Re: simple suggestions

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

> 1) To avoid appearing useless and disturbing messages in the command line
> of "mc" (terminal version), I propose the simple modification of the
> "mc.sh" attached here.

If you are sending modifications, send a patch, not the whole file.  This
would ensure that the work of other people modifying the same file won't
be lost.  Only if the changes are so radical that the patch would be
longer than the file itself, send the whole file, but make sure to mention
the base version, so that if there have been any changes after that
version, they could be reviewed and applied to your version.

In this particular case, version 4.6.0 requires an argument after "-P", so
your patch will actually cause "useless and disturbing messages".  I
believe that the approach taken in mc-4.6.0 (alias to a script) is more
reliable than the approach you are trying to fix (shell function).

> 2) To make work with "mc" in "xterm" more comfortable (proper work of
> "Alt" and "Esc" keys), I propose the X-defaults for the "xterm" attached
> in the file "Xdefaults.mc" here.

Sometimes Escape-something is more convenient than Alt-something.  For
example, I prefer Escape Shift-/ to Alt-Shift-/ to activate "Find File".
Besides, it's better to have consistent behavior on different terminals,
including other people's machines.

But it's a question of taste.

> For Russian users I could recommend the X-defaults listed in
> "Xdefaults.mc.rus" that send proper "Alt"-codes in the Russian mode.

It's a nice idea.  I often miss Atl-P in the editor when I'm in the
Cyrillic mode.  On the other hand, you'll lose the hotkeys in Russian
locale.  That's another case when you need single Escape.

Maybe it's better to fix the XFree86 keyboard definition so that it would
"forget" the charset state when Alt is pressed, just like it's done with
Ctrl.

Anyway, there was a discussion about creating a "contrib" directory that
would include such things.  I think I'll create it on the website when I
have time.  Xdefaults.mc.rus would go there.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin