Re: [PATCH] Change <delete> to delete forward in the editor menu.

On Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 21:01 (+0800), Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:

> From: "Kevin J. McCarthy" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [PATCH] Change <delete> to delete forward in the editor menu.
> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2026 21:01:36 +0800

> On Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 02:45:10PM +0200, Matthias Andree via Mutt-dev wrote:
>> I normally do not take part in policy discussions unless we must protect
>> someone or something;
>> can you, Jim, or Claus, please explain how *ALIASING* Delete and
>> Backspace to do the same thing is "good"?

> I'd like to hear more too.  I haven't seen any complaints before the IRC
> question, and I think that question was at least partly because of the
> inconsistent mutt documentation.  So I'm not going to force this change.

> But my understanding was that general expectations have changed.  vim and
> emacs (without a configuration file) delete forwards, as does bash. At
> least, for me they behave that way.

> Jim and Claus, do you need to make changes to your systems to support that
> backwards delete behavior elsewhere?

Hi Kevin (et al),

This answer maybe has a low signal to noise ratio, but to avoid some
possible follow-up questions, here goes.

I don't know who does this where, but on my system (Slackware64 15.0) when
I press the backspace key, it sends delete (and when I press the actual
delete key, it sends ^H).  (I don't have backspace and delete swapped with
my Xmodmap file, and there is no system Xmodmap file.)

Therefore when I press the easy-to-reach key (which is actually the
backspace key on most(?) current keyboard designs), in terminals I get DEL.
And so of course I would like that to delete backward, which is what
happens with every program I currently use.

For example, in an X window emacs I also get DEL, although if I ask emacs
what that key is (Ctrl-H k <backspace key>) it says
        DEL (translated from <backspace>) runs the command
        <blah blah blah>

In a terminal vim,
    a (append)    Ctrl-V <backspace key>
enters DEL into the file.

I have no idea where this delete-backspace mapping is happening.  I recall
a Long Time ago having to fuss with things to make the backspace key act
like delete, (and an Xmodmap file I used in 2004 did set BackSpace and
Delete), but I have no evidence of having to do anything since then to make
the backspace key into delete (and vice versa).

So if mutt is changed so that DEL deletes forward, this will send me down
the rabbit hole of figuring out how to make all the programs I use happy at
the same time.

I was a bit worried I was the only person left in the world who thinks
delete should delete backward, but apparently there are at least two of us.

Cheers.
                                Jim