cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hi,

In the current cfdisk, when making a new partition in a free space,
the program prompts for the partition size, with a suggested value
already filled in and the cursor sitting at the end of that value.

If one tries to use the cursor-left key to edit the value, in a utf8
locale this produces the character Ą instead of a bell.  (The same
happens when cfdisk asks for the name of a script file.)

To reproduce:  # LC_ALL=en_US.utf8 ./cfdisk

Anyway, if the cursor keys would not produce weird characters,
and they can't be made to work normally (that is: to go left and
right), then the only way to change the suggested value is to use
the Backspace key.  This is awkward.  The older cfdisk, when it
prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
Could that be restored?


Also, upon startup the old cfdisk would put the cursor on the
menu item "Quit", showing the user the most important thing
right at the start: how to get out.  This is extra useful when
cfdisk is localized to another language where the word for quit
doesn't start with a Q.  Could this initial menu-item selection
be restored?


Something quite different: the man page of cfdisk says that it
is possible to load an sfdisk-compatible script into cfdisk.
But how?


Benno

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Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Karel Zak]

On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> To reproduce:  # LC_ALL=en_US.utf8 ./cfdisk
> 
> Anyway, if the cursor keys would not produce weird characters,
> and they can't be made to work normally (that is: to go left and
> right), then the only way to change the suggested value is to use
> the Backspace key.  This is awkward.  The older cfdisk, when it

 "Fixed" .. I just disable some keys (like left, right...).

> prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
> of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
> would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
> Could that be restored?

 It would be better to implement full one line editor with support for
 all basic keys and with ability to insert and erase chars on
 arbitrary position with in the string... v2.27 :-)

> Also, upon startup the old cfdisk would put the cursor on the
> menu item "Quit", showing the user the most important thing
> right at the start: how to get out.  This is extra useful when
> cfdisk is localized to another language where the word for quit
> doesn't start with a Q.  Could this initial menu-item selection
> be restored?

 Fixed.

> Something quite different: the man page of cfdisk says that it
> is possible to load an sfdisk-compatible script into cfdisk.
> But how?

 "cfdisk --zero" asks for new disk label or for the script.

    Karel


-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Peter Cordes]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 01:11:26PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > [...cfdisk...]
> > prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
> > of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
> > would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
> > Could that be restored?
> 
>  It would be better to implement full one line editor with support for
>  all basic keys and with ability to insert and erase chars on
>  arbitrary position with in the string... v2.27 :-)

 Maybe link with GNU readline, to avoid reinventing the wheel.


-- 
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ;  e-mail: X(peter@cor , des.ca)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
 Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
 my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Karel Zak]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 08:29:23AM -0400, Peter Cordes wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 01:11:26PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > > [...cfdisk...]
> > > prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
> > > of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
> > > would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
> > > Could that be restored?
> > 
> >  It would be better to implement full one line editor with support for
> >  all basic keys and with ability to insert and erase chars on
> >  arbitrary position with in the string... v2.27 :-)
> 
>  Maybe link with GNU readline, to avoid reinventing the wheel.

yep, and maybe for all fdisks, but it would be probably nice to have
it optional (--with-readline), and without readline keep it simple and
stupid.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Ingo Brückl]

Karel Zak wrote on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 13:37:36 +0100:

> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 08:29:23AM -0400, Peter Cordes wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 01:11:26PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
>> > On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
>> > > [...cfdisk...]
>> > > prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
>> > > of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
>> > > would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
>> > > Could that be restored?
>> >
>> >  It would be better to implement full one line editor with support for
>> >  all basic keys and with ability to insert and erase chars on
>> >  arbitrary position with in the string... v2.27 :-)
>>
>>  Maybe link with GNU readline, to avoid reinventing the wheel.

> yep, and maybe for all fdisks, but it would be probably nice to have
> it optional (--with-readline), [...]

Absolutely!

Ingo

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Peter Cordes]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 01:37:36PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 08:29:23AM -0400, Peter Cordes wrote:
> >
> >  Maybe link with GNU readline, to avoid reinventing the wheel.
> 
> yep, and maybe for all fdisks, but it would be probably nice to have
> it optional (--with-readline), and without readline keep it simple and
> stupid.

 Yeah, I think that's the behaviour I've seen from other packages.
When built without readline, they just leave the tty in cooked mode,
so a line of input becomes read(2)able when the user presses return.

 I guess cfdisk already has an arrow-key driven UI, so the wrapper
for readline (that compiles to a fallback #ifndef HAVE_READLINE) would
have to put the tty in/out of cooked mode.

-- 
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ;  e-mail: X(peter@cor , des.ca)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
 Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
 my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Benno Schulenberg]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2015, at 13:11, Karel Zak wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> > Anyway, if the cursor keys would not produce weird characters,
> > and they can't be made to work normally (that is: to go left and
> > right), then the only way to change the suggested value is to use
> > the Backspace key.  This is awkward.  The older cfdisk, when it
> 
>  "Fixed" .. I just disable some keys (like left, right...).

Thanks.

You forgot a few "Reported-by:" tags, though.

> > Also, upon startup the old cfdisk would put the cursor on the
> > menu item "Quit", showing the user the most important thing
> > right at the start: how to get out.  This is extra useful when
> > cfdisk is localized to another language where the word for quit
> > doesn't start with a Q.  Could this initial menu-item selection
> > be restored?
> 
>  Fixed.

Nice.  However... when the cursor is moved to a free space, it
would be nice if then automatically the New menu item gets
selected.

Benno

-- 
http://www.fastmail.com - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Karel Zak]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 09:42:29PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
> You forgot a few "Reported-by:" tags, though.

 Sorry.

> > > Also, upon startup the old cfdisk would put the cursor on the
> > > menu item "Quit", showing the user the most important thing
> > > right at the start: how to get out.  This is extra useful when
> > > cfdisk is localized to another language where the word for quit
> > > doesn't start with a Q.  Could this initial menu-item selection
> > > be restored?
> > 
> >  Fixed.
> 
> Nice.  However... when the cursor is moved to a free space, it
> would be nice if then automatically the New menu item gets
> selected.

 Fixed, now there is "preferred key" for each menu, "New" for free
 space and "Quit" for the rest.

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@redhat.com>
 http://karelzak.blogspot.com

Re: cfdisk's input fields behave awkwardly (in utf8 locale)

[Ondrej Oprala]

On 02/02/2015 01:37 PM, Karel Zak wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 08:29:23AM -0400, Peter Cordes wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 02, 2015 at 01:11:26PM +0100, Karel Zak wrote:
>>> On Sun, Feb 01, 2015 at 03:02:06PM +0100, Benno Schulenberg wrote:
>>>> [...cfdisk...]
>>>> prompted for a partition size, would put the cursor at the start
>>>> of the suggested value, and hitting any other key than Enter
>>>> would erase this value. That is nice and desirable behaviour.
>>>> Could that be restored?
>>>   It would be better to implement full one line editor with support for
>>>   all basic keys and with ability to insert and erase chars on
>>>   arbitrary position with in the string... v2.27 :-)
>>   Maybe link with GNU readline, to avoid reinventing the wheel.
> yep, and maybe for all fdisks, but it would be probably nice to have
> it optional (--with-readline), and without readline keep it simple and
> stupid.
>
>      Karel
>
Working on it,
got {s,}fdisk already readline-d

Cheers,
Ondrej