Re: A proposal to improve dselect

[Rick Macdonald <rickm@vsl.com>]

Dale Scheetz wrote:

> The real question is: "What key does dselect use for repeat searches?"
> rather than "What key should it be?".
> 
> I'm not an expert on dselect. I use dpkg almost exclusively to do my
> incremental upgrades. I don't know if there is such a key, or not, but
> it's clear it isn't documented very well if there is one. If there isn't
> the bug is in the software instead of the docs (or including the docs).
> Do we have an expert out there who can answer this question?

By now everyone has seen my post saying that it's "\". I'm surprised
that people don't think to press "?" for help as shown at the top right
corner of dselect, then press "k" for keystrokes. Perhaps the only way
to 
make everyone happy is to have dselect read in a ".dselectrc" file with
key
assignments, like bash does. Of course, this capability would also have
to dynamically update the kestroke help file...

Anyway, here is the keystroke help for the "?k" challenged:

Help:
Keystrokes                                                                                   
Motion keys: Next/Previous, Top/End, Up/Down, Backwards/Forwards:
  n, Down-arrow, j      p, Up-arrow, k          move highlight
  N, Page-down, Space   P, Page-up, Backspace   scroll list by 1 page
  ^n                    ^p                      scroll list by 1 line
  t, Home               e, End                  jump to top/end of list
  u                     d                       scroll info by 1 page
  ^u                    ^d                      scroll info by 1 line
  B, Left-arrow         F, Right-arrow          pan display by 1/3
screen
  ^b                    ^f                      pan display by 1
character
                                                                                                    
Mark packages for later processing:
 +, Insert  install or upgrade      =, H  hold in present state
 -, Delete  remove                  :, G  unhold: upgrade or leave
uninstalled
 _          remove & purge config
                                             Miscellaneous:
Quit, exit, overwrite (note capitals!):       ?, F1 request help (also
Help)
 Return  Confirm, quit (check dependencies)   i, I  toggle/cycle info
displays
   Q     Confirm, quit (override dep.s)       o, O  cycle through sort
options
 X, Esc  eXit, abandoning any changes made    v, V  change status
display opts
   R     Revert to state before this list      ^l   redraw display
   U     set all to sUggested state             /   search (Return to
cancel)
   D     set all to Directly requested state    \   repeat last search

-- 
...RickM...


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