Re: Difference between GUI/terminal when using "kbd" macro

[Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers@gmail.com>]

On 2/18/13 12:33 PM, Felix Crux wrote:
> Thanks for the suggestion; it actually led to an interesting discovery:
>
> With the keybinding set to (kbd "C-x<escape>"), running "C-x<escape>  C-h"
> (in a terminal session, since in a GUI one it quits Emacs) shows the following:
>
>    Global Bindings Starting With C-x ESC:
>    key             binding
>    ---             -------
>    C-x ESC ESC     repeat-complex-command
>
> This got me thinking about the fact that the help system is calling it "ESC",
> not "<escape>", and wondering about whether that is significant.
>
> I then tried changing the binding to (kbd "C-x ESC"), which actually works in
> both graphical and terminal sessions!
>
> In conclusion, it looks as though there is a difference between "ESC" and
> "<escape>", at least as far as the "kbd" macro is concerned. I don't know
> enough about the topic to be sure, but I would speculate that "<escape>" is
> some sort of special meta-character being sent by the X window system, while
> "ESC" is the lower-level key value.
>
> Very interesting stuff; and it now lets me use the more readable form, too!
> I'm still quite curious about the discrepancy, but at least the original
> problem is solved. Thank you!

See the "Named ASCII Control Characters" node of the Emacs manual, and the
"Function Keys" node of the Emacs Lisp manual.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA