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Subject: bug#80090: 31.0.50; [PATCH] Meta not working on GNUstep
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I have a pretty standard PC keyboard and stock GNUstep installation in
the SYSTEM domain (Debian packages; no special NSGlobalDomain defaults
wrt keys) but the <Meta> key is not working.

It has always been mapped to the left Alt and it's impossible to
override finger memory.  If I press M-x (that is, Left Alt + x), I
get

user-error: The mark is not set now, so there is no region

If I press Super, which is what appears to be set in src/nsterm.m, I
get

H-<help> is undefined
H-x is undefined

<ESC> as <Meta> works but I don't want to resort to that.

In case it matters, the contents of my /etc/default/keyboard is:

| XKBMODEL="pc104"
| XKBLAYOUT="us,bg"
| XKBVARIANT=",phonetic"
| XKBOPTIONS="grp:toggle,grp_led:scroll"
| BACKSPACE="guess"

Note that the GNUstep backend(s) map Cmd to Left Alt; see the section
"Keyboard Modifiers" at the User Defaults Summary document [1], User
Keyboard Setup [2] or the source code [3].

[1] https://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/Developer/Back/General/DefaultsSummary.html
[2] https://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/Gui/KeyboardSetup.html
[3] https://github.com/gnustep/libs-back/blob/master/Source/x11/XGServerEvent.m#L2081-L2148

Customizing ns-command-modifier works but ideally this should work out
of the box for all users.  Trivial patch attached.

In GNU Emacs 31.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, NS
 gnustep-gui-0.32.0) of 2025-12-28 built on patilan
Repository revision: 8afbcb0ffeafd423addebac074fc8237eb10751b
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'GNU', version 10.3.32
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid

Configured using:
 'configure --with-ns'

Configured features:
ACL DBUS GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM JPEG LCMS2 LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD
LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY NS PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP XIM ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: bg_BG.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  minibuffer-nonselected-mode: t
  minibuffer-regexp-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug lisp-mnt message mailcap yank-media puny
dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date subr-x
mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader
cl-loaddefs cl-lib sendmail mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045
ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv
eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
elisp-mode mwheel term/ns-win ns-win ucs-normalize mule-util
term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify gnustep ns lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process
tty-child-frames emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 37189 9728) (symbols 48 5486 0) (strings 32 12281 2537)
 (string-bytes 1 297940) (vectors 16 9677)
 (vector-slots 8 113673 9995) (floats 8 21 3) (intervals 56 249 10)
 (buffers 1064 11))

--Multipart_Sun_Dec_28_22:09:46_2025-1
Content-Type: text/plain; type=patch; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="0001-NS-Fix-Meta-key-on-GNUstep.patch"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

From 5465cc5a2d2f40580c8b55e97f96cccd5b3f9bb2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2025 19:05:51 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] NS: Fix Meta key on GNUstep

* src/nsterm.m (syms_of_nsterm): On GNUstep, set
ns-command-modifier to "meta" to match the backend default setting.
---
 src/nsterm.m | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/src/nsterm.m b/src/nsterm.m
index 9468832b6d5..ee33f369ae4 100644
--- a/src/nsterm.m
+++ b/src/nsterm.m
@@ -11379,7 +11379,11 @@ Convert an X font name (XLFD) to an NS font name.
 
 Each SYMBOL is `control', `meta', `alt', `super', `hyper' or `none'.
 If `none', the key is ignored by Emacs and retains its standard meaning.  */);
+#ifdef NS_IMPL_COCOA
   ns_command_modifier = Qsuper;
+#else
+  ns_command_modifier = Qmeta;
+#endif
 
   DEFVAR_LISP ("ns-right-command-modifier", ns_right_command_modifier,
     doc: /* This variable describes the behavior of the right command key.
-- 
2.51.0


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To: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
Subject: bug#80090: Acknowledgement (31.0.50; [PATCH] Meta not working on
 GNUstep)
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Subject: bug#80090: 31.0.50; [PATCH] Meta not working on GNUstep
Resent-From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@HIDDEN>
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Cc: 80090 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:00:47 +0200
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From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@HIDDEN>
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> Cc: yavor@HIDDEN
> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2025 22:09:46 +0200
> From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
> 
> I have a pretty standard PC keyboard and stock GNUstep installation in
> the SYSTEM domain (Debian packages; no special NSGlobalDomain defaults
> wrt keys) but the <Meta> key is not working.
> 
> It has always been mapped to the left Alt and it's impossible to
> override finger memory.  If I press M-x (that is, Left Alt + x), I
> get
> 
> user-error: The mark is not set now, so there is no region

After you press M-x, type "C-h l" and tell us what did Emacs show.

Are there any other GNUstep users here who see the same problem?  If
not, what is different and why?

Po Lu, any comments about the problem and the patch?

Message sent to bug-gnu-emacs@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#80090: 31.0.50; [PATCH] Meta not working on GNUstep
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Cc: 80090 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:12:34 +0200
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From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
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Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
> > It has always been mapped to the left Alt and it's impossible to
> > override finger memory.  If I press M-x (that is, Left Alt + x), I
> > get
> > 
> > user-error: The mark is not set now, so there is no region
> 
> After you press M-x, type "C-h l" and tell us what did Emacs show.

 s-x			;; kill-region
 C-h l			;; view-lossage

> Are there any other GNUstep users here who see the same problem?  If
> not, what is different and why?

I can't tell.  My ultimate goal is to propose a patch to the Debian
Emacs maintainers so that the NS port is shipped as additional flavor,
precisely to expose it to more testing.

A few things don't work; this is the most frapant one.

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> Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:12:34 +0200
> From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
> Cc: 80090 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > > From: Yavor Doganov <yavor@HIDDEN>
> > > It has always been mapped to the left Alt and it's impossible to
> > > override finger memory.  If I press M-x (that is, Left Alt + x), I
> > > get
> > > 
> > > user-error: The mark is not set now, so there is no region
> > 
> > After you press M-x, type "C-h l" and tell us what did Emacs show.
> 
>  s-x			;; kill-region
>  C-h l			;; view-lossage

That explains what you see.  Meta is mapped to Super.

> > Are there any other GNUstep users here who see the same problem?  If
> > not, what is different and why?
> 
> I can't tell.

Thanks, but my intent was to ask others who can help to chime in.

As for your patch, I wonder whether !NS_IMPL_COCOA is the right
condition.  Aren't there configurations which use nsterm.m that are
neither Cocoa nor GNUstep on GNU/Linux?  If there are, perhaps we
should make sure we won't break therm inadvertently?

(Apologies for asking such questions, but I happen to know nothing
about nsterm.m and the builds it supports.)

Last modified: Mon, 29 Dec 2025 12:30:02 UTC

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