C-h with Emacs under XTerm

B

balanga

I'm trying to get to grips with Emacs using XTerm as my terminal and have found that in Emacs C-h invokes backspace. C-h does not do this with other programs under XTerm so it seems like an Emacs specific problem. C-h works fine with Emacs under LXTerminal.

Any ideas about how to resolve this problem
 
When you say "C-h" you mean you press control, then H? And when you say it "invokes backspace", you mean it runs the emacs function delete-backward-char? That's indeed weird.

Are you using any non-trivial emacs configuration? Go do your home directory, make sure there is no .emacs, .emacs.el files nor a .emacs.d directory there. You can tell emacs to do pretty much anything.

Usually I would say: Look up what function has been assigned to the C-h key, by doing "C-h k C-h", but that won't work if C-h has been reassigned. Instead, use "M-x describe-key C-h", and see what you get. Note that in the normal emacs configuration, C-h is a prefix key, so in either "C-h k C-h" or "M-x describe-key C-h" you will see it getting stuck after C-h.

It is also possible that all of your Xterm has been reconfigured so control H issues the delete key. I don't even remember how to configure Xterm, it's been so long since I've actively messed with X configurations. And when you say "LXterminal", I don't know what that is.
 
LXTerminal is a terminal emulator similar XFCE Terminal and it come bundled with LXDE, my preferred Window Manager.

C-h on Emacs is supposed to invoke help, and it does so under LXTerminal, but with XTerm it invokes backpace. Certain other keys don't behave as expected, but I'll try and sort those out later.

I've found that F1 will invoke help, so, pressing F1 k C-h sows that C-h is assigned to the DEL function.

A previous problem with Emacs under XTerm, ie being unable to use Alt was resolved using:-

xterm*metaSendsEscape: true
Click to expand...

in ~/.Xresources, so I guess I need something similar to assign C-h to the <help> function under XTerm, but not sure what.
 
VT100 defines Control-H as backspace. Ctrl-H sends character 0x08; Backspace. What is the TERM setting of LXTerminal? Compare it to Xterm.
 
balanga said:
LXTerminal is a terminal emulator similar XFCE Terminal and it come bundled with LXDE, my preferred Window Manager.

C-h on Emacs is supposed to invoke help, and it does so under LXTerminal, but with XTerm it invokes backpace. Certain other keys don't behave as expected, but I'll try and sort those out later.

I've found that F1 will invoke help, so, pressing F1 k C-h sows that C-h is assigned to the DEL function.

A previous problem with Emacs under XTerm, ie being unable to use Alt was resolved using:-



in ~/.Xresources, so I guess I need something similar to assign C-h to the <help> function under XTerm, but not sure what.
Click to expand...

Why do you need C-h to invoke help if you have F1?

FWIW in my Xterms C-h (the actual control-and-h key combo) invokes help.
 
I've only just discovered that I have menu options C-lmb and C-rmb on XTerm. Is there any way to open the menu and leave it open? I have two laptops and would like to compare XTerm settings. I see that my X1 has VT220 ticked, but it isn't ticked on my X61. C-h invokes backspace on both.

On LXTerminal I have TERM set to xterm-256color.
 
cracauer@ said:
Why do you need C-h to invoke help if you have F1?

FWIW in my Xterms C-h (the actual control-and-h key combo) invokes help.
Click to expand...

I've only just discovered that F1 invokes help, so it's not crucial anymore, but would be nice to fix it. There are also a few other keys that don't work as they should.
 
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