Re: emacs confused about alt and meta <solved>
The answer to this is interesting and should be in the docs somewhere,
but I sure couldn't find it.
Emacs DOES NOT seem to care about KEYSYMs at all. It is only interested
in the Modifiers.
As far as emacs is concerned MOD1 = META and MOD4 = ALT
You can (using xmodmap) have MOD1 and MOD4 generated by whatever keysym
you want (Alt_L, Meta_R, underscore....).
SPECIFICS TO MY PROBLEM:
MOD1 was generated by Alt_R, MOD4 wasn't generated at all.
I hope this is of use to future generations :)
-Michael
P.S. Thanks for the help, Jens.
On Fri, 28 May 1999, Michael Stenner wrote:
>emacs seems to want to interpret ALT as META and ignore META altogether.
>
>I found no mention of this in the emacs docs. I'm pretty convinced that
>it's an emacs issue: I've used xev to confirm that it's getting the
>appropriate keysyms, so when I say it interprets ALT as META, what I
>mean is: It gets the ALT keysym, but behaves as if I pushed META.
>
>Summary:
>
>Keysyms emacs behavior
>ALT-x M-x
>META-x x
>
>I've used xmodmap to change the keysyms that are sent, but that doesn't
>change the way emacs interprets them. (Does emacs truly look at keysyms
>or does it use keycodes?)
>
>I've also followed the advice from a thread (included below) that
>heppened a while back, to no avail.
>
>suggestions are welcome :)
>
> -Michael
>
>REPOSTED FROM PREVIOUS THREAD
>=========================================================================
> Re: Emacs and the ALT key.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> * To: Havoc Pennington <[7]rhp@zirx.pair.com>
> * Subject: Re: Emacs and the ALT key.
> * From: "Jens B. Jorgensen" <[8]jjorgens@bdsinc.com>
> * Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:04:27 -0500
> * CC: "Allen B. Riddell" <[9]ariddell@concentric.net>,
> [10]debian-user@lists.debian.org
> * Organization: Business Data Services, Inc.
> * References:
> <[11]Pine.BSF.4.02A.9905122331001.7358-100000@zirx.pair.com>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
>I posted a lengthy description of how to deal with this back in August
>(the problem was introduced with hamm). I'll repost the content here:
>
>This problem has come up so many times since hamm started getting used
>that it almost merits its own HOWTO. What's happened is that you've
>upgraded X and now you are using the XKEYBOARD extension. As you've
>noticed, the ALT key now does ALT and the "windows" key is now the
>META key. I've argued several times that this is a bug since it
>changes behavior. Alas no one listens to this raving madman. Where's
>whatcha do (as root):
>
>sed -e 's/Alt_L/Foo_L/' -e 's/Alt_R/Foo_R/' <\
>/usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us |\
>sed -e 's/Meta_L/Alt_L/' -e 's/Meta_R/Alt_R/' |\
>sed -e 's/Foo_L/Meta_L/' -e 's/Foo_R/Meta_R/' >\
>/usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.new
>
>mv /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.old
>mv /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us.new /usr/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/us
>
>(Now restart X and Things should work normally.
>
>Michael Symalla wrote:
>
>> Dear Debian users,
>>
>> can anyone help me to let my Alt-key be the metakey in emacs? Now I am
>> using the ESC key, which works fine but is not as comfortable as the
>> ALT
>> key.
>>
>> Thanks a lot.
>> --
>> Bye
>> Mitch
>
>Havoc Pennington wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 12 May 1999, Allen B. Riddell wrote:
>> >
>> > the ALT key (on my PC keyboard) doesn't seem to work in emacs.. It
>> > works in
>> > netscape -- and aside from that, I have absolutely no problems at
>> > all with
>> > anything...
>> >
>>
>> Probably the "Windows" key (if you have one) is bound to the Meta
>> keysym,
>> which is what Emacs is looking for; I don't think Emacs uses the Alt
>> keysym at all by default. If you don't have a Windows key, you need to
>> move Meta to some other key of your choice. (Many people have the
>> physical
>> Alt key send both Alt and Meta keysyms, which is technically wrong but
>> works nice in practice, since few apps use both keysyms. However,
>> XEmacs
>> insists on complaining about it every time you start up.)
>>
>> That said, I'm not sure how to do this without Xmodmap. Perhaps it
>> will
>> help to know what you're trying to achieve though. :-)
>>
>> Havoc
>
>
>
>--
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>
Michael Stenner Office Phone: 919-660-2513
Duke University, Dept. of Physics mstenner@phy.duke.edu
Box 90305, Durham N.C. 27708-0305
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