Re: 1.1 X setup default: bs/del don't work with motif apps.

[Christian Hudon <chrish@libertel.montreal.qc.ca>]

On Thu, 9 May 1996, Yves Arrouye wrote:

> The subject says it: none of these keys work with Motif apps on a
> fresh installation. I'm sure some xmodmap commands (though I'm not
> sure which ones, if you can help) would do the trick, but I wonder
> what neither of them is usable by default?

Blame it on XFree. They switched the Backspace and Delete keysyms around.
Not the best thing to do, in my not-so-humble opinion. The problem isn't
with X-based apps, where there's enough info to distinguish between all the
keys. The problem is with terminal-based apps, which only see special keys
through control codes.

Yes, xmodmap will fix it. You need to swap back Backspace and Delete. The
magic incantation goes like this

xmodmap -e "keysym BackSpace = Delete" -e "keysym Delete = BackSpace"

Then add the following in your /etc/X11/Xresources file to make
terminal-based apps happy:

XTerm.vt100.translations: #override \
                        <Key>Delete: string("ESC[3~")\n\
                        <Key>BackSpace: string(0x7F)

(You need to enter a literal 'Escape' where the ESC is.) 

Then all should be fine, assuming you're running with stty erase = "^?". I
very much recommends reading the Key-Setup mini-HOWTO if you want to know
more about that kind of stuff... (Like how to make bash/tcsh recognize the
Delete key, etc.)

   Christian