Re: New Context Menu

[Ergus <spacibba@aol.com>]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 02:41:56AM +0700, Yuri Khan wrote:
>On Tue, 24 Aug 2021 at 23:06, Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> It is not wrong actually. Because keys like [menu] require an
>> alternative for those that don't have such a key. That's why in some
>> emulators they are the same sequence than some other complex
>> combinations like S-<f6> or C-S-<f6>; or some keys not present in our
>> keyboards anymore (like <f15>) but can be emulated with combinations.
>
>The alternative for people who don’t have Menu is Shift+F10. Has been
>since Windows 95 and is adopted by GTK applications. And wxWidgets
>applications. And maybe other X toolkits as well.
>
>Shift+F6 is “go to previous pane” in Windows guidelines. Leave that
>for people who want an easier key than C-- C-x o.
>
Shift+F6 is unbound by default. Any way I can live with that but rxvt
will sacrifice an extra binding.

>What I’m opposed to is doing things in an application to cover for a
>design flaw in a single terminal emulator.
>
I don't care a design flaw while there is some design. Having [menu]
bound in gui and see the same key as [print] in xterm is just
inconsistent and a waste of a valuable key.

>> >* Push for terminfo to include a string capability that indicates the
>> >sequence sent by the Menu key. Push for the terminfo database to
>> >include that capability for major terminal emulators.
>> >
>> I already discussed this with the xterm developer, but the current
>> translation is direct and does not rely on tricks in the emulator
>> side. Xterm actually can distinguish between them, but I can't force
>> every emacs user to use xterm because it is very limited in many
>> aspects.
>
>How is it direct?
xev

> The evdev keycode <MENU> is 135. CSI 2 9 ~ is the
>VT220 sequence for F16; in evdev, <FK16> is 194.
>
>(F16 also somewhat explains rxvt’s Shift+F6, by pretending Shift+F<n>
>is F<10+n>. Still wrong, because there are 12 function keys! Also
>because one can build a keyboard that has both F16 and Menu, as USB
>HID Tables assign different codes to these.)
>
>> Actually the recommended terminal emulator to work with emacs is
>> xterm. It is the most compatible and actually was a topic of a previous
>> discussion/question I did long time ago.
>
>The most compatible with what? VT220? Not relevant nowadays.
>
The most compatible with everything in emacs out of the box; tmux; fancy
combinations and so on. Emacs gave me too many problems with bindings
when I tried to use it in other terminal emulators. (and the list is
veeery long)

>PC keyboard that most everybody has on their desk? No.
>
Totally disagree here.

>> xterm allows to distinguish between S-<f6> and the [menu] sequence, they
>> are different. But urxvt and many others don't; so that will imply that
>> in urxvt, the context menu will take at least 3 keys when bound to
>> [S-f10]. Because binding to [menu] will also take [S-f6]. That's what I
>> want to avoid. Also because S-<f10> is already taken.
>
>To avoid having Menu take Shift+F6, get rxvt to use different
>sequences for Menu and Shift+F6.

rxvt has many other worst compatibility issues than this and requires a
lot of customization to work decently with emacs... so your explication
of Shift+F<n> clarifies a lot.