Bug 10159 – "Longpress special character" breaks console applications in X Terminal

Bug 10159 - (int-168571) "Longpress special character" breaks console applications in X Terminal

(int-168571)
Summary:	"Longpress special character" breaks console applications in X Terminal

Status:	RESOLVED WONTFIX

Product:	Utilities
Component:	X Terminal
Version:	5.0:(10.2010.19-1)
Platform:	All Maemo

Importance:	Unspecified normal with 4 votes (vote)
Target Milestone:	---
Assigned To:	unassigned
QA Contact:	osso-xterm-bugs

URL:
Keywords:

Depends on:
Blocks:
	Show dependency tree

Reported:	2010-05-12 12:42 UTC by Thomas Perl
Modified:	2010-07-09 10:25 UTC (History)
CC List:	6 users (show)

See Also:

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Description Thomas Perl (reporter) 2010-05-12 12:42:28 UTC

SOFTWARE VERSION:
Maemo Version: 10.2010.12-9
osso-xterm: 0.14.mh30+0m5

EXACT STEPS LEADING TO PROBLEM: 
1. Use X Terminal and open vi/vim
2. Add some lines of text
3. Press "gg" to go to the top
4. Press and hold "j" to go down

EXPECTED OUTCOME:
Key is repeated

ACTUAL OUTCOME:
Due to the new input method of giving the blue character when longpressing a
key, the keys sent are: "j", backspace, ")" (on an English keyboard).

REPRODUCIBILITY:
always

OTHER COMMENTS:

It would be nice if this "longpress" feature could be disabled for X Terminal
(or globally, if it cannot be disabled on a per-application basis).

As a user of vim and mutt, I longpress normal characters (especially h, j, k
and l) a lot, resulting in wrong or even buggy behaviour, as different keycodes
are sent and the feature is "emulated" in X terminal by sending a backspace
character in between, leading to even more problems.

Oh, and even though this problem is in the "leaked" PR1.2 release, I assume
it's not going to be fixed for the final PR1.2 release, that's why I'm
reporting it now.

Comment 1 Lucas Maneos 2010-05-13 10:30:20 UTC

(In reply to comment #0)
> It would be nice if this "longpress" feature could be disabled for X Terminal
> (or globally, if it cannot be disabled on a per-application basis).

Workaround from bug 5421 comment 26:

gconftool-2 -s /apps/osso/inputmethod/ext_kb_repeat_enabled --type boolean true

It'd be nice to know if that works.

Comment 2 Thomas Perl (reporter) 2010-05-14 23:33:36 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> Workaround from bug 5421 comment 26:
> 
> gconftool-2 -s /apps/osso/inputmethod/ext_kb_repeat_enabled --type boolean true
> 
> It'd be nice to know if that works.

Yes, this works - thanks! I've created a Desktop widget "repeatswitcher" that
toggles this on and off with a single click - that might be enough for the
normal user, so if you want, you can close this as WONTFIX with the workaround
being either gconftool-2 in X Terminal or via the Desktop widget.

Comment 3 Thomas Perl (reporter) 2010-05-26 11:35:21 UTC

For all those who experience this issue now that PR1.2 is out (and who might
search for and find this bug report), here are two packages that you can use to
switch between the two modes:

http://maemo.org/packages/view/repeatswitcher/
http://maemo.org/packages/view/repeatswitcherstatus/

The first is a Desktop widget and the second is the same, but appearing in the
status bar. Any discussion about these widgets/applets should not be placed
here, but in the talk.maemo.org forums:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=52694

Comment 4 Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh 2010-05-27 22:47:23 UTC

Bug contradicts with https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5421 which was
fixed in PR1.2.
Using Thomas Perl's widget 'fixes' the problem.
I doubt a fix will be reversed, so closing as WONTFIX

Comment 5 Vincent Lefevre 2010-07-09 10:17:21 UTC

I think this bug should be reopened, even though there's a workaround.
Auto-repeat is a standard feature implemented on every computer (including on
the N810), while long-press to get a blue character is awkward and doesn't even
work everywhere (as it is implemented). Nokia could still provide an option,
without requiring the user to type something in the terminal or install a
3rd-party package.

Comment 6 Vincent Lefevre 2010-07-09 10:25:40 UTC

BTW, for the more general auto-repeat feature, I opened bug 10896 (auto-repeat
is also useful in other applications).