VT220 Function Keys

[Mark Priester]

My apologies for being a little off topic... (yes there's a but) ;)

but...

A couple of weeks ago I saw a thread on the topic of AIX vt200 function
key definition. I am using a package that needs to have F5 defined.
The other non-shifted function keys F1-F4,F6-F12 work fine. What do
I need to do to fire up F5?

Thanks in advance,

Mark Priester

[Ronald S. Woan]

Find out what your terminal is sending (traditionally F5 has actually
been the backspace key, at least while at Cal on our VT220 and
vt320s). Then hack the terminfo file /usr/lib/terminfo/dec.ti to add
the F5 key with your string and run tic on it. Magically F5 will start
working.
--
+------All Views Expressed Are My Own And Not Necessarily Shared By IBM-----+
+ Ronald S. Woan (IBM VNET)WOAN AT AUSTIN, wo...@exeter.austin.ibm.com +
+ outside of IBM wo...@austin.ibm.com or Compuserve: 73530,2537 +
+ URL: http://cactus.org/~woan/ +

[Robert E. Bratton]

Mark:

I have a similar need. I've tried several VT emulators, VT-100 to VT-320; both
PC software and actual terminals. It may help to find out what the escape
sequence for F5 is and type it manually.

Rob Bratton
Compucom

In article <priesterD...@netcom.com>

Mark Priester <prie...@netcom.com> wrote:
> A couple of weeks ago I saw a thread on the topic of AIX vt200 function
> key definition. I am using a package that needs to have F5 defined.
> The other non-shifted function keys F1-F4,F6-F12 work fine. What do
> I need to do to fire up F5?
>

> Mark Priester

[James Carlson]

In article <DBKDD...@austin.ibm.com>, wo...@exeter.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S. Woan) writes:
|>
|> Find out what your terminal is sending (traditionally F5 has actually
|> been the backspace key, at least while at Cal on our VT220 and
|> vt320s). Then hack the terminfo file /usr/lib/terminfo/dec.ti to add
|> the F5 key with your string and run tic on it. Magically F5 will start
|> working.

There is no sequence for F5 on a real VT220 or VT320. On a real VT220
or VT320, F1 through F5 are what are known as "local function keys."
That is, they perform local functions on the terminal and send no data
to the host.

F1 is the hold key, F3 brings up menus, and F5 sets a "break" condition.
Note that "break" isn't a character, it's a type of asynchronous
protocol violation, so there's no way to program it into terminfo or any
other character-based system.

Some communications packages, though, do have special commands for
sending a "break" line condition across.

(On an xterm "emulating" VT102, F1 through F5 are "ESC [ 1 1 ~" through
"ESC [ 1 5 ~", but these are highly non-standard.)

--
James Carlson <car...@xylogics.com> Tel: +1 617 272 8140
Annex Software Support / Xylogics, Inc. +1 800 225 3317
53 Third Avenue / Burlington MA 01803-4491 Fax: +1 617 272 2618