Input method for character terminals

[Jiri Svoboda]

HelenOS can be controlled with a keyboard or using a character ('serial') terminal (TTY). Such terminals don't support more complex key combos (e.g. Ctrl-Shift-F1) and even some simple combos cannot be used for various reasons.

Currently there is no way to enter these combos on a character terminal, making it impossible to control applications such as Text Editor (Ctrl-S, Ctrl-Q) or CLUI-based apps (Bdsh, SBI : Ctrl-Q).

An input method needs to be implemented that would allow for standard control combos ([Ctrl-][Alt-][Shift-]key) to be entered. Simply we would reserve one control character for each of Ctrl, Alt, Shift and entering these characters would latch the corresponding modifier key. Entering another character would release the latched modifier key.