Re: [Nano-devel] [RFC] selecting text by holding Shift

[David Niklas]

> On Wed, Dec 30, 2015, at 16:47, David Niklas wrote:
> > [...] you could remap the keys using terminfo, [...]
> > 
> > My idea was that you could remap any of your keys to Mod[1-4] and then
> > you'd have a whole new set of keys to play with in nano.  
> 
> ??  Nano uses ncurses, and as far as I know, ncurses only knows
> about Shift and Alt and Control [1].  It doesn't know about Mod1
> to Mod4 -- those things are specific to X.

I've never programmed with curses, so I would not know, but I've heard
that the original keyboards had 24-F keys? So their should be something we
can remap.

> But even if one could tell terminfo to produce a new set of key
> codes for when say Mod2 is used, this doesn't help.  What people
> know from other applications is that /Shift/ can be used together
> with the cursor movement keys to select text.  That's what nano
> should allow too.  If it can't because the window manager or the
> terminal emulator intercepts and eats those keys, we're stuffed.

I agree, but we are dealing with at least the following apps grabbing
keys, X, wm, term.
If we define a binding that's already bound we're sunk.
If we remap a key then the users might complain, we're still sunk.
If we ask them to remap the key bindings of X, wm, term then the y might
complain that nano is too much trouble.

I was actually thinking of leaving the key unbound and let the user
define the preferred binding.

Sincerely, David