Tip: #1129 - Get Alt key to work in terminal
Created: February 12, 2006 9:37 Complexity: basic Author: Matt Zyzik Version: 5.7 Karma: 35/10 Imported from: Tip#1129
xterm, by default, sets eightBitInput to true, meaning that the eighth bit is set for metacharacters (combinations with the Alt key, for instance). Not all terminals have this feature enabled by default, and therefore work differently (they send an ESC before the character key).
So for the xterm, with enables the eight bit, you can just do something like, map <m-a> ggVG
However, with the terminal that's in 7 bit mode, you have to do this:
set <m-a> = ^[a
map <m-a> ggVG
"the ^[ is an ESC char that comes before the 'a'
My tip is to just set all terminals to work in 8 bit mode.
Here are two examples:
Eterm -8
rxvt --meta8
Comments
Also, these are the settings I use in my /etc/inputrc:
set meta-flag on set input-meta on set convert-meta on set output-meta on
These are so that alt keys like <m-b>, <m-f>, <m-d> will work well in shell.
Matt Zyzik , February 13, 2006 8:16
See also my tip
VimTip738 "fix META-keys on Unix terminals"
Yakov Lerner <iler.ml--AT--gmail.com>
, August 16, 2006 13:27