New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matthew.a.hess]

I'm running mac 10.5.4 and using emacs in an xterm window (not gtk
graphical).  I've seen threads where the reverse of this behavior
(well some of it anyway) has been remedied before, but i haven't seen
any posts that talk about this:

- Pressing C-h deletes backwards instead of help.  Running the
describe-key command says that it's DEL (backward-delete-char-
untabify).

- However, pressing the "Delete" key on my keyboard does backward-
delete as well...

- Pressing M-DEL (<- "Delete" on my keyboard) marks a paragraph.
Describe-key says that this combination is  C-M-h, the mark-defun
command.  For me, M-DEL used to be the 'backward-kill-word ' command
until i upgraded Xquartz.

I want to get my old key-bindings back:
Delete -> backwards-delete
M-Delete -> backwards-kill-word
C-h -> help

What's also really strange is that when i'm in xterm the M-DEL
actually does delete words backwards.

I'm at a loss to explain this...

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

matthew.a.hess@gmail.com writes:
> I'm at a loss to explain this...

It depends on the terminal program, on what ASCII codes it sends when
you press what key.

You may try to change the "preferences" of your terminal program,
(control-left-click in xterm), and/or you could try to toggle this:
M-x normal-erase-is-backspace-mode RET
(You may type M-x as ESC x)

-- 
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Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matt]

sorry, should have included this information:

using xterm with these relevant environmental variables:

XTERM_LOCALE=C
XTERM_VERSION=XTerm(235)

also...

stty erase is set to ^H

the keysym for my keyboard "Delete" key is 59 which is listed as
BackSpace by xmodmap

no luck with fiddling in X11 preferences

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[Nikolaj Schumacher]

matthew.a.hess@gmail.com wrote:

> I'm running mac 10.5.4 and using emacs in an xterm window (not gtk
> graphical).

Do you mean the terminal that pops up when you open X11.app?  If so, I
strongly encourage you to use Terminal.app.  It will start X11
automatically if needed, has configuration dialog, and C-h works out of
the box.


regards,
Nikolaj Schumacher

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matt]

On Aug 5, 7:54 am, Nikolaj Schumacher <n_schumac...@web.de> wrote:
> matthew.a.h...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I'm running mac 10.5.4 and using emacs in an xterm window (not gtk
> > graphical).
>
> Do you mean the terminal that pops up when you open X11.app?  If so, I
> strongly encourage you to use Terminal.app.  It will start X11
> automatically if needed, has configuration dialog, and C-h works out of
> the box.
>
> regards,
> Nikolaj Schumacher

Ugh... same issue.  So this is a problem independent of X  >:[

matt

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 05.08.2008 um 06:32 schrieb matthew.a.hess:

> - Pressing C-h deletes backwards instead of help.  Running the
> describe-key command says that it's DEL (backward-delete-char-
> untabify).

Invoke 'stty -a' to see your recent settings. 'stty ^h' should clear  
any binding of C-h.

>
> I want to get my old key-bindings back:
> Delete -> backwards-delete
> M-Delete -> backwards-kill-word


	(global-set-key (kbd "DEL")   'backward-delete)		?
	(global-set-key (kbd "M-DEL") 'backward-kill-word)	?


--
Greetings

   Pete

These are my principles and if you don't like them... well, I have  
others.
				- Groucho Marx

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matt]

> Invoke 'stty -a' to see your recent settings. 'stty ^h' should clear
> any binding of C-h.

>         (global-set-key (kbd "DEL")   'backward-delete)               ?
>         (global-set-key (kbd "M-DEL") 'backward-kill-word)    ?

Not just in this case, but for some reason the elisp commands never
seem to do anything.

Stty says that my erase=^H.  Tried 'stty ^h' but it's not an option
stty recognizes.

I'm having a hard time believing that i'm not the only one with this
problem...

matt

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 06.08.2008 um 03:00 schrieb matt:

> Stty says that my erase=^H.  Tried 'stty ^h' but it's not an option
> stty recognizes.


Then try to reserve another "character" for erase:

	stty erase '^?'

This should free C-h. Obviously I should not have thought of the  
characters but the actions, that are each bound to some character ...

--
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   Pete       (:
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Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matt]

> Then try to reserve another "character" for erase:
>
>         stty erase '^?'
>
> This should free C-h. Obviously I should not have thought of the
> characters but the actions, that are each bound to some character ...

Changing erase gives me back C-h -> help, but makes my "Delete" key
write '^H' in the terminal and do nothing at all in emacs.  However,
when i use the C-DEL, it does delete backwards, and describe-key says
that that combo is just DEL ('backward-delete...).
Also, M-DEL still gives C-M-h.

Could it be that I should switch to an encoding other than ascii?

matt

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 06.08.2008 um 18:19 schrieb matt:

>> Then try to reserve another "character" for erase:
>>
>>         stty erase '^?'
>>
>> This should free C-h. Obviously I should not have thought of the
>> characters but the actions, that are each bound to some character ...
>
> Changing erase gives me back C-h -> help, but makes my "Delete" key
> write '^H' in the terminal and do nothing at all in emacs.  However,
> when i use the C-DEL, it does delete backwards, and describe-key says
> that that combo is just DEL ('backward-delete...).
> Also, M-DEL still gives C-M-h.

I am still working with Tiger and a rather old version of X11. I seem  
to remember that I had a similiar problem in xterm – it "popped up"  
one day. It was surprising. Could be this entry in ~/.Xdefaults cured  
it:

	XTerm*ttyModes:		erase ^?

There is more possible with xterm ('man xterm', for example in GNU  
Emacs, will show). There is also more support in GNU Emacs, C-h i  
should lead to it, somehow. I don't remember much since I work almost  
never in xterm – when X11 is running why should I launch GNU Emacs  
without its own windows, as slave of an xterm?!


>
> Could it be that I should switch to an encoding other than ascii?
>

No. The standard ISO and Unicode encodings all start with the 128  
code points from US-ASCII. I'd recommend to check the Xquartz-dev  
mailing list (mailto:Xquartz-dev@lists.macosforge.org) at http:// 
lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/xquartz-dev. It's about the  
new X11R7 based X server and X11 releases from Apple. There is also  
the more general X11-users mailing list (mailto:X11- 
users@lists.apple.com) at http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/x11- 
users.

--
Greetings

   Pete

It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
				– Garfield

Re: New C-h/Delete issue on emacs22.2.1-nox (Xquartz 2.3.0)

[matt]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

When you press a key in X that key sends a keynum that translates into
a keysym (okay, we know that!).  Now... each keysym (a, b, c, Delete,
BackSpace, etc.) itself has a corresponding character or character
sequence is sent xterm which translates into xterm characters/actions
(you'll have to pardon my improvised nomenclature).  The control
character keysyms are sent to xterm in ascii caret notation:

BackSpace -> ^H
Delete -> ^?

If xterm's emulate of vt100 used the normal ascii notation above I
could have just switched BackSpace and Delete and then set erase to
^?.  However, by default xterm's Delete keysym sends to this weird
sequence: ^[[3~.  God only knows why they did that...

In order to change this back to the normal ascii caret notation
sequence you have to set the backarrowKey variable (from X resources)
to false.  You can do this by putting this line into the .Xdefaults
file in your home directory:

xterm.*backarrowKey: false

I owe my finding and a lot of gratitude to the author of this page:
http://www.hypexr.org/linux_ruboff.php

CHEERS!
matt