Delete key

[Brian K. White]

Let me know if you still have any problem. Terminals are no mystery really.

Really, the concept of terminals and emulation and which parts do which 
jobs should really not be a mystery to any unix or linux user, let alone 
admin or coder. It's your interface to the system. You should understand 
how to operate it as a form of basic literacy. The info is not only out 
there to be googled up any time, it's old and hasn't changed in decades.

Otherwise you will be helpless to mysteries exactly like this every time 
you step outside of some protected homogeneous environment where someone 
else figured it all out and made it all work in that one particular 
context. Change one detail anywhere and suddenly it's "Why is filepro so 
broken? Why are my lines all lqqqqqk? Why does F1-F4 work but not F5?" 
etc etc. None of those are any more mysterious than why did the car 
suddenly start thumping real loud and shaking (flat tire), or why did 
the car stop running (gas) etc...

To me, knowing how terminals work falls under knowing how to operate the 
tools you use. This is really just a normal operating kind of thing. Not 
fixing or debugging something broken, just merely operating something 
that needs adjustment as part of it's mere operation. You have to tune a 
radio to the channel you want, it isn't just always magically on the 
channel you hoped for. Even though, if you listen to the same station a 
lot, you can go years without ever having to touch the tuning dial. Like 
that.

-- 
bkw


On 3/20/2014 4:25 PM, William J. McEachran wrote:
> In vi, in edit mode with or without the visual block, the DEL key deletes
> the intended characters for me with xterm and from linux console (Ubuntu
> 12.4.4).
>
> The problem as it relates to how I use filepro appears to need  attention
> in multiple places.  I'll have come back to it at another time.
>
> Thanks for the input ... I've saved the messages.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Fairlight <fairlite at fairlite.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 03:54:27PM -0400, William J. McEachran thus spoke:
>>> I just don't think that hitting the DEL key should behave so unexpectedly
>>> ... inserting "~3"'s in fields.
>>>
>>> As the only application with this problem is filePro ... I think I'll
>> live
>>> with it for the moment but come back to it when time permits.
>>
>> It's not the only application with that "problem".
>>
>> Sit at any shell prompt, or go into vi in insert mode, hit control-v and
>> then hit Delete.  You'll see the full sequence.
>>
>> Some things are programmed to expect it.  Others are not.  I personally
>> wouldn't cater to it.  But then, I spend 15 years or so modifying loadkeys
>> defaults on boot to set it to ^? as God intended.  :)
>>
>> You said either xterm or rxvt.  You just need to `man xmodmap` and look at
>> how to change the keysym to whatever you want it to be.  The xterm itself
>> may (or may not) have its own delete settings.
>>
>> mark->
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