On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 07:50:39PM +0100, Ionel Mugurel Ciobica wrote: > �n data de 26-02-2002, la 20h 23'00", Erika Pacholleck scria despre "Re: Meta vs. >Alt": > > [26.02.02 16:48 +0100] Juliusz Chroboczek <-- : > > > Think about Super as an arbitrary label; the one that comes after Meta > > > but before Hyper. > > > > Would anyone help me with those keys, please. Everywhere it is just > > mentioned where/why/how you change them. But I could not find any > > explanation what they are. Like it is explained that Shift will make > > capital characters and compose will combine two characters to digraphs.
They are just some general shift keys that applications can take an advantage of. It is already too bad that X programs rely on Alt key to be available (and not on Meta - well, that would be messing up things with X terminal emulators, so perhaps this is justified), giving them two more keys would be just making matters worse in the future. > > > > But what is Meta really doing? before Alt, there was Meta... or, Meta was rather common key on keyboards RMS worked with, so it is absolutely necessary for working with EMACS :-) So we have: Control, to give keys control functions. We all know what it does. Meta, to give keys some other extended functions - in shell editing or in Emacs. Fine. Nice thing is that Meta can be replaced with pressing ESC Alt, to give the keys _yet another_ control function. Often used by X programs. I think adding another control function (via Hyper or Super) would be overkill. Just look around, who is actually using those keys. (AltGr is fine for us international charset freaks, and for Euro sign) > > And now there are even more unknown keys Super and Hyper, are those > > my left and right Tux-keys? ;)) > > > > On my systems with no configuration at all the Meta key is adding the > eight bit to the ascii table. which is wrong since that messes up matters when you go beyond ASCII world. Meta shoul prefix the character with ESC. Well, there is the well-known issue with network delays. This could be solved by e.g. assigning other combinations for arrows and function keys (not ESC-something, but rather something from unicode private area). This is nicely compatible with existing unix scheme of things, it requires "just" changing terminal types and terminal definitions everywhere - not feasible. Or hack up things so that solitary pressing of ESC generates something else, and is translated by the other side. You loose ability to simulate Meta, and it does not fit into existing schemes too well. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- | Radovan Garabik http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik/ | | __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk | ----------------------------------------------------------- Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus. Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread! -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
