Ctrl+t works in console; doesn't work in terminal emulator

[Weiwu Zhang]

This is a strange problem. Using Ubuntu 20.04

If I switch to a console with Ctrl+Alt+F3, launch alpine, I can use Ctrl+t
for selecting roles or browse for attachment in compose window.

If I launch alpine in a terminal emulator such as rxvt or Konsole, when
prompted, Ctrl+t causes the cursor to flash and nothing else happens. It's
now impossible to select Role in a terminal emulator or select a file to
attach to a new email.

The session is using Xorg, not Wayland. Also, /usr/bin/showkey shows that
commandline applications can receive Ctrl+t shortcut key, not intercepted
by the terminal emulator. Furthermore, none of the other applications that
makes heavy use of Ctrl, such as Bash and Emacs, are affected by this
problem.

One plausible explanation is that Ctrl+t is incorrectly interpreted as
TAB. But /usr/bin/showkey (run under X) can tell it is not. The following
output is when I pressed Ctrl+t.

# /usr/bin/showkey
[sudo] password for vnaeli:
kb mode was ?UNKNOWN?
[ if you are trying this under X, it might not work
since the X server is also reading /dev/console ]

press any key (program terminates 10s after last keypress)...
keycode 28 release
keycode 29 press
keycode 29 press
keycode 29 press
keycode 29 press
keycode 20 press
keycode 20 release
keycode 29 release
keycode 29 press


(Note that 29 is Ctrl and 20 is t)


Thanks

[Eduardo Chappa]

On Fri, 21 May 2021, Weiwu Zhang wrote:

> This is a strange problem. Using Ubuntu 20.04
>
> If I switch to a console with Ctrl+Alt+F3, launch alpine, I can use Ctrl+t
> for selecting roles or browse for attachment in compose window.
>
> If I launch alpine in a terminal emulator such as rxvt or Konsole, when
> prompted, Ctrl+t causes the cursor to flash and nothing else happens. It's
> now impossible to select Role in a terminal emulator or select a file to
> attach to a new email.

I am running Opensuse 15.2, and tried using Ctrl-T on konsole and urxvt,
and it worked in both instances.

Alpine has an internal way to produce control characters. You need to
press the ESC key twice, followed by the control letter you want, in this
case, you would press "ESC ESC t"

I hope this helps.

--
Eduardo
https://tinyurl.com/yc377wlh (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

[Weiwu Zhang]

On Thu, 20 May 2021, Eduardo Chappa wrote:

> I am running Opensuse 15.2, and tried using Ctrl-T on konsole and urxvt, and
> it worked in both instances.

Okay I am using Plasma (a Ubuntu based KDE distribution). It didn't work
on konsole.

> Alpine has an internal way to produce control characters. You need to press
> the ESC key twice, followed by the control letter you want, in this case, you
> would press "ESC ESC t"

That worked! Thank you.