Re: vterm and Meta?

[hw]

On Tue, 2023-08-01 at 17:09 +0200, Thibaut Verron wrote:
> On 01/08/2023 16:21, hw wrote:
> > 
> > > If not, Meta is usually bound to a modifier key (afaik by default the
> > > one immediately left of the space bar, e.g. alt on PC keyboards), and
> > > that works in vterm.
> > Uhm, I've been using emacs for over 30 years and in all these years,
> > the ESC key was always used for a meta key across all instances by
> > default.  It's the same when running emacs in a terminal, as an X11
> > client or with wayland.
> 
> Yes, that is still the case. Alt is bound to Meta (as a modifier) on GUI 
> clients, and so is Esc (as a prefix).

Alt doesn't really do much.

> > The key left of the space bar has always been the Alt key on all PC
> > keyboards I've used so far.  Pressing, for example, Alt-x, inserts x
> > into the buffer (like into this buffer I'm writing this reply in, and
> > into the vterm buffer).
> > 
> > How is it that it's different for you?
> 
> I have no idea! It should be the default behavior, at least for GUI 
> Emacs: Meta (the emacs modifier) is bound to Alt (the modifier key), and 
> Alt is free to bind to another modifier. I would guess that either your 
> keyboard has an unconventional mapping, or your Emacs has an 
> unconventional setting.

I have used quite a few different keyboards over the decades, so
that's probably not it.

> How is it with emacs -q?
> 
> What key does C-h k Alt-x look up for you? M-x, A-x, or x?

It looks up x: "runs the command self-insert-command (found in
global-map), which is an interactive built-in function in ‘C source
code’ ..."

It used to be possible to do stuff with key bindings through xmodmap.
I haven't been able to do anything like that with wayland.

> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Thibaut
> 
> PS. I just tried it in a terminal and it also works there, I was not 
> expecting it. But it might depend on the capabilities of your terminal 
> emulator.

Alt or ESC, or both?