Re: SCREEN command and MCEdit under SLES9

[Anton Monroe <akm meer net>]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 07:18:17PM +0300, Pavel Tsekov wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Anton Monroe wrote:
>
> > My own problem is using MC when SSH-ing from OS/2 to a Linux machine.
> > I've tried 'mc -x' and a variety of $TERM settings on each end in an
> > unsystematic way, but haven't hit on a combination that works well.
> >
> > Don't worry, I'm not asking the MC developers to solve that problem.
> > But if anyone has some hints or pointers to sources of information about
> > terminal problems, we could add them to the FAQ file.
>
> First of all - what is that problem ?

Argh.  I wasn't very clear, was I?  The context was the thread about
the screen command and getting various PF keys to work correctly. 

Depending on how I configure SSH, $TERM, and MC, certain keys don't do
anything, or they print control sequences.  Using TERM=xterm or
TERM=xterm-color comes closest to getting the keys right, but it causes
beeping noises (when the screen redraws?).

It must be just a matter of experimenting until I get the terminal
settings right.  Or maybe write a custom Terminfo file, but I'll have to
do a lot of studying to learn how. Coming from the DOS/Windows/OS2
world, terminal emulation is a dark and bloody mystery to me.  

Maybe someday, someone will write a diagnostic program that will make it
easier. It could prompt the user to press keys and read what sequences
are received; then send sequences to the terminal and ask the user what
he sees on the screen; then give some suggestions about what $TERM
settings to use.  

I discovered that 'showkey -a' is useful for seeing what sequence a
keypress actually sends.  That helped me hack the configuration file for
OS/2's SSH client a little.

Anton