mapping delete key

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: mapping delete key


> Is it just me, or did pmcnary say:
>> The only terminal emulator that I have had good luck with the sco
>> ansi emulation reliably with all software that I use has been:
>> PowerTermInterconnect for Linux. They have a free eval for 30 or 60
>> days. It duplicates the sco console the best that I have found on Linux.
>
> It's not necessary to duplicate the SCO emulation unless you're actually
> remotely connecting to a SCO system.  It's a lot cheaper to just configure
> things to emulate that one key mapping and make sure the rest of your
> termcap is in order.  (Hint:  there's an xterm fp/termcap entry.)
>
> If that one key is the only issue, getting a whole emulator is overkill by
> far.

wrong wrong wrong!
evil standard ignorer!
That way lies madness and frustration and chaos.
It's admittedly only a step or two along that road, but why voluntarily take 
any?

This falls under the mathematical form of logic that states that something 
eithe ris or is not, no mostly or similar. The terminal either is what it 
claims to be, or it is not. How small the difference almost doesn't matter. 
By swapping a few keys like that around, without changing anything else like 
the name of the terminal and making termcap & terminfo definitions to match, 
you are in effect claiming to be an xterm while you are not an xterm, and 
all bets are off when you do things like that.

It's easy enough to make the adjusted termcap & terminfo definitions, but I 
put forward that the gain in convenience (familiar feeling Delete key 
instead of Ctrl-C when usining xterm at the console) is not worth the work 
it would take to do it properly, which is:
*  install the termcap, fp-termcap, & terminfo definitions for myalmostxterm 
on every box you work on.
* always remember to modify your desktop icons and menu entries to add the 
command line option "-tn myalmostxterm" or otherwize ensure that $TERM 
always gets set to myalmostxterm
* always diddle with /etc/profile or .profile or manually run stty commands 
every time you log in from said xterm.
* always remember that only the one specially doctored xterm will "work" the 
new way, gnome-terminal, konsole, etc... a will still be "broken" unless you 
do even more work to doctor all them too.

Ridiculous. Just use a terminal emulator that simply already does what it 
advertizes ("Hi server, I'm a scoansi terminal." and it really is scoansi, 
and wonder of wonders, everything "just works" which is what everyone always 
claims to want right? No hammers or crowbars needed or nothing) Or if you 
want to use some particular non-scoansi terminal for some reason (xterm), 
then just use it. It's dumb to try to use one thing but make it try to work 
like some other thing. That is why nothing "just works".

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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