Given that use of termcap/terminfo seem to be beyond the scope of ksh (at least as of now), could there be a provision added for a command line edit plugin, not unlike the "builtin" command being used to load shared objects that add builtin commands? In addition to editing the current command line proper, it would have to provide suitable access to the command history.
That might allow the level of inline editing that might make some folks more comfortable, without making termcap/terminfo part of ksh proper. It might also allow LGPL code from elsewhere to provide plugins without licensing concerns. One thing I know I'd like such a plugin for is mapping of keyboard arrow keys. The vi editor can do it; I can kind of fake it using a KEYBD trap, playing around with .sh.edmode and .sh.edchar, and having previously initialized some variables for the function that handles the trap to use from commands like "tput kcuu1" and so on. But that's horrifically ugly, and I haven't been able to do that in a really quirkless manner. For users not comfortable with powerful editors, a plugin that behaved like DOS command line editing (including history access) would be nice; just arrow keys and insert toggle key and maybe ctrl-break/^C and one or two more (and of course return). Anyway, a framework for such plugins ought to put an end to requests for new command line editing functionality, insofar as it would provide a way to say "you want it, here's how you can add your own". This message posted from opensolaris.org
