Re: vterm and Meta?

[Thibaut Verron]

On 02/08/2023 16:21, hw wrote:
> On Wed, 2023-08-02 at 07:54 +0000, Thibaut Verron wrote:
> > > With -Q ... with -q, it says "x is undefined" in the message buffer.
> > That is... extremely strange.
> What do you expect to happen?

It's one thing that Alt-x is translated as x, but I don't get x why x 
isn't mapped to self-insert-command.

Not really relevant to your problem, just curious.

> > What about C-h k x ?
> emacs -Q: x runs the command self-insert-command
> emacs -q: x is undefined
> > If you are on X, can you use xev to confirm that it sends the correct keycode?
> I could switch back to see what it sends, but since I want to use
> wayland, there isn't much point ...

It is just that xev is a X utility, I didn't expect it to work at all on 
wayland.

It would still be nice to know if it is the same on X (then the problem 
is with your general configuration) or not (then the problem is with 
wayland), but already your results give a lot of information.


> When I start xev in vterm in emacs in wayland, it says

> KeyPress event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0xe00001,
>      root 0x378, subw 0x0, time 44020369, (3073,685), root:(3123,812),
>      state 0x10, keycode 64 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES,
>      XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XFilterEvent returns: False
>
> KeyRelease event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0xe00001,
>      root 0x378, subw 0x0, time 44020562, (3073,685), root:(3123,812),
>      state 0x90, keycode 64 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES,
>      XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XFilterEvent returns: False

Assuming that xev works fine with wayland, yes that doesn't seem right.


> for *left* Alt and
>
>
> KeyPress event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0xe00001,
>      root 0x378, subw 0x0, time 44174354, (159,-25), root:(209,102),
>      state 0x10, keycode 108 (keysym 0xffea, Alt_R), same_screen YES,
>      XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XFilterEvent returns: False
>
> KeyRelease event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0xe00001,
>      root 0x378, subw 0x0, time 44174482, (159,-25), root:(209,102),
>      state 0x18, keycode 108 (keysym 0xffea, Alt_R), same_screen YES,
>      XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>      XFilterEvent returns: False
>
>
> for *right* Alt.  I guess it should say Alt_L for *left* Alt.

So that confirms that your right alt should work as meta.


> So at least that's interesting --- but how do I get the left Alt key
> to work right?
>
> I haven't been able to find out how to change keyboard layouts with
> wayland.  There must be some place where they are defined because
> there is many premade keyboard layouts I can pick from for all kinds
> of different languages.
>
> This seems to be one of these stupid gnome issues.  In gnome, there is
> Settings-->Keyboard-->Alternate Characters Key, and the key you pick
> there gets disabled 🙁
>
> How do I turn this off?  I don't need this and it gets in the way.

Unfortunately I use neither gnome nor wayland. On X, regardless of the 
DE I'd use setxkbmap to get my keyboard exactly as I want it, is there 
something like that on wayland?

Otherwise, perhaps selecting a keyboard layout without 3rd level 
characters would do the trick -- but you already said you don't know how 
to change keyboard layouts.

If one alt/meta is enough for you, you could also just set this key to 
be right alt and then left alt should work fine.


Best wishes,

Thibaut