Well, I would have suggested you use a hotkey to toggle the modules. Why don't hotkeys work with your current theme? Perhaps your hotkey module just isn't being loaded for some reason?

OTOH, you can use a third-party application for gestures that will work regardless of whether or not LS modules are shown/hidden/not running at all. I use strokeIt for things like this, and it happily coexists with LS. I also use another non-LS hotkey app - I can run my common programs and tasks with no shell running at all if need be, and I can restart LS (or BBLean, or some other shell) with just a keypress if a shell crashes or I just feel like messing about with another one.