Ctrl-A conflicts w/ traditional shell "Home" behavior

Bug #776743 reported by Clint Byrum
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
byobu
Fix Released
Wishlist
Unassigned
byobu (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

As crazy as it may sound, many many users of unix/linux shells are very used to pressing Ctrl-A to get to the beginning of the line. Byobu just sort of sits there then maybe even does something weird like close the window when you hit Ctrl-A because it is waiting for the next keystroke as a traditional "screen" command.

Given that byobu has enabled many other ways to do what the ctrl-A keystroke does, it would make sense to have it re-assigned or off by default, and possibly display a notification when its pressed that it has been re-assigned to something else.

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

As sad as it makes me, I'm marking this bug "confirmed".

Such users as you mention, Clint, can get to the beginning of the by either:
 a) pressing the <HOME> key (one keystroke!)
 b) or by hitting ctrl-a-a
 c) or by modifying the escape key in byobu's configuration menu

In any case, I suppose we could improve this situation by adding a byobu-select-escape utility (along the lines of the select-editor utility) that runs the very first time you press ctrl-a.

This shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Changed in byobu:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Confirmed
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Changed in byobu:
status: Triaged → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

See commits 1347 and 1348.

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

Clint,

Can you please try the build in ppa:kirkland/ppa? Should be roughly byobu-3.35. Please check out the new behavior and let me know what you think.

Dustin

Changed in byobu:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Changed in byobu (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Committed
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package byobu - 4.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
byobu (4.0-0ubuntu1) oneiric; urgency=low

  * usr/bin/byobu-config, usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys,
    usr/share/byobu/keybindings/screen-escape-keys,
    usr/share/doc/byobu/help.txt, usr/bin/Makefile.am,
    usr/bin/byobu-ctrl-a: LP: #776743
    - use ctrl-^ as the default escape character
    - bind F12 to printing the escape character
    - adjust everything accordingly
  * usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys,
    usr/share/byobu/keybindings/screen-escape-keys: LP: #776743
    - the first time a user presses ctrl-a, prompt them with a choice
      as to their preference of behavior (emacs vs. screen)
    - preserve this choice
  * usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys: LP: #776740
    - improve alt-pgup / alt-pgdown
  * usr/share/byobu/profiles/common: LP: #776742
    - disable xterm/gnome-terminal's scrollback buffer
    - it seems we should be able to do this, at this point since byobu
      now has keybindings for alt-pgup and alt-pgdn
    - note that this commit does, however, revert the fix for an older bug
  * usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys:
    - fix regression in rename F8 functionality, use <home> key
  * usr/lib/byobu/.notify_osd, usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys,
    usr/share/byobu/profiles/common: LP: #776742, #776740
    - set msgwait and msginwait to both 0, to turn down the verbosity of
      screen's messaging, and speed up some byobu operations
    - improve scrollback (alt-pgup and alt-pgdn) by disabling screen's
      status message updates about 'copy mode', etc.
    - speed up the printscreen functionality
    - when running printscreen, open the result with the user's default
      viewer in a new window entitled PRINTSCREEN
  * usr/bin/byobu: LP: #777888
    - enable users to disable the title printing at launch (helpful for
      those launching byobu detached from cron, e.g.)
  * usr/share/byobu/tests/byobu-time-notifications:
    - fixup notification testing
  * usr/bin/byobu-status: minor performance improvement
  * usr/share/doc/byobu/help.txt: rearrange and update documentation
  * usr/bin/byobu-ctrl-a, usr/share/byobu/tests/byobu-time-
    notifications: update doc message
  * usr/bin/byobu-launch: LP: #780430, support a BYOBU_DISABLE environment
    variable, that ssh clients could export and globally disable launching
    byobu on ssh logins (note that this will require whitelisting that
    variable on the ssh client and server)
  * usr/share/byobu/profiles/common: fix printscreen screen exchange file
  * usr/share/byobu/keybindings/f-keys,
    usr/share/byobu/keybindings/screen-escape-keys:
    - simplify all calls to the screen escape key
  * usr/bin/byobu-quiet, usr/bin/byobu-status, usr/bin/Makefile.am,
    usr/share/byobu/profiles/common: LP: #780380
    - add a byobu-quiet utility, to silence eyecandy
  * usr/share/man/man1/byobu-ctrl-a.1, usr/share/man/man1/byobu-quiet.1,
    usr/share/man/man1/Makefile.am: document the new tools
  * usr/bin/byobu-config: ensure that escape key changing through byobu-config
    continues to work
 -- Dustin Kirkland <email address hidden> Tue, 03 May 2011 12:11:10 -0500

Changed in byobu (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Changed in byobu:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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