Fatdog mc, lxterminal & the "alt" key

[jtwdyp]

Hi, in Fatdog64-630 I'm using mc version 4.8.1.3. I'm also using LXTerminal v 0.1.11. Which I like much better than xterm or urxvt. But I've noticed something. When I run mc in an lxterminal, it doesn't see the alt key.

There are in mc several useful bindings that need the alt key. true some of them have ctrl key substitutes. But not all of them. These alt key bindings do work if I run mc in urxvt. But I like the right-click menu in lxterminal. Which I mostly use to enable using the same buffer for copy/paste operations that I can access with ctrl+c, ctrl+x & ctrl+v in gui tools such as leafpad and firefox.

Does anyone know why the alt key isn't recognized by mc when in an lxterminal Or, more to the point, how to fix it so that alt+p & alt+n will walk through the command line history etc...

[jtwdyp]

UPDATE: Went looking for other terminal pets at ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/fatdog/pets/600/ didn't find much. Gave qterminal a try. The alt key worked on it. And the drop terminal mode was outstanding, But it didn't recognize any Fkeys, cursor keys, etc...
Since the mc esc key sequences were working I was able to get to the learn keys, But I could only get about 3 of the keys listed there to light up at all...

So I'm back to LXTerminal... I think I read something about some known bug causing the alt key to fail... I forget where I found it, but the bug supposedly also affected some other terminals, including gnome_terminal...

Using the "esc 9" & "esc 0" combos with qterminal got me thinking though. And so I did some empirical testing. I found that there were esc key sequences that I'd never heard of, including accessing the command history with "esc p" & "esc n" Between those, and the ^X sequences, I can cover any of the alt+key shortcuts that I tend to use.

[Ted Dog]

there is a change to different key shortcut functions its in the FAQ or help sub section they are logical but not the standards most linux users learnt.

[jtwdyp]

there is a change to different key shortcut functions its in the FAQ or help sub section they are logical but not the standards most linux users learnt.

Yeah... If you mean the ones at:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/keys.html

Some of them are very good to know, though I'd have to say that most of them are in fact part of what most keyboard oriented Linux users learned...

Though I must say of this one:

Ctrl-Alt-F1 to F7 ---- This will swich you to differnt virtual terminals. F7 is the X server's terminal.

Which would be right on most pre-systemd Linux systems «at least the ones I've used» it should perhaps for Fatdog «If my Fatdog64-630 flashdrive is a fair example» say instead:

Ctrl-Alt-F1 to F4 ---- This will switch you to different virtual terminals. F4 is the X server's terminal. And F1 is busy {It was the boot console, and is waiting for X to terminate. (see Ctrl-Alt-Backspace) «above»}

Though what I was talking about were the many "alt+<key(s)>" bindings «internal to mc»... Fortunately the mc devs have an awareness that not all terminal/keyboard configurations generate good alt keys, so there are redundant bindings for most «if not all» of them. So it's only a petty aggravation...

Though one does get tired of looking at vim's default screen because "vim <alt+enter>" which should have pasted the selected filename to the command line, instead was seen as only "vim <enter>"...

But thanks for the tip. It motivated me to find and bookmark those Fatdog FAQs...

[Ted Dog]

sven did it.. I also had an issue with keybinding trying to add a on screen keyboard, was unable to decouple sven multimedia key press code that should be the same problem with your program..
If you do figure it out ( let me know I am disabled with MD and trying to make FATDOG64 useful to handicap )

[jtwdyp]

sven did it.. I also had an issue with keybinding trying to add a on screen keyboard, was unable to decouple sven multimedia key press code that should be the same problem with your program..
If you do figure it out ( let me know I am disabled with MD and trying to make FATDOG64 useful to handicap )

Might or might not be the available terminals...

I don't like to use xterm like terminals such as urxvt because I have great difficulty using the clipboard with them. {any clipboard} I can mark text with the mouse, but I can't paste it with a two button emulated middle button click {could be a dexterity thing, I often have difficulty manipulating the mouse and low cost optical track balls (with 3 buttons) are hard to find} and with xterm like terminals, I also can't get an pop-up menu to copy to that other clipboard < the one that most gui applications access with "^c, ^x, & ^v"...> And I hate redirecting all interesting output to a tmp file just so I can open it with leafpad, so I can copy a few words to the clipboard with keyboard shortcuts. {Though if I'm using vim, I have a couple of bindings ":map"ped to do just that with the current files contents. }

So since QTerminal has even worse keyboard problems, I'm stuck with LXTerminal. which seems to still have the problem passing the alt key described here:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=649098

But at least with LXTerminal I can mark words/lines of text with double/triple clicks and rightclick a menu to "Copy the marked text to the above mentioned gui clipboard. Not to mention the "rightclick menu 'Paste' to the cursor position"

Of course, When I can get it I use konsole which uses "rightclick Copy" So I get a bit frustrated when my fingers get ahead of my brain and I double click on a "word" I want to copy in LXTerminal, But. {wouldn't'cha just know it} before my fingers remember I'm not using konsole, they have already hit LXTerminal's "rightclick Close Tab"

[bobc]

Maybe try RoxTerm. Its both light and configurable, and can do multiple tabs as well.