Bug#921537: gnome-terminal: mouse wheel scrolling sends 6 key up / key down escape sequences (kcuu1 / kcud1) in alternate screen

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2019-02-08 15:21:00 +0100, Egmont Koblinger wrote:
> > Perhaps it should have generated scroll-backward (kR) and
> > scroll-forward (kF) keys, and provided a terminfo that defines
> > them. That way, this wouldn't mix up with the <up> and <down>
> > keys.
> 
> There would be no point in that either: if an application cares enough
> to handle kR and kF, it could just as easily handle mouse scroll
> events directly.

No, because handling mouse scroll events needs special support in
the application, while handling kR and kF just needs a small change
of configuration (basically, adding a key binding).

> Again, the point of this feature, which you disagree with, was to make
> it _automatic_ (even despite its drawbacks in some contexts) for apps
> that don't care enough.

Handling kR and kF can be automatic: just ask either upstream or
downstream to change the default configuration. This is easy to do,
and all users would benefit from this change, with no drawbacks.

> (And, on a totally irrelevant note, which has been discussed many
> times and I won't start over, gnome-terminal doesn't ship its separate
> terminfo but piggybacks xterm's.)

That is its own problem. But note that the xterm-based terminfo data
could also add such keys.

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