Re: utf text console - control-g does not work any longer

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Peter Petersen <ppetersen@despammed.com> wrote on Wed, 11 May 2005
22:53:44 +0200:
> Hello,

> I decided to use Gnus in a Linux text console.

Excellent choice!  How about the rest of Emacs?  (I use ISO-8859-1 on a
Linux console.)

> The reasons are:
> - all the fonts for Emacs and/or XEmacs when under X are either too big
> or too small; there are just not enough intermediate font sizes, and my
> eyes are very sensitive
> - when running Emacs and/or XEmacs in "gnome-terminal" the fonts look
> way better and have many more intermediate steps (so font size is no
> longer an issue!), but my eyes start to hurt or I get a headache (thanks
> to anti-aliasing, I fear - though switching it off is no solution,
> because fonts look ugly then in Emacs AND in web browsers!)

Anti-aliasing - that's that thing where all the characters are made to
look blurred, isn't it?  YUCK!  It's always amazed me that people with
GUIs have such trouble with fonts when a simple 8x16 pixel grid on a text
console gives such good results.

> Now enough with that, let's get to my problem with Gnus (or Emacs, this
> is no Gnus specific issue!) in a Linux text console:

> I managed to get good utf support (for reading post in utf-8 AND for
> typing in all the characters (Umlaute, tilde etc.) I want) by using
> filterm and its dynafont filter.

> I launch Gnus like this:

> LC_CTYPE=de_DE.utf8 exec filterm - dynafont emacs -nw --eval
> "(set-keyboard-coding-system 'latin-9)" -f gnus-unplugged "$@"

I don't have LC_CTYPE, but when I execute the (set-keybo... thingy, I
have no trouble with C-g.  But then, I don't use filterm (whatever it
is).

> (I need the "exec", by the way, when using a bash script - otherwise, it
> doesn't work...)


> Everything appears to be all right (reading utf-8 messages, typing in
> Umlaute, euro sign etc.), but there is this one

> PROBLEM:

> control-g doesn't work any longer! (or in other words: keyboard-quit)

When you type C-g, what gets through to Emacs?  (Do C-h l
`view-lossage').  Does _anything_ get through to Emacs?  Does C-g work if
you leave `filterm' out?  

> This is very bad because I often need to abort a command.
> In many cases (like aborting a M-x... sequence) ESC-ESC-ESC is a good
> workaround.

C-g is absolutely necessary.  You don't need any excuses for needing it.

[ .... ]

> I tried to remap control-g to e.g. F6 (function key 6) or other keys I
> tried, but nothing works - it looks like control-g is something very
> special and that the code of Emacs doesn't allow for changing that!

Where did you do the remapping?  In your keyboard driver (e.g.
/etc/default.keytab) or somewhere within Emacs.

> This means, running commands can no longer be interrupted/aborted when I
> use a utf-8 enabled Emacs/Gnus in a Linux text console.

> Does anyone have experience with this problem - or even better have a
> solution?

What does filterm do with C-g?

> many thanks
> Peter

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").