Re: where does Alt become Meta?

[Will Parsons]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Will Parsons <oudeis@nodomain.invalid>
>> Date: 20 Jul 2007 21:06:00 GMT
>> 
>> I use Emacs on a variety of systems and circumstances, and on just about
>> all of them I'm used to using the Alt key as Meta, so I was surprised 
>> recently to find that in an Emacs session running on FreeBSD, but accessed
>> on a Windows system via TightVNC, A-q was unbound.
> 
> I think you might be confusing two different issues: Emacs does
> recognize an Alt prefix, and it is different from the Meta prefix.
> A-q is always unbound in Emacs by default.
> 
>> Where does Emacs map Alt combinations to Meta combinations?
> 
> Nowhere.  This is done outside Emacs's keymaps.  In your case, you
> should set up TightVNC to send the Meta modifier when you press the
> Alt key.

Thanks.  I found the right way to configure TightVNC to set Alt to Meta.
I thought that Emacs must handle Alt somehow, since I can use Alt combos
on the console too, but I guess that the console driver handles it somehow?

- Will