Re: Best way to intercept terminal escape sequences?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> all encoded events of some sort. For example, the xterm escape sequence
> "ESC O D" is eventually converted to <right>, but anybody calling
> read-char or read-event will get a string of characters instead (and
> probably wish they hadn't).

Yes, that's why they should use `read-key' instead.

> This is why xt-mouse can't do full mouse handling -- mouse-drag-track
> (mouse.el) calls read-event to watch for the mouse-up event.

And indeed, mouse-drag-track should also use read-key, IIUC.
But read-key is brand new, so a lot of code needs to be adapted to
use it.  Patches welcome.

> Problems like this could be solved by allowing the system to process
> terminal escape sequences early in the food chain (= before read-char
> and read-event).

Packages like, ahem, xt-mouse.el need lower-level access, so we have to
keep lower-level primitives.


        Stefan