terminal keys

terminal keys

[Sebastian P. Luque]

Hi,

While using Gnus at a console (Konsole, from KDE in my case), some key
combinations don't work as in an X environment.  For example, 'C-M-k'
(gnus-summary-kill-thread), i.e. holding Control, Alt, and k together
doesn't do anything.  However, hitting ESC, and then Control k does call
`gnus-summary-kill-thread'.  This should probably be asked in some KDE
forum, since this is probably configured somewhere in KDE's system
settings, but perhaps someone here has already dealt with this.

Thanks,
-- 
Seb

Re: terminal keys

[Carson Chittom]

"Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:

> While using Gnus at a console (Konsole, from KDE in my case), some key
> combinations don't work as in an X environment.  For example, 'C-M-k'
> (gnus-summary-kill-thread), i.e. holding Control, Alt, and k together
> doesn't do anything.  However, hitting ESC, and then Control k does call
> `gnus-summary-kill-thread'.  This should probably be asked in some KDE
> forum, since this is probably configured somewhere in KDE's system
> settings, but perhaps someone here has already dealt with this.

Sounds like Konsole isn't properly interpreting Meta/Alt.  At a guess,
maybe TERM isn't set properly.  Does Meta/Alt work right in other console
applications?  What does "echo $TERM" return?  Does something in your
termcap file (/etc/termcap on my OpenBSD install) have something more
suited to your situation than what TERM is set to?

Alternatively, maybe you have crumbs stuck under your Meta/Alt key (true
story; happened to me).

Esc (and release) is as far as I'm aware the Emacs fallback for Meta, so
that, at least, is working as designed.

Re: terminal keys

[Sebastian P. Luque]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:29:24 -0500,
Carson Chittom <carson.chittom@mspb.ms.gov> wrote:

> "Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:
>> While using Gnus at a console (Konsole, from KDE in my case), some
>> key combinations don't work as in an X environment.  For example,
>> 'C-M-k' (gnus-summary-kill-thread), i.e. holding Control, Alt, and k
>> together doesn't do anything.  However, hitting ESC, and then Control
>> k does call `gnus-summary-kill-thread'.  This should probably be
>> asked in some KDE forum, since this is probably configured somewhere
>> in KDE's system settings, but perhaps someone here has already dealt
>> with this.

> Sounds like Konsole isn't properly interpreting Meta/Alt.  At a guess,
> maybe TERM isn't set properly.  Does Meta/Alt work right in other
> console applications?

Well Meta/Alt at either side of the keyboard do work properly, since for
example 'M-q' does call `fill-paragraph'.  It's just the combination of
Meta/Alt with Control that is not recognized as input of any kind.

I found that under Konsole's profile settings, there's an "Input" tab,
with 3 different options: Default (XFree 4), Linux console, Solaris
console.  These can be edited, and the user is shown with columns "Key
Combination" and "Output" with several rows of entries.  Hopefully the
language used to edit these is described somewhere.  For example,
"Backspace" under "Key Combination" has "\x7f" under "Output"...


> What does "echo $TERM" return?

This shows "xterm"

> Does something in your termcap file (/etc/termcap on my OpenBSD
> install) have something more suited to your situation than what TERM
> is set to?

In my Debian sid system this seems to be large hierarchy under
/usr/share/terminfo, which I'd need to understand.


> Alternatively, maybe you have crumbs stuck under your Meta/Alt key
> (true story; happened to me).

;-)

Thanks,

-- 
Seb

Re: terminal keys

[Andreas Schwab]

"Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:

> While using Gnus at a console (Konsole, from KDE in my case), some key
> combinations don't work as in an X environment.  For example, 'C-M-k'
> (gnus-summary-kill-thread), i.e. holding Control, Alt, and k together
> doesn't do anything.

Perhaps it is assigned some shortcut?

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: terminal keys

[Carson Chittom]

"Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:

>> What does "echo $TERM" return?
>
> This shows "xterm"

Try setting this to "konsole-base" or "konsole-linux" and trying again.

Re: terminal keys

[Sebastian P. Luque]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:35:05 +0200,
Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> wrote:

> "Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:
>> While using Gnus at a console (Konsole, from KDE in my case), some
>> key combinations don't work as in an X environment.  For example,
>> 'C-M-k' (gnus-summary-kill-thread), i.e. holding Control, Alt, and k
>> together doesn't do anything.

> Perhaps it is assigned some shortcut?

Brilliant... turns out this combination is assigned to switching keyboad
layouts by default in KDE.  Changed that and now this combination stays
in Gnus.

Thanks,

-- 
Seb

Re: terminal keys

[Carson Chittom]

Sorry, hit send before I was ready.

"Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque@gmail.com> writes:

>> What does "echo $TERM" return?
>
> This shows "xterm"

Try setting this to "konsole-base" or "konsole-linux" and trying again.

To be honest, I'm not hopeful it'll work, given that Alt's working in
other console contexts.