Date: Mon, 6 Mar 95 11:34 MET From: me@tartufo.pcs.dec.com (Michael Elbel) To: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: backspace now broken (proposal) Message-ID: <m0rla7F-000Pa0C@tartufo.pcs.dec.com> References: <199503041835.KAA01066@corbin.Root.COM> <7628.794346773@freefall.cdrom.com>
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In pcs.freebsd.current you write: >I find myself swayed by the arguments here. I withdraw my endorsement >and switch to the "backspace should be ^H" camp. Arrrgh, and I *didn't* want to be drawn into this argument, oh well... What all this arguing back and forth about what code what key should produce was forgotten over is one of Joerg's first concerns, consistency. To paraphrase our esteemed spokes-person supreme, Jordan K. Hubbard: "The user won't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut". Yes, keys should *per default* generate the codes that the labelling suggests which means ^H for backspace, this would be the principle of least surprise. But then that key should also *do* the expected thing that a key in that position is doing, and that would be erasing the previous character (and please, give me no shit about what function which ASCII character should perform, this is PC hardware, BS has erased the previous character at least since 1982 on that type of keyboard). If this means changing the define of CERASE in sys/ttydefaults.h from 0177 to 010, then so be it, if you ask me. Everybody who's participated in this discussion so far is more than capable of hacking his keyboard layout, stty settings and hairdo beyond recognition. If I want my erase character to be 'e' since I think that having 'e's in text is a waste of time anyways and the key is much more conveniently reached, so be it. But having to tell new FreeBSD users that they have to put a 'stty erase ^h' in .login or .profile of *each and every* user of their system is just plain unnecessary complication of affairs. Yes, I know that CERASE has been 0177 in BSD for a long time, but maybe it's time to switch in order to make our system more predictable. >HOWEVER. I would like to do so with the following stipulation: We >make it a priority of the 2.1 installation that SOME way of selecting >from canned keymaps (including a <bs>/<del> and <clock>/<lctrl> >swapped version of the standard US keyboard) be provided at >installation time, and that this keymap also having the option of >becoming the new *default* (it could be placed in /etc/rc.local >automatically). That would be very nice to have. Especially if you'd manage to get German and French mappings in there. It's kind of problematic to have to tell newbies to be careful about the 'y' key when answering questions during the install. >I will try to work something up. Any suggestions on *squeezing* the data >files in question would also be happily accepted. Make kbdcontrol able to load from stdin and do something like 'gunzip mapfile.gz | kbdcontrol -l -' ?? Make kbdcontrol able to load partial keymaps, only override the keys for which information is given? This could cut down the size of the maps considerably. Actually I think the last thing would be *very* useful for user defined changes, you wouldn't have to always fiddle around with a full map. Or even allow map changes from the commandline like you can do with xmodmap: kbdcontrol -e "003 '2' '\"' nul nul '@' '@' nul nul O" How difficult would this be to do, Soren? Michael -- Michael Elbel, Digital-PCS GmbH, Muenchen, Germany - me@FreeBSD.org Fermentation fault (coors dumped)
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