Re: Backspace in xterm (again)
Joost Witteveen <joostje@cistron.nl> writes:
| skribis Gilbert Laycock:
| > Pete> Does Alt-backspace work for anyone in an xterm (deleting the previous
| > Pete> word on bash input, for example)? This worked fine in Bo and before.
| >
| > What kind of keyboard do you have? On my 104 key ("windows 95")
| > keyboard, the "windows" key produces Meta and the Alt key produces Alt
| > when in X. Meta-backspace deletes the previous word in bash in an
| > xterm. Alt-backspace just deletes one character. Using an rxvt it is
| > the other way around.
| >
| > It is my understanding that Meta and Alt should be separate when there
| > are enough keyboard buttons to allow it, and that Meta-backspace is
| > the definitive way to delete a word, since it is emulating "emacs key
| > bindings".
|
| But then `Alt-Backspace' in emacs deletes one word, as it does on
| the VC and so on. So I don't see the point in doing it different
| on an xterm. Nor do I think it is good: When I press `Alt-Backspace',
| I want something different to happen than when I just press `Backspace'.
| Whatever `different' means is discutable, but just mapping the two keys
| to the same action seems not quite the best thing.
|
| Mapping Both Alt and Esc to the same thing seem s OK to me, as that's
| what happens in most other environments too.
You can modify this yourself using the xkeycaps program, found in the
xkeycaps Debian package. Just start it up, click and hold the right
mouse button over the key you want to change, select "Edit KeySyms of
Key". Under "Character Set" select "Keyboard" and under "KeySym"
select "Escape". Click the "OK" button and then click the "Write
Output" button in the main xkeycaps window. You'll want to rename the
output from it's default of "~/.xmodmap-<hostname>" to "~/.Xmodmap" if
you're using the Debian system default "~/.xsession".
Of course the other option is to run xkeycaps as root and copy the
resulting "~/.xmodmap-<hostnaname>" to the system default
/etc/X11/Xmodmap file to have the changes be default for all users.
Gary
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