Re: [PATCH] input: scroll on mousewheel instead of moving cursor

[Andy Koppe]

On 21/02/2024 15:14, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> Op 18-09-2023 om 22:52 schreef Andy Koppe:
> > On 18/09/2023 12:22, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > > Which other terminal editors have a mouse mode?  How do I activate it
> > > (so that I can see for myself how it behaves there)?
> >
> > vim: Put ':set mouse=a' into ~/.vimrc (or enter it in command mode).
> >
> > joe: Invoke with 'joe -mouse'. (Note single dash.)
> >
> > le: Mouse mode enabled by default.
> >
> > mcedit: Mouse mode enabled by default.
>
> Finally I took the time to look at this.
>
> And I must admit that I like the scrolling behavior of those
> editors (when mouse mode is enabled) better.
>
> So... I'm going to accept the patch.

Great, thank you very much!

On a closely related note, the 'mintty' terminal used by default in 
Cygwin, MSYS and Git for Windows has meanwhile gained an "Alt-modified 
mousewheel mode", which allows for the same mousewheel scrolling 
behaviour without enabling full xterm mouse mode, so that selecting and 
copying text still works as usual.

When in Alt-modified mousewheel mode, the terminal sends Alt+Up/Down 
keycodes instead of plain Up/Down for the mousewheel. The mode is 
ignored when in xterm mouse mode, and it's controlled by escape sequences:

- Enable:  echo $'\e[?7765h'
- Disable: echo $'\e[?7765l'

Those can be used to implement a nano wrapper that enables the mode 
while nano is running. Alternatively, the mode could be enabled once 
from a shell startup script, in which case other applications that one 
cares about also need to be taught the Alt+Up/Down keycodes. For 
example, for 'less', in ~/.lesskey:

\e[1;3A back-line
\e[1;3B forw-line

> One thing I noticed: with one bump of the scrollwheel,
> mcedit scrolls two lines, vim three, and joe four -- when
> on a real xterm.

Yep, it's up to each editor to interpret the button 4 and 5 presses that 
terminals in xterm mouse mode send for mousewheel events. I think nano 
and vim have it right with three lines per wheel bump, as that's the 
default in GUIs.

> Strangely, when on an Xfce Terminal, each
> editor scrolls double the amount: mcedit four, vim six, and
> joe eight lines.  Those strides I find too large.

Strange indeed. Maybe there's something in the Xfce or terminal settings 
somewhere that causes it to send two button 4/5 presses per wheel bump.

Kind regards,
Andy