Re: Make Super key work in console

[Stefan Monnier]

>> But for a terminal emulator, the one who "types those keys" is the
>> terminal emulator, so it wouldn't be "burdened" by having to type
>> a few more keys to have a clear and unambiguous encoding.
>> 
>> > This is in no way singular: many terminal emulators convert
>> > M-SOMETHING into ESC SOMETHING, at least as an option.
>> 
>> That also somewhat sucks, but *much* less (and it was done at a time
>> when you could argue that resource constraints made it important to have
>> a "short and simple" approach rather than a "general, robust, and
>> reliable" one).
>
> I don't think I understand.  Given the APIs used by text-mode programs
> to read keyboard input, what are the alternatives for those "yucky"
> methods?

Using escape sequences that start with ESC (and which hence collide
with actual uses of the ESC key) was arguably unavoidable, indeed.

But using "just ESC" as "the escape sequence for meta" leads to more conflicts
since it doesn't just conflict with the use of the ESC key but also with
ESC used for escape sequences.

They should have used "ESC <something>" for the meta key so you don't
get conflicts like `M-O` conflicting with escape sequences that start
with `ESC O`.


        Stefan