorg-server: fix terminal initialization in absence of xf86-input-keyboard driver

Will try that soon, and report back.
 
With a regular, unpatched xorg-server, the issue goes away. Keyboard combination for switching to a virtual console now is Ctrl-Alt-F[1-8] instead of Alt-F[1-8]. Downside is that I've lost an out-of-the-box configured and usable touchpad. Touchpad tab, for further tweaking, in Mate Mouse Settings is gone too.

Tried the xf86-input-synaptics driver with xorg config suggested by the FreeBSD FAQ but that could not detect my Synaptics touchpad. The moused solution from the Wiki does work, but requires lots of sysctl tweaking to get something usable (touchpad still doesn't work as comfortably as the out-of-the-box experience provided by the patched evdev/libinput xorg-server)

Anyway still I'd like to know if there is a way to assign a different keyboard shortcuts to switching virtual consoles? As it is I'd like to use some of the Ctrl-Alt-F[1-8]combinations for my IDE. I guess I could also limit the number of virtual consoles in /etc/ttys to free up some of the Ctrl-Alt-F[1-8] keyboard shortcuts.
 
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