Re: annoyances which seem to arise from Unicode

[Russell Shaw <rjshaw netspace net au>]

Theodore Kilgore wrote:
> I wrote in some time ago about the problem of some key bindings not 
> working properly in an xterm. Namely, the Cntrl and Alt key behavior 
> changes from what it is in the terminal. The Alt key bindings for MC 
> cease to work and instead are used to print funny characters on the 
> command line, and one has to use Cntrl instead of Alt. Thus, as one 
> example, Alt-s for search down the directory listing now prints a 
> Hungarian long "o" (single stroke on top of the "o") and one has to use 
> Cntrl-s instead. Alt-o for "other panel" now prints some other funny 
> character. Cntrl-o has the behavior which ought to be done by Alt-o, and 
> the normal behavior of Cntrl-o (send MC into the background) is 
> inoperative.
>
> There are partial cures for this, of course. It is possible to create a 
> file called .Xdefaults and put into that file the single line
>
> XTerm*metaSendsEscape:  true
>
> and the problem is cured, in part.
>
> By "in part" I mean exactly that an ordinary user now can use MC in a 
> normal manner in the xterm.
>
> There are however two difficulties which remain, and perhaps someone 
> knows a way to overcome them:
>
> 1. If one is doing any real business, such as running a compiler to 
> install something, then one has to do something like open a window and 
> run "su" and become root in that window. After one has done this, the 
> .Xresources entry becomes inoperative in that window, and the described 
> uncooperative behavior takes over again.
>
> 1 a. One might think that, well, root also should have a copy of the 
> .Xdefaults file. So to anticipate this suggestion let me point out right 
> now that it does not help. To be sure, it will help if one starts X as 
> root, but not if one has started X as a user and then has opened an 
> xterm and switched over to be root in that xterm. In this event, the 
> root user's copy of the .Xdefaults file is obviously either not read, or 
> is inoperative.
>
> 2. If one has two machines (for example, home and office) and has the 
> same userid on both and if one does something like ssh (other machine), 
> then again the .Xdefaults file is ignored. Again, it does not matter if 
> one has a copy of the .Xdefaults file, with identical contents, on both 
> machines. Clearly, it does not get read when one makes a connection in 
> from the outside, using ssh.
>
> Any suggestions?

Have you tried ~/.Xresources? In mine (debian) i have:

!Make Alt-o send ESC-o in mc, instead of "i" with daeresis.
XTerm*eightBitInput: true
XTerm*altSendsEscape: true
XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true