[Bug-zile] C-h under GNU screen

[Micah Cowan]

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Congratulations on your recent release of Zile 2.2.59.

When I fired up zile, the first thing I tried, of course, was "C-h h".
Unfortunately, C-h is triggering the backspace, rather than the help
command. This is not currently the case when I run Emacs 22.1.1 on the
same terminal. In this case, the terminal is GNU screen, running under
gnome-terminal. If I run it directly in gnome-terminal, I do not
encounter this problem.

I suspect that the reason may well be related to the terminfo settings I
have for screen; "infocmp" gives the following output:

#       Reconstructed via infocmp from file:
/usr/share/terminfo/s/screen screen|VT 100/ANSI X3.64 virtual terminal,
...
        il=\E[%p1%dL, il1=\E[L, ind=^J, is2=\E)0, kbs=^H, kcbt=\E[Z,
...

As you can see, it gives ^H for kbs. However, stty -a has erase=^?; and
GNU Emacs (as I mentioned) correctly distinguishes C-h from backspace.

I'm not sure where the kbs setting is coming from; the terminfo database
on another system I have has kbs=^?. When I checked the latest screen
sources, they appear to omit setting kbs altogether. It may be that it's
from an older screen setting, or perhaps it's distro-specific changes.

Be that as it may, the fact that there's a difference in behavior
between Zile and Emacs, suggests to me that it's worth looking into a
workaround for this problem.

I realize that most users will probably not be using GNU Screen when
they fire up Zile; but it may well be that users will use it from
terminals where their stty settings disagree with the terminfo/termcap
database in this way.

(Please Cc me in responses, I'm not subscribed.)

- --
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer,
and GNU Wget Project Maintainer.
http://micah.cowan.name/
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