On 2005-02-03 15:21:44 +0900, TAKAHASHI Tamotsu wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 02:32:31PM -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> > Perhaps I wasn't clear. I was asking *why* we don't bind, say,
> > delete, to delete-char. It's obvious that you *can*
> > bind a key to it; the question is why isn't it that way by
> > default.
>
> I see. Perhaps I misunderstood you. Thanks for correcting me.
> I don't know why we don't bind DEL to delete-char.
> Maybe because we can bind it in /etc/Muttrc. :)
> Or maybe because some terminals treat BS as DEL?
> Well, I was just like a know-it-all. Forget what I said.
On VT100 terminals the key in the right upper corner of the alphanumeric
key block is labeled DEL and sends a DEL (0x7F), not a BS (0x08). On
emulations (like xterm or the Linux console) this is usually
configurable, but the default is often the same as on the VT100. I
remember a minor flame war several years ago, where Linus asserted that
he doesn't care that the keys are normally called "Backspace" and
"Delete" on PC keyboards and that the one true way is the way of the
VT100 terminal and that therefore the default for the Linux console will
always be for the backspace key to send DEL and for the delete key to
send some funky escape sequence.
Since there is no reliable way to detect whether the backspace key sends
DEL or BS[0], some applications treat both as backspace by default. It
looks like mutt is one of them.
hp
[0] You can force one or the other by sending "\033[?67l" resp.
"\033[?67h" at least on newer xterms, but I don't know how portable
that is.
--
_ | Peter J. Holzer | If the code is old but the problem is new
|_|_) | Sysadmin WSR / LUGA | then the code probably isn't the problem.
| | | hjp@xxxxxxxxx |
__/ | http://www.hjp.at/ | -- Tim Bunce on dbi-users, 2004-11-05
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