[comp.sys.apple] ATP Macros

tucker@unocss.UUCP (Gregory A. Tucker) (08/07/88)

Since I downloaded my copy of ATP from comp.binaries.apple2 I have 
been fairly impressed with it.  It has excellent VT100 emulation,
good macros, superior design, and extensive documentation.  (BTW, I
have already written a letter to the author praising him for it.)

However, ATP has this annoying little problem of requiring the 
solid-apple key to be depressed for the arrows to work properly in
emulation mode.  I have tried to compensate for this problem by
defining macros for the arrow keys.  (ie. ^[[A, ^[[B, etc.)
This scheme /seems/ to work without any problems on my VMS account,
but it gives me problems in Unix.  For example, when I run 
Visual News and depress the arrow key, it gives me two erros
that say undefined key.  Why should this be?  Of course, this problem
is easily corrected by depressing the closed-apple key, but that is
very annoying and requires who hands to do it.  Are there any 
problems that might arise from defining the ansi sequences as macros,
or is there anyting special that unix requires to work with vt100
emulators?

"Something I learned today.
 Black and white is always grey!
 Stopping at a four way sign.
 It's someone else's law, not mine..." -Husker Du
-- 
 ------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
 Gregory A. Tucker- Consultant | Internet: conslt05%zeus.dnet@fergvax.unl.edu 
 Campus Computing              | Bitnet:   CONSLT05@UNOMA1
 Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha    | UUCP:     uunet!btni!unocss!tucker

elliott@glacier.steinmetz (08/08/88)

In article <368@unocss.UUCP> tucker@unocss.UUCP (Gregory A. Tucker) writes:
>However, ATP has this annoying little problem of requiring the 
>solid-apple key to be depressed for the arrows to work properly in
>emulation mode.
There is actually a good reason for this. Unfortunately, on the Apple
keyboard, there is no way for ATP to tell if you are hitting an arrow
key, or actually holding down Ctl-H, Ctl-J, Ctl-K or Ctl-U. If I was
sure that you would never need to send these key-codes, I could have
the arrow keys always send the vt100 sequences (which is, in fact, the
way ATP used to behave). However, when I started using the Emacs
editor (and UNIX in general) I found out that I needed to send those
control keys fairly often. And it is even more confusing to remember
that you have to hold down the Closed Apple key when you want to send
one of those four particular control codes...

> I have tried to compensate for this problem by
>defining macros for the arrow keys.  (ie. ^[[A, ^[[B, etc.)
>This scheme /seems/ to work without any problems on my VMS account,
>but it gives me problems in Unix.  For example, when I run 
>Visual News and depress the arrow key, it gives me two erros
>that say undefined key.  Why should this be?  Of course, this problem
>is easily corrected by depressing the closed-apple key, but that is
>very annoying and requires who hands to do it.  Are there any 
>problems that might arise from defining the ansi sequences as macros,
>or is there anyting special that unix requires to work with vt100
>emulators?
I am not sure exactly what the problem is, but sounds like Visual News
wants the cursor keys to be in a different mode. The VT100 has
configurable cursor keys; they can send two different sets of codes,
and a host machine can request that a particular set be used, by
sending an escape sequence. (See the VT100 section in the Terminal
Emulation part of the ATP help screens for more details). Defining
macros to respond to these requests would be nontrivial.

Where is your Closed-Apple key? At least on my keyboard I have found
that using it in conjunction with the cursor keys is an easy one-hand
operation that has become quite reflexive.

Another solution would be to have ATP allow the default behavior of
the arrow keys to be configurable. When I write the VT100
configuration segment I will keep this in mind.

> ------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
> Gregory A. Tucker- Consultant | Internet: conslt05%zeus.dnet@fergvax.unl.edu 
> Campus Computing              | Bitnet:   CONSLT05@UNOMA1
> Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha    | UUCP:     uunet!btni!unocss!tucker


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lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) (08/08/88)

Another problem that I had with ATP was that it is JUST vt100 - many vt100
emulators do vt102, with add/delete lines/characters sequences supported.

But I do have to admit that the online help feature is nice (just slow and
tough to figure out where things are sometimes, but quite extensive).
-- 
Larry W. Virden	 75046,606 (CIS)
674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068 (614) 864-8817
osu-cis!n8emr!lwv (UUCP)	osu-cis!n8emr!lwv@TUT.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (INTERNET)
We haven't inherited the world from our parents, but borrowed it from our children.

elliott@yosemite.steinmetz (08/10/88)

In article <608@n8emr.UUCP> lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) writes:
>Another problem that I had with ATP was that it is JUST vt100 - many vt100
>emulators do vt102, with add/delete lines/characters sequences supported.
This is quite a valid point. The Digital reference book I have does
not list VT102 protocol information. Any idea where I might find such
a reference?

>But I do have to admit that the online help feature is nice (just slow and
>tough to figure out where things are sometimes, but quite extensive).
Since I have a hard drive, the speed isn't that noticeable to me,
which could be a problem. Maybe I should split the stuff into smaller
files. But then it's a tradeoff-faster load times, but loads more
often.

In any case, the organization could almost certainly be improved. I
essentially whipped those screens up in two weekends. The only way I
can really improve them, though, is with user feedback. Rather than
just saying things are tough to find, could you please give me some
specific details about what was confusing or awkward?
>-- 
>Larry W. Virden	 75046,606 (CIS)
>674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068 (614) 864-8817
>osu-cis!n8emr!lwv (UUCP)	osu-cis!n8emr!lwv@TUT.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (INTERNET)
>We haven't inherited the world from our parents, but borrowed it from our children.


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 Jim Elliott                       /    ...!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!crd!elliott
                                  /            userE2U7@rpitsmts.BITNET
 "Don't look, son, it's          /      Jim_Elliott%mts@itsgw.rpi.edu [school]
  a secular humanist!"          /  (or)     elliott@ge-crd.arpa       [work]
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