Re: Backspace and delete
95% of terminals in terminfo database use
Backspace (^H) for Backspace (including xterm, BSD,
etc). How Debian is going to live with other OS'es in the
world if it will put this incompatibility in it's policy ?
Regarding this Emacs bug usually it is possible to use F1
for help.
On Wed Nov 12 18:03:00 1997 +0000
(Wed Nov 12 20:03:00 1997 +0200),
Ian Jackson wrote:
> Some time ago I posted the message below to debian-devel. It received
> widespread support and no significant opposition. I think it
> should be made policy.
>
> If it is made policy we can go and report bugs against all the
> programs that fail to implement it, and then hopefully for 2.0 we'll
> have backspace and delete working properly.
>
> Ian.
>
> ------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
> From: Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> To: Debian developers list <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
> Subject: Re: GOAL: Consistent Keyboard Configuration
>
> What we want is:
> * `<--' always deletes the character to the left of the cursor.
> * `Delete' always deletes to the right.
> * `Control'+`H' produces help in Emacs, as before.
> We want this to be true for the console, for X, and even if you use
> rlogin or telnet to get from one system to another.
>
> What we should do is the following:
> * `<--' generates KB_Backspace in X.
> * `Delete' generates KB_Delete in X.
> * X translations are set up to make KB_Backspace generate ASCII DEL.
> * X translations are set up to make KB_Delete generate ESC [ 3 ~
> (this is the vt220 escape code for the `delete character' key).
> * stty erase ^?
> * The `xterm' terminfo entry should have ESC [ 3 ~ for kdch1, just
> like TERM=linux and TERM=vt220.
> * Emacs is programmed to map KB_Backspace or the `stty erase'
> character to delete-backward-char, and KB_Delete or kdch1 to
> delete-forward-char, and ^H to help as always.
> * Other applications use the `stty erase' character and kdch1 for the
> two delete keys, with ASCII DEL being `delete previous character'
> and kdch1 being `delete character under cursor'.
>
> This will solve the problem except for:
> * Some terminals have a `<--' key that cannot be made to produce
> anything except ^H. On these terminals Emacs help will be
> unavailable (assuming that the `stty erase' character takes
> precedence in Emacs, and has been set correctly).
> * Some other operating systems do incompatible things. We can change
> the behaviour of their X clients via the same X resources that we
> use to do it for our own; telnet and rlogin propagate some of this
> information too.
>
> Ian.
> ------- end -------
>
>
>
--
Ričardas Čepas
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