mlterm blocking Alt+I in vim-latex-suite

[zhengquan]

Dear vim users:
I found that using Alt-I to insert an \item does not work in mlterm.
xterm is ok. I wonder some mlterm features are blocking the alt-I
combo.

Thanks for any pointers and Happy new year.

Zhang

[Tony Mechelynck]

Alt-I is not a standard Vim binding. You might try to see how it is
defined and by what:

:verbose map <M-I>
:verbose map! <M-I>

(both with and without the exclamation mark, and while editing the file
where you expected to use the Alt-I combo, not while looking at the
help). Then you may remap the same {rhs} to a different {lhs} which Vim
is more likely to see in all terminals, e.g. F7 which is about
vertically above the I on a QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY keyboard.

Or you can even take advantage of the fact that mappings defined without
"nore-" will reinterpret their {rhs} for further mappings:

:map <F7> <M-I>
:map! <F7> <M-I>

(Some terminals and some window managers don't pass all key combos to
programs running in them. Also, Alt-letter combinations are usually
mapped to menus, and your mlterm might just have a menu starting in I.)

Best regards,
Tony.
--
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
-- Senator Soaper

[zhengquan]

Thanks Tony,
the output of the two verbose commands shows no mappings. It is quite
possible that the mlterm does not pass the alt-i combo to vim... I am
wondering how to make alt-i passable to vim in mlterm.

Regards,
Zhang


On Jan 2, 1:26 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Tony Mechelynck]

On 02/01/09 23:05, zhengquan wrote:
> Thanks Tony,
> the output of the two verbose commands shows no mappings.

You did issue them with your latex file current didn't you?

What are you hoping that this Alt-I should do?

> It is quite
> possible that the mlterm does not pass the alt-i combo to vim... I am
> wondering how to make alt-i passable to vim in mlterm.

As I said, if I were you I'd use a different key. You can even map F7
(or anything that Vim does see) to Alt-I and from then on when you hit
F7 Vim will interpret it as Alt-I.

Note that Vim cannot distinguish Alt-i from é (small-e-acute), or Alt-I
(Alt-Shift-i) from É (capital-E-acute). If you can type é (e.g. as e2 in
pinyin), Vim will see it as synonymous to Alt-i. This also means that
you should not map Alt-i in Insert mode if you want to be able to type
e-acute into your text.

>
> Regards,
> Zhang

Best regards,
Tony.
--
Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.

[zhengquan]

On Jan 2, 4:32 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 02/01/09 23:05, zhengquan wrote:
>
> > Thanks Tony,
> > the output of the two verbose commands shows no mappings.
>
> You did issue them with your latex file current didn't you?
>
> What are you hoping that this Alt-I should do?

yes I did issue the commands with my latex file, and the output show
no mappings.
I am hoping that in an itemize environment, when I type alt-i in the
environment, it will automatically insert a \item

\begin
{itemize}
\item (\item is inserted as the result of alt-
i)

\end{itemize}

>
> > It is quite
> > possible that the mlterm does not pass the alt-i combo to vim... I am
> > wondering how to make alt-i passable to vim in mlterm.
>
> As I said, if I were you I'd use a different key. You can even map F7
> (or anything that Vim does see) to Alt-I and from then on when you hit
> F7 Vim will interpret it as Alt-I.

I know this a workaround but I would like to pass alt-i to vim in
mlterm. what I am doing now is that I am switching to some tasks to
xterm. but the support for multibyte characters of xterm is feeble.

>
> Note that Vim cannot distinguish Alt-i from é (small-e-acute), or Alt-I
> (Alt-Shift-i) from É (capital-E-acute). If you can type é (e.g. as e2 in
> pinyin), Vim will see it as synonymous to Alt-i. This also means that

this is confusing me because if I type alt-i in under mlterm with my
latex file, it will be a small-e-acute.
but if I use xterm, it will insert a correct \item. So this makes me
feel that the problem is with mlterm. It seems like an off topic issue
now...

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Zhang

[zhengquan]

On Jan 2, 4:32 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 02/01/09 23:05, zhengquan wrote:
>
> > Thanks Tony,
> > the output of the two verbose commands shows no mappings.
>
> You did issue them with your latex file current didn't you?
>
> What are you hoping that this Alt-I should do?

yes I did issue the commands with my latex file, and the output show
no mappings.
I am hoping that in an itemize environment, when I type alt-i in the
environment, it will automatically insert a \item

\begin
{itemize}
\item (\item is inserted as the result of alt-
i)

\end{itemize}

>

> > It is quite
> > possible that the mlterm does not pass the alt-i combo to vim... I am
> > wondering how to make alt-i passable to vim in mlterm.
>
> As I said, if I were you I'd use a different key. You can even map F7
> (or anything that Vim does see) to Alt-I and from then on when you hit
> F7 Vim will interpret it as Alt-I.

I know this a workaround but I would like to pass alt-i to vim in
mlterm. what I am doing now is that I am switching to some tasks to
xterm. but the support for multibyte characters of xterm is feeble.

>

> Note that Vim cannot distinguish Alt-i from é (small-e-acute), or Alt-I
> (Alt-Shift-i) from É (capital-E-acute). If you can type é (e.g. as e2 in
> pinyin), Vim will see it as synonymous to Alt-i. This also means that

this is confusing me because if I type alt-i in under mlterm with my
latex file, it will be a small-e-acute.
but if I use xterm, it will insert a correct \item. So this makes me
feel that the problem is with mlterm. It seems like an off topic issue
now...

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Zhang

[Charles E. Campbell, Jr.]

zhengquan wrote:
>
> On Jan 2, 4:32 pm, Tony Mechelynck <antoine.mechely...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 02/01/09 23:05, zhengquan wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Thanks Tony,
>>> the output of the two verbose commands shows no mappings.
>>>
>> You did issue them with your latex file current didn't you?
>>
>> What are you hoping that this Alt-I should do?
>>
>
> yes I did issue the commands with my latex file, and the output show
> no mappings.
> I am hoping that in an itemize environment, when I type alt-i in the
> environment, it will automatically insert a \item
>
> \begin
> {itemize}
> \item (\item is inserted as the result of alt-
> i)
>
> \end{itemize}
>

I suggest that you find out what's being delivered to vim when you press
Alt-i. What is being delivered is

a) likely to be different between vim and gvim
b) likely not to be what vim/gvim thinks <m-i> is

I constructed the following two maps by pressing ctrl-v and then alt-i
after typing "nmap ". They "work for me"; that's not to say that the
email won't mutilate it nor that your terminal interface will deliver
the same thing in vim's case.

if has("gui_running")
nmap é :echo "gvim's alt-i"<cr>
else
nmap i :echo "vim's alt-i"<cr>
endif

Of course, you can modify the maps' payload to suit your needs.

Regards,
Chip Campbell

[zhengquan]

Hi Charles, I think we are close to the solution to the problem.

On Jan 2, 7:12 pm, "Charles E. Campbell, Jr."

I copied this code snippet to my .vimrc and tried in mlterm, but alt-i
still inserts a small e acute... in gvim alt-i inserts correctly,
Could you tell how can I debug the mappings?

Thank you very much, I am pretty headstrong and don't want to use
another mapping for the insertion.

Zhang

[Tony Mechelynck]

On 12/01/09 03:28, zhengquan wrote:
> Hi Charles, I think we are close to the solution to the problem.
>
> On Jan 2, 7:12 pm, "Charles E. Campbell, Jr."
> <drc...@campbellfamily.biz> wrote:

[...]

>> I constructed the following two maps by pressing ctrl-v and then alt-i
>> after typing "nmap ". They "work for me"; that's not to say that the
>> email won't mutilate it nor that your terminal interface will deliver
>> the same thing in vim's case.
>>
>> if has("gui_running")
>> nmap é :echo "gvim's alt-i"<cr>
>> else
>> nmap i :echo "vim's alt-i"<cr>
>> endif
>>
> I copied this code snippet to my .vimrc and tried in mlterm, but alt-i
> still inserts a small e acute... in gvim alt-i inserts correctly,
> Could you tell how can I debug the mappings?
>
> Thank you very much, I am pretty headstrong and don't want to use
> another mapping for the insertion.
>
> Zhang

Small e-acute is the value internally used by Vim to represent Alt-i.
If, without any mappings, Ctrl-V Alt-i inserts the same é for you on
both gvim and Console Vim, it means it is recognized correctly.

You could try

:nmap <M-i> :echo 'Alt-i'<CR>

If it works (in Normal mode), Vim sees alt-i correctly. However, it is
never able to distinguish between Alt-i and small-é-acute, which means
you should avoid using Alt-i for an Insert-mode {lhs} if you use
languages like French, Spanish or Hungarian (all of which make heavy use
of that letter), Chinese pinyin with tone marks, or even the English
language with loanwords like /risqué jokes/ or /rosé wine/.

I notice (by the Ctrl-V prefix trick) that on my system, Alt-i generates
Esc i in Console Vim in both the KDE konsole and the Linux terminal. So
I might use

:if has('gui_running')
: nmap <M-i> :echo "gvim's Alt-i"<CR>
:else
: nmap <Esc>i :echo "vim's Alt-i"<CR>
:endif
or even
:nmap <M-i> :echo "gvim's Alt-i"<CR>
:nmap <Esc>i :echo "vim's Alt-i"<CR>

for a test similar to Dr. Chip's.

Best regards,
Tony.
--
No letters of the alphabet were harmed in the creation of this message.