Re: [vile] Can one use another key for ESC?

[Chris Green]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 12:18:45PM -0500, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 04:59:46PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> > I have recently acquired an Amazon Kindle and, having installed
> > shellinabox on my home server I can log in using the shellinabox
> > terminal in the Kindle's web browser.  It's actually pretty usable.
> > 
> > However I'm a bit stuck if I try and use vile (or any vi for that
> > matter) as the Kindle can't easily send ESC.  Is there any way to use an
> > alternative key code for ESC in vile?
> 
> ESC is bound to abort-command.  So you could change that:
> 
>       :bind-key abort-command whatever
> 
Thanks, that should let me change it to something possible.

> I'm curious about "can't easily send ESC".  Is it that:
> 
>       a) there is no ESC key, or
>       b) control/[ doesn't send that
>       c) the code is treated specially in some way
> 
There is no ESC key.

There is no Control key either.

The keyboard just has letters plus a few special keys (which don't send
characters at all).  Then there is a SYM key which pops up an on-screen
display where you can select symbols and numbers.

The only 'special' key is ALT, fortunately that does send ESC+char
sequences for some keys and I have discoverd that ALT+Del sends 0x1B
followed by 0x7F which works pretty well as ESC in vile.

-- 
Chris Green