Thread: Meta Key

Is it possible to detect a key combination such as Ctrl+; ?

Isn't the point of ncurses to provide functionality independent of the terminal, not just VT100? Shouln't it have some universal way of telling whether the key had a Ctrl or Alt modifier?

Originally Posted by MTK

Isn't the point of ncurses to provide functionality independent of the terminal, not just VT100? Shouln't it have some universal way of telling whether the key had a Ctrl or Alt modifier?

The answer to the first question is no, since ncurses runs in the terminal, which is a VT100 emulator. This is why I said this is a hardware issue. Eg, if your display is only capable of 8 colors, neither ncurses nor anything else will give you 16, there is no point in looking fro such a possibility.

As for the second question, I am a little confused, since the previous keycode experiments do demonstrate a difference -- for example, any combo involving the alt/meta key begins with the ESC character, ascii 27. That is not the case with ctrl.

Ctrl appears to just modify the value of the primary character*, eg, b is 98, alt b is 27-98, ctrl-b is 2, alt-ctrl-b is 27-2.

* because of that, I would go with alt combinations not ctrl, since these could create conflicts -- eg, the ctrl-j problem; I also notice ctrl-i is the same as tab (surprise surprise).

I kinda figured out a good layout that goes around those keys, I will see how that goes.