slehar@bucasd.bu.edu (Steve Lehar) (10/13/90)
I have a VISUAL X display station hooked up to a Solbourne computer
(Sun4 clone). Ever since we had R4 installed on our system, my "alt"
key, which used to behave as a meta- key on my VISUAL X display
station ceased to function as such. There must be some initialization
file somewhere that should allow this translation, but it cannot be
anything in my own directory, because none of them were changed. With
R4, ALL the VISUAL terminals on the whole system lost their meta-
key capability.
Now very mysteriously, when I sit at the console of our Sun4, (not the
Solbourne) my meta- key works fine, both in emacs and in tcsh. Back
in my office however, on the VISUAL, it does not.
Here's another mystery. On the Solbourne when I call emacs, I get one
of those xemacs windows that pops up, and in THAT emacs my meta- key
WORKS, from my VISUAL terminal! If I rlogin to our Sun4 and invoke
emacs I get a regular emacs (in the same window I was in) but in this
one the meta- key does NOT work. In tcsh, my meta- key never works on
the VISUAL terminal, whichever computer I am rlogged on to. When I
rlogin to the sun4 and call up the Solbourne emacs (but running on the
Sun4) the meta- keys work again!
I have been working with two or three system types around here off and
on for about six months, and nobody seems to know what the problem is.
Here's some more pieces to the puzzle- I have some functions defined
in my .emacs file, for instance...
----------------------------------------------------------------
| ;;;; down twenty lines ;;;;
| (defun down-twenty-lines ()
| (interactive)
| (previous-line 20))
|
| ;;;; up twenty lines ;;;;
| (defun up-twenty-lines ()
| (interactive)
| (next-line 20))
----------------------------------------------------------------
which I map to my arrow keys...
----------------------------------------------------------------
| ;;;; set special keys for x-terms ;;;;
| (progn
|
| ;;;; arrow keys ;;;;
| (setq SS3-map (make-keymap))
| (define-key SS3-map "A" 'down-twenty-lines) ; up arrow
| (define-key SS3-map "B" 'up-twenty-lines) ; down arrow
| .
| .
| .
| (define-key global-map "\eO" SS3-map)
| )
----------------------------------------------------------------
Now when I get the xemacs on the Solbourne, it ignores my key
definitions, overriding them with some of it's own. It did read my
.emacs file however, because my up/down-twenty-lines functions ARE
defined. On the Sun4, it reads and executes my .emacs file, and in
the process, it honors my key bindings, but does not respect my meta-
key.
It seems that the Solbourne xemacs is reading its OWN .emacs file from
somewhere and using that to reset the meta- key to make it work again!
But the problem is not one with emacs, but with the key
interpretations in X. Now remember, I said that all my private init
files must be blameless, because it was only with the new R4 that the
meta- keys lost their meaning.
Does anyone out there have ANY idea as to where to look for this
problem? Is there a secret key mapping file that comes with X, and
tells it how to interpret the "alt" key from a VISUAL terminal?
With thanks in advance for your kind help,
--
(O)((O))(((O)))((((O))))(((((O)))))(((((O)))))((((O))))(((O)))((O))(O)
(O)((O))((( slehar@park.bu.edu )))((O))(O)
(O)((O))((( Steve Lehar Boston University Boston MA )))((O))(O)
(O)((O))((( (617) 424-7035 (H) (617) 353-6741 (W) )))((O))(O)
(O)((O))(((O)))((((O))))(((((O)))))(((((O)))))((((O))))(((O)))((O))(O)rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (10/14/90)
R4 clients on the whole truly want "Meta", not "Alt". You can easily remedy the situation by feeding this to xmodmap: ! ! make the alt keys into meta keys ! keysym Alt_L = Meta_L keysym Alt_R = Meta_R I have this vague recollection that the newest firmware from Visual has these keys defined as Meta (or both Meta and Alt) by default, and also permits you to redefine the mapping in your configuration file. But you should check directly with Visual for facts.
slehar@BU.EDU (Steve Lehar) (10/14/90)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S TERRIFFIC!!! Thanks a lot for solving my meta- key problem! I find it difficult to express the full measure of my happiness! I have been putting up with this for months now, and since I use emacs and tcsh extensively, it has really annoyed me that I had to do things the awkward way! Many thanks for your help! -Steve (O)((O))(((O)))((((O))))(((((O)))))(((((O)))))((((O))))(((O)))((O))(O) (O)((O))((( slehar@park.bu.edu )))((O))(O) (O)((O))((( Steve Lehar Boston University Boston MA )))((O))(O) (O)((O))((( (617) 424-7035 (H) (617) 353-6741 (W) )))((O))(O) (O)((O))(((O)))((((O))))(((((O)))))(((((O)))))((((O))))(((O)))((O))(O)
jbk@visual.UUCP (10/16/90)
As Bob Scheifler correctly pointed out, you can use xmodmap to map alt keys
into meta keys. For users such as yourself who desire a specific set of
mapping changes to be applied whenever you use your terminal, we've provided
keymap modification download support in our newest 3.0 release. The server
can read a file which specifies keymap changes from a host system and apply
these changes to its internal map. If desired, the terminal can be configured
to download this file on every server reset, making the changes transparent
to the user.
Please contact us for additional information or with any concerns you
may have. Our latest firmware has many new features to support both
downloaded and standard international keymaps. We've put a lot of effort
into making our keymaps flexible and easy for the user, and we're very much
interested in feedback from our US and international customers.
Visual's Customer Service can be reached at 1-800-VISUALC during business
hours or at xds@visual.uu.net by E-Mail for any questions, comments, or
problems.
- Jeff
Jeff Krampf
Visual Technology
jbk@visual.uu.net
1-800-VISUALC