Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[joao]

Hi,

I'd like to use emacs in the linux consoles, but the key combinations 
with Alt + Shift are not working. I'm using Red Hat 9 on various hardware.

For example, to do M-> (end-of-buffer) I normally press Alt + Shift + 
'>'. This works fine with emacs under X. It also works when I run 'emacs 
-nw' inside an xterm. It does not work under the linux console.

I compared the output of describe-key (C-h k) when I press this 
combination :

emacs under X says "M-> runs the command end-of-buffer"

emacs -nw inside an xterm says "ESC > runs the command end-of-buffer"

emacs in the linux console : describe-key does not even react to my key 
presses, I still have that prompt "Describe key:" in the minibuffer as 
if I had typed nothing at all...

This is *very* annoying, because I have french keyboards (on laptops), 
so I need Shift to get the digits, hence Alt + Shift + digit for the 
numeric prefixes. Of course, I know you can use ESC instead of Alt, but 
that's not the same... the ESC key is sooo far away, and you can't keep 
it pressed like you do with Alt, so typing becomes that less fluid.

I checked the FAQ, found nothing that applied. "stty -a" in the console 
shows cs8, not 7. Of course, TERM=linux.

Any suggestions on how I can fix this ?

Thanks,

Joao

-- 
joao at teaser dot fr

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: joao <joao@nospam.net>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 00:11:58 +0100
> 
> I compared the output of describe-key (C-h k) when I press this 
> combination :
> 
> emacs under X says "M-> runs the command end-of-buffer"
> 
> emacs -nw inside an xterm says "ESC > runs the command end-of-buffer"
> 
> emacs in the linux console : describe-key does not even react to my key 
> presses, I still have that prompt "Describe key:" in the minibuffer as 
> if I had typed nothing at all...

What does "C-h l" (that's a letter ell, not a digit one) say?

It's quite possible that your console keyboard is configured so that
Alt+Shift+digit doesn't produce M-digit.  "C-h l" will show what Emacs
gets (or does not get) when you press a key combination.

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[joao]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> What does "C-h l" (that's a letter ell, not a digit one) say?
> 
> It's quite possible that your console keyboard is configured so that
> Alt+Shift+digit doesn't produce M-digit.  "C-h l" will show what Emacs
> gets (or does not get) when you press a key combination.

Same symptoms : under the console, C-h l shows nothing at all when I 
press Alt + Shift combinations. It's as if I had pressed no key at all.

Under X, I get M-> or M-3, and in the xterm I get ESC > or ESC 3.

Alt alone works fine though. Alt + "<" in the console does M-< and goes 
to the beginning of the buffer.

So could the problem be outside emacs ? obviously emacs is not getting 
any key when I press Alt + Shift. I have TERM=linux in the console.

Joao

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: joao <joao@nospam.net>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 09:26:44 +0100
> 
> Same symptoms : under the console, C-h l shows nothing at all when I 
> press Alt + Shift combinations. It's as if I had pressed no key at all.
> 
> Under X, I get M-> or M-3, and in the xterm I get ESC > or ESC 3.
> 
> Alt alone works fine though. Alt + "<" in the console does M-< and goes 
> to the beginning of the buffer.
> 
> So could the problem be outside emacs ?

It most probably is.

> obviously emacs is not getting any key when I press Alt + Shift.

Indeed.

I hope someone here who is more knowledgeable in GNU/Linux console
than myself will tell you how to fix that.

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[Greg Fenton]

joao wrote:
> 
> So could the problem be outside emacs ? obviously emacs is not getting 
> any key when I press Alt + Shift. I have TERM=linux in the console.

When you say "linux console", what are you refering too?  Is this a 
console running under X or is this one of the virtual console terminals 
(e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F1) ?

greg.fenton
-- 
Greg Fenton
Consultant, Solution Services, iAnywhere Solutions
--------
Visit the iAnywhere Solutions Developer Community
Whitepapers, TechDocs, Downloads
http://www.ianywhere.com/developer/

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[joao]

Greg Fenton wrote:
 > When you say "linux console", what are you refering too?  Is this a
 > console running under X or is this one of the virtual console terminals
 > (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F1) ?

Yes, sorry, I meant the virtual console terminals. X is not running.

I configured a login type "text", not "graphical", when I installed my
RH9, so when I first login I'm in one of these virtual consoles,
before eventually calling "startx" ; that's where I would like to use
emacs, to hack on DirectFB for example.

So the problem has been narrowed down to a difference between this
virtual console and an xterm : typing Alt + "<" yields ESC < in both
cases, but typing Alt + Shift + ">" yields ESC > inside the xterm, but
nothing at all (not a single character) in the virtual console.

So emacs works fine in the xterm but becomes unusable in the console.

Any idea where I can fix this ?

Thanks,
Joao

-- 
joao at teaser dot fr

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[Martin Rydstr|m]

joao <joao@nospam.net> writes:
> So the problem has been narrowed down to a difference between this
> virtual console and an xterm : typing Alt + "<" yields ESC < in both
> cases, but typing Alt + Shift + ">" yields ESC > inside the xterm, but
> nothing at all (not a single character) in the virtual console.
> 
> So emacs works fine in the xterm but becomes unusable in the console.
> 
> Any idea where I can fix this ?

Yeah. This is a problem with the keymap under VC:s not being
"complete" enough. Stuff to use to fix: loadkeys, dumpkeys.

To diagnose what the kernel sees, and can pass on, try showkey.
All three modes of showkey will probably be useful to find out
what is going on.

Regards,

'mr

-- 
[Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is
beautiful.  -- Neal Stephenson, _In the Beginning was the Command Line_

Re: Alt + Shift combinations not working in the linux console

[joao]

Martin Rydstr|m wrote:
> joao <joao@nospam.net> writes:
> 
>>Any idea where I can fix this ?
> 
> 
> Yeah. This is a problem with the keymap under VC:s not being
> "complete" enough. Stuff to use to fix: loadkeys, dumpkeys.

Yo. Thanks, Martin, that was it.

Dumpkeys showed me the current keycode to symbol mapping, it was easy
to see that the Shift + Alt mappings are missing entirely, and also
that the simple Ctrl and Alt mappings are all wrong.

Apparently, this was originally a QWERTY map, where somebody only
bothered to fix the plain case plus the Shift one... so now I know
what I have to do, redo the entire map, fix Ctrl and Alt, add
Shift+Ctrl, Shift+Alt, Ctrl+AltGr, Alt+AltGr, ... I'll post the result
to some french newsgroup as a possible french keyboard mapping.

It's interesting to see how demanding emacs is, in terms of key
combinations :-)

Thanks everybody for the help.

Joao

-- 
joao at teaser dot fr