several defects and enhacement-wishes

[samo]

[sorry if this doesnot appear at correct thread/place, i was using 
digests]
(to Yves-Alexis Perez / Message-ID: 1160122474.8303.20.camel at hidalgo)

> This repository is deprecated (and may be taken down at any
> moment). There is a replacement but outdated, as 4.3.99.1 is in
> unstable. There is no support (from Debian Xfce team) on those
> packages, and they may be broken at any time.
> Just a warning :)
that's ok, i could do with compiling.., 
before downscrewing (ubuntu-edgy is 4.3.90.*), let me ask - 
do u suggest svn-head? or some specific label/tag? or i can pick a 
debian 4.3.99.last from somewhere?

> >  + terminal: no way to move by keyboard between the "tabs"
> > (general, appearance, colors,...). btw why not make them normal
> > tabs - or let them behave as such. Ctrl-tab is a good default.
>
> Here I can do that with Control Home/End (which are default
> shortcuts iirc). You can edit those shortcut using
> Preferences/Shortcut
ok, sorry, my omission, not the tabs as sub-consoles, but the "tabs" 
in the terminal settings menu. There is a vertical column of icons 
which when clicked, behave like tabs in a tabbed dialog. So 
that "likeliness" should be full - with keyboard too. 
And as i said switching such tabs should have a normal shortcut 
everywhere - e.g. ctrl-tab - instead of trying to focus the tab-title 
then use arrows...

> >  + window-manager: need keyboard shortcut for opening the
> > window-menu, (one which is opened by mouse-right-click on
> > window-heading, or by the icon-buton there.)
> >    alt-space is a good default comnbination.
> >    this will free (for me) all the
> > move/resize/whatever-window-related shorcuts
>
> You can use xfce4-popup-menu if you have a panel plugin menu.
umm, no, not the desktop-menu (apps etc), but the window-menu - 
maximize, minimize, hide, sticky, send-to-workspace... 

> >  - window-manager: keyboard shortcuts cannot be edited by
> > keyboard alone - e.g. Enter or Space opens the sub-dialog but
> > immediately closes it, auto-assigning the key (Enter or space)
>
> Here it works. Using keyboard I select "add", then i type the
> command, then return, then i only have to type the shortcut to
> assign it. What is the problem ?
i talk about settings:: window-manager:: keyboard settings. Add there 
adds a new theme AFAIunderstand.. no way to delete assignment either.
And another thing there - are the table/panel sizes fixed in the code 
or what? e.g. i never see the right column of that 
shortcut-assignment table, only the left one.

> >  - sometimes switching between desktops loses last focused window
> > - focus goes nowhere - even if there is only 1 window. Has to use
> > alt-tab to get back some focus. Actualy it is not nowhere, as
> > pressing alt-f4 offers me quit/reboot/... closing the session. i
> > just found it - when focus is on the desktop of one virtual
> > desktop, switching virt.desktops does not restore (or just loses)
> > their focuses. This is very dangerous as whatever u press goes to
> > the desktop (e.g. delete will delete some shortcut)
>
> I guess that's depends if you have the "focus follow mouse"
> activated or not ?
no, my focus never follows mouse. Also, above thing happens too if i 
send some window to another workspace; then at switching back into 
the old workspace, the focus is nowhere (or maybe at the desktop?) 
doesnot matter if switching is by keyboard or by, say, clicking the 
pager-in-the-panel..

> >  - no keyboard-shortcut for quit / popup logout/shutdown/.. menu.
> >    now i am using desktop-menu (which is mappable, e.g.
> >    ctrl-esc->show-panel) and quit from there
>
> Just add a shortcut to xfce4-session-logout.
ok. i think this executable was present before at some 4.old, then at 
some point it disappeared, so i didn't try it.

> > -+ resizing windows with keyboard - resize mode is entered by any
> > of the shortcuts, but after that only normal arrows work. or
> > actualy the arrows/keys that are used for moving.
> >    this might be an idea - it works this way now anyway - just 2
> >    keys to enter move/resize, then usual arrows after that,
> > instead of than having 8 shortcuts lost.
>
> ???
a) the idea is: having 2 shortcuts to enter window-resize or window- 
move, then do the resize/move by the ordinary movement arrows - so no 
need for 8 shortcuts. 
nevermind, this is just idea - a shortcut for opening the 
window-control-menu would do much better.
b) the context of the "wrong" behavior reported above was: i have 
assigned ctrl+keypad arrows to move a window, and shift+keypad-arrows 
to resize it... but they worked like a), just entering the 
resize/move mode, then i have to use the normal arrows to finish the 
task. BUT, now i cannot reproduce it anymore. gone.

> >  - xfmixer/alsa: recording-level sliders are always reset
> > immediately after any adjustment. so i have to use the text-mode
> > alsa-mixer.
> Is the correct device selected ?
i guess so, only the recording sliders do trouble, the rest is ok.

> >  - session-manager: never got it to save a session right. i want
> > to just 3 simple items - Terminal, kmail and opera (or mozilla),
> > each one on separate virt.desktop. i got all sorts of contents of
> > the session cache-file - the terminal being Legacy-app, terminal
> > missing, opera not available, kmail available and started but
> > without a window, kmail missing, etc, etc. After long tweaking of
> > them session-cache files i got it half working - but this is not
> > acceptable. i guess i have chosen some incompatible trio, so
> > what...
>
> I don't know about kmail and opera, maybe there are just not
> session-capable. Here Terminal (xfce4-terminal package) is restored
> on the correct desktop at login. Tuning the session cache file
> won't help if you save your session at logout, though.
seems this trio - or quatro - has 4 different (mutualy incompatible?) 
ways to save session settings - e.g. mozilla digs them from somewhere 
else, not from session-manager etc. The overall save-session 
behaviour is very strange with these, getting one of these to start 
correctly prevents some other from starting and such funny stuff. 
Of course Tuning the session cache file is done without re-saveing 
session again... NOT that i wanted to tune it.
Ok, devilspie then...

> > -+ Terminal: i cannot get ctrl-tab and ctrl-home/ctrl-end reach
> > the shell inside, in some way distinguishable from usual
> > tab/home/end.
>
> Iirc, ctrl+home/end goes to prev/next tab.
umm no. i have ctrl-page-up/down on these (u mean tabs as 
subconsoles, right?) so ctrl-home/end are not taken by anyone (and 
mapped by anyone). still they come inside as plain home/end: ^[OH / 
^[OF. Same for the ctrl-tab.

> >    Any X-resource or similar thing i am missing? libvte doesnt
> > seems to care... (yes my shell understands/uses all the keyboard
> > via lots of mappings - imagine 4dos' full control over keyboard -
> > we are not in 1970's). btw it is ok in xterm.
>
> What Xresources are you trying to set ?
well, e.g. for xterm:
xterm*translations: #override          \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Tab:      string("\033[T")   \n\
 Shift<Key>Tab:     string("\033[t")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Up:       string("\033[a")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Down:     string("\033[b")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Left:     string("\033[d")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Right:    string("\033[c")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Home:     string("\033[h")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>End:      string("\033[e")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Prior:    string("\033[p")   \n\
 Ctrl<Key>Next:     string("\033[n")
and then binding the above escapes in bash/tcsh to whatever u want.
Current xterm bindings are sane enough, but ctrl-arrows/home/pgup, 
ctrl-tab and similar are not mapped at all so i add these.
Are there similar X-level mappings for Terminal/libvte?
i also tried to add similar mapping in the .gtkrc2 file, but either 
did not guess the syntax, or the widget class (*VteTerminal*), or it 
is not doable this way.
libvte does map a lot of keys to something, but not these 3.

Ah YES, another thing - switching to cyrrillic alphabet keyboard-mode 
(which is nothing that complex), ctrl-letters become just letters, 
i.e. ctrl-Z comes as Z. This happens only in xfce-terminal too (have 
not tried gnome-term or others vte-based).


ciao
samo