I don't think there's an Ubuntu bug here. You could take it up as a
Gnome design debate; I wouldn't be surprised if that's been hashed over
a few times.
gnome-terminal's default behavior is to steal the Alt key, for menu
accelerators. Users like us who want to use the full readline bindings
have to go to Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts, and uncheck 'Enable Menu Access
Keys'.
As for your comment about the HUD, that's not how the HUD uses Alt;
perhaps you've seen this, in the interim. It's activated by a short tap
of the Alt key alone. Any use of Alt as a modifier for another key is
meant to be unaffected. (Right now in Quantal, the HUD is being
triggered by one of those situations, though the keybinding still
succeeds. That's bug 969039, "HUD appears when tapping Alt+Left very
quickly". Any interference like that will be treated as a bug.
Thanks.
** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
Status: Confirmed => Invalid
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/968688
Title:
Inability to use the Meta key in gnome-terminal (probably related to
invoking the HUD?)
Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
Invalid
Bug description:
When I'm using Bash in gnome-terminal, I'm currently unable to use the
GNU Readline shortcuts to move forward a word, because pressing Left
Alt + a key tries to open a menu option. For example, Alt+f opens the
file menu. For some reason, the Alt key is bound to the menubar here.
Expected behavior: Alt+f moves the cursor forward one word
Current behavior: Alt+f opens the file menu.
The strange thing is that it does work in a GUI version of Emacs, but
not when Emacs is run directly in the terminal (emacs23-nox). It also
works correctly in xterm (after Ctrl + left-click > select "Meta Sends
Escape"). So I'm not sure if it's a bug in gnome-terminal or in unity.
When you hold the Alt key in Emacs or xterm, nothing happens, the HUD
is only displayed when you release the key again. Of course, when
you're using it as a meta key, you're never doing that, you're holding
it and combining it with another key. So that's the correct behaviour.
In gnome-terminal, however, holding the Alt key doesn't do anything.
It seems to be the case that combinations using the Alt key are
interpreted as shortcuts for the menubar in gnome-terminal.
On a related note, I'm wondering whether binding Alt to the HUD won't
conflict with the usage of Alt as a meta key? While Alt is the obvious
choice (and I like the concept of the HUD), it would be very annoying
to be unable to use the meta key in certain programs.
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