Re: Sanest way to make emacs behave on a Solaris OS

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:

[...]

First off, sorry to both you and Emanuel.  I admit I'm not your basic
quick study... but really asleep at the switch on this. I've allowed
you to put in time and effort and then dropped my end... for that I am
truly sorry.
 
> You are NOT doing what I am suggesting.  As others mentioned if you
> are starting emacs as a graphical application and not a console one
> running in the xterm then Emacs will handle the keyboard itself and
> then it has nothing to do with Xterm at all.  The Meta Sends Escape
> setting only applies to XTerm.  It won't apply to emacs in the
> graphical client mode.  Those are two completely separate and distinct
> cases with different configurations.  Confusing those two cases makes
> talking about it very difficult.

Yes, difficult... so doing my best to clarify now.

> Which do you want to do?  Do you want to run Emacs as a graphical
> client?  Do you want to run Emacs as a text console program within an
> XTerm?  Please pick one or the other and then work through it to
> completion before trying the opposite way.

Actually I want to do both as stated in OP.  But was pinheadedly
focused on the GUI response. (Which will often be my main usage)

> Assuming that you want Emacs as a text client within an Xterm then
> please verify that you have started emacs from the xterm window using
> the 'emacs -nw' with the -nw option.  This should be the simpler case
> to get going.  Then can do the graphical one afterward.  If emacs is
> compiled without X the option is still accepted and therefore never
> hurts to use -nw when debugging the text flavor.

OK, since I DO want both.  But before using the .Xresources approach
I'll report on the the menu technique:

It does cause the key with windows logo to work as M in emacs to bring
up the 'M-x' emacs prompt,

[...]

>> Into my ~/.Xresources file.... but Doggone it, I don't remember how to
>> reread .Xresources so that any changes become effective.... I'll have
>> to restart X  and see how it goes.
>
>   xrdb -m ~/.Xresources
>
> The -m merges.  The -l loads.  I selected merging because you may have
> sevaral files all merged together so this would only change what you
> changed.  Using -l would empty first and then only load that file so
> if you had several files, perhaps a /etc/X11/something, then that
> other would be lost.  But I will use -l when I want only what is in
> that file, nothing more and nothing less, and want to avoid anything
> else that might have been set elsewhere.  Somewhat like the emacs -Q
> of things.

OK thanks for the solid hand holding.  I don't think there will be any
merging unless setup by the install... but using xrdb -m as you
suggested just in case.

It worked as you expected... the Windows Logo key now works like M in
emacs. 

But here's the sort of complicated part.
I want the Alt key to do that.  Having the Meta key work as the alt
key is MUCH MUCH better than stretching for the escape key.  So this
is definitely a working solution.

Now I have an easyish time of it with both Gui and text mode emacs.
Thank you sir... and thanks for being a patient and thorough coach.