[net.unix-wizards] help - escape key detection

dmh@dicomed.UUCP (Dave Hollander) (09/16/85)

HELP:

	How do you distinguish between the actual escape key and 
escape sequences generated by arrow keys, etc.?  

	I am looking for a nice solution; however I will gratefully accept
any reasonable solution. vi running on the AT works, but it does seem to 
get confused at times.

	One of the keys seems to be to test to see if a key has been entered
without waiting.  Is there an easy (read: section III) way to do this.

( The program runs curses on a BSD4.2 and IBM XENIX 1.0 )


					Thanks in advance:

					Dave Hollander
					DICOMED Corp.
					{ihnp4,mgnetp}!dicomed!dmh

alan@drivax.UUCP (Alan Fargusson) (09/22/85)

> 
> HELP:
> 
> 	How do you distinguish between the actual escape key and 
> escape sequences generated by arrow keys, etc.?  
> 

Thing is, they arn't different. What vi does is wait for a little
while to see if the character following an escape is a valid 'arrow'
command. It is possible to confuse vi by typing something like escape-A
real fast. This is unfortunate because I tend to do exactly that when
I make a mistake, backup and correct, then continue on. With my terminal
type I sometimes end up on the preveous line still in insert mode. Kind
of confusing. I would like to be able to change the usage of escape in
vi to something else, so only the arrow keys would use escape. Anyone
at Berkley listening?
-- 

Alan Fargusson.

{ ihnp4, amdahl, mot }!drivax!alan