On 2026/02/25 16:06:20 -0500, Thomas Dickey wrote: > On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 01:58:28PM +0100, Dr. Werner Fink wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I've a bug report about dialog not supporting the Alt key. Means > > e.g. that > > > > dialog --yesno Hallo 6 30 > > > > return for both Alt-y and Alt-n or Alt-Y and Alt-N the value 255. > > This is nowadays somehow uncommon[1]. It would very helpful > > to be able to navigate not only with cursor or tab keys but > > also with the ALt and the coloured characters of the buttons. > > dialog uses the terminfo description. It happens to know about xterm's > alternate screen: > > --keep-tite > > Generally (no counter examples come to mind)... > > + what some people expect with alt+whatever
Most graphical apps do use Alt-<Char> to press a Button with <Char> in its label. Also the old YaST does this in its graphical UI as well as in its ncurses UI. And *some* people are the most normal user out there ;) > + is a corruption of meta mode (apparently due to bash), Hmm .. I'm using tcsh as well as the bash, sometime ksh ... in all cases the XTerm shows for Alt-<Char> the ESC-<Char> sequence ... even in clisp I see ESC-<Char> With enable-meta-key set to On remains in ESC-<Char> ...only disabling "Alt sends Escape" in XTerm change that as expected. Beside this the problem occurs on the Linux console > > + that would magically send an escape character before _some_ keys > (more often before keys that aren't special such as cursor > and function keys -- but that assumption isn't reliable) > > + which isn't related to the terminfo description > (recalling that bash's developer(s) prefer hardcoding to extending > termcap or terminfo). > > So... it's not in the terminfo description, and any attempt to make it > a "standard" feature would run into the exceptions to the normal/special > keys assumption. > > + the place to start with a new feature would be with the developers > of terminals and/or shells, etc., who would define it (and agree > on what's common behavior). > > > > > Werner > > > > [1] https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1257107 > > -- > > "Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having > > a peeing section in a swimming pool." -- Edward Burr > > > > -- > Thomas E. Dickey <[email protected]> > https://invisible-island.net -- "Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool." -- Edward Burr
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