Re: Keyboard configurability

[Jiri Mencak <j mencak hud ac uk>]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2002 at 03:41:22PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> He who fears something gives it power over him.
>         - Arab Proverb
So why worry about VFS written without security in mind? ;) Mind you, I 
do worry about security. Only paranoics survive.

> That's how mc works, except that "Learn Keys" is limited to most common 
> key combinations, which should be fixed.
True.

> First of all, a little correction - ioctls are used on Linux console.  
> Under X, the modifiers are read using XQueryPointer() function, and only
> if X support is enabled (--with-tm-x-support).
One should think more before posting. Yes, you are absolutely right.

> As a side note, perhaps it better to reverse the strings to indicate that
> it's the sequence that is unique, not the key:
> 
> "\e[D"=left   # Left
> "\e[d"=left   # rxvt Shift-Left
> "\e[2D"=left  # xterm Shift-Left
Side note?! Multiple escape seqences to a key without modifiers would solve my 
problem on Linux console! Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I'll take a closer 
look on the code when I have more time.

> This trick should work on the console too.  I know, it's not intuitive.
It looks intuitive enough to me.

> You are confusing two issues here.  ioctls are useful because without them
> users would be forced to redefine their keymaps.  It may be OK for you,
> but not for an average user, who has no time to tweak every program.
I must admit you are right.

> On the other hand, using ioctls are the sole means to tell Shift-Left from
> Left is wrong.  I'd rather have this in my .mc/ini:
> 
> [terminal:rxvt]
> shift-left=\e[d
> shift-right=\e[c
> shift-up=\e[a
> shift-down=\e[b
>
> I think I'll add it if it's not very hard.  As for the GUI, I don't know.  
> There are too many little nuances that are hard to represent on screen
> without confusing some users.
IMO, GUI is fine as it is. If you could assign multiple escape seqences 
to a key without modifiers why would you want to add shift-Arrows?

> If I put those shifted keys to mc.lib, power-users like you will find
> them, and they will work at least on some popular terminals by default, 
> even without X support.  That should be a good first step.
I see. That explains what you wrote above. I have X support enabled, so 
I'd be happy even without the proposed shift-Arrows.

Thanks for your info.

Regards,

Jiri