I have discovered a strange problem with my Lazarus 1.6 release installation on RPi2 (Raspbian Jessie) concerning keyboard entries.

When I connect via VNC from my Windows7 PC I can not enter the characters < or + via the keyboard keys into the Lazarus code editor. But it is working just fine if I type these characters into a property of the form like Caption. Or any other tested place in Lazarus accepting text input.

If I open the Raspbian default text editor there are no problems entering these characters.

If I connect my monitor and keyboard directly to the RPi (a bit awkward) then these characters can be entered into the code editor too.

So what is Lazarus doing inside the code editor that makes it "eat" some keyboard entries?

Note as I stated above that in all other parts of Lazarus where text can be typed it records and shows the correct key entries...

On my keyboard the < key is the second key from left in the second row from the bottom and the + key is the key following 0 on the top numeric key row (not counting the F-key row).

If I type the + on the numeric keypad it registers correctly.

Is there some key filter in the IDE settings I have inadvertently set wrong? It must be connected to the Lazarus code editor since everywhere else keys enter properly.

Also:
Ctrl-C (Copy) does not work in the code editor either. But it works as expected in Lazarus property editors and other places where text can be put into the clipboard....
Things I copy in Windows7 *can* be pasted in the code editor though. So this is a one-directional problem.
And in other applications like the text editor copy/paste works perfectly good.

Bo Berglund wrote

I have discovered a strange problem with my Lazarus 1.6 release installation on RPi2 (Raspbian Jessie) concerning keyboard entries.

I don't believe that is a new issue in Lazarus though, and not limited to only VNC connections. For years I've had issues where if I changed my keyboard layout of X11 via xmodmap, while Lazarus was running, then all (most) keyboard input in Lazarus is screwed. Other running applications continue to work fine, but Lazarus not. I have to close Lazarus down and start it up again before keyboard input works correctly.

I don't know if this relates to VNC, but it might - as VNC (and RDP) can do keyboard translations on the fly. eg: Me running Dvorak locally, connecting to a system that has Qwerty setup. VNC and RDP automatically makes the keystrokes for me, without me having to change the keyboard layout of the remotely system.

Regards,
- Graeme -

http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=17820

I dont know if the issue is in the LCL, or in VNC. Apparently the data received from VNC does only occur with VNC. Other app may not have the issue, may simply mean that they do not check this particular part of the data, independent of its correctness

VNC- both the standard xvnc4viewer and krdc as an alternative- has problems with some character mappings and combinations. This has long been an irritiation to me with both Delphi (on Windows) and Lazarus (on Linux or Solaris) since on occasion I've wanted to use a doubleclick plus two shift keys to get into a special "maven mode" for debugging etc., some combinations quite simply don't work with VNC while they're fine with e.g. X11 tunnelled over SSH.

I don't see that as necessarily being a Lazarus problem, but Bo's observation that simple text entry fields behave differently from the IDE editor- possibly because they don't have hooks for CodeTools etc.- is arguably a bug and perhaps should be raised as such on Mantis.

I think that your (Graeme) point about Dvorak etc. keyboards is really down to what software converts the keyboard (scan) codes into internal X11 codes. I had to dig around a little a few weeks ago when I needed to simulate a "Windows" key on a keyboard that didn't have one, but I don't pretend to really understand how the various tables etc. work.

Too bad then....
I looked at the VNC client settings but there is nothing about the keyboard. Obviously I could wire the Pi up to my monitor and hook up a different keyboard and mouse for it and work that way. But it is inconvenient since I then lose all of the normal activity on my Win7 desktop plus the ability to copy/paste between the windows.

And I don't have the multiple display setup that Graeme and Mark is currently discussing on the fpc-other mail lits....

Maybe skipping VNC in favour of X could be a solution? But I tried that when starting with the RPi2 dev system back in October and could never even understand how it worked let alone find suitable software for my Wind7 X64 laptop to work as an X server.... Or understand how the Raspbian desktop would land on the Win7 X screen. :(

I will go to the RPi forum and ask people there about setting up X for this purpose.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

I don't see that as necessarily being a Lazarus problem, but Bo's observation that simple text entry fields behave differently

I can understand complex input as you described, but in my case the issue was simply typing code in the code editor window. Press one character (eg: "a") and another character will appear - or nothing appears.

I've gotten used to the issue though. Just restart Lazarus (which is luckily quick to do) and then Lazarus IDE behaves correctly.

Regards,
- Graeme -

It doesnt mean that it cant be fixed (or if broken in vnc: worked around) in lazarus. But no one has the time to work on it....

And the time check IIRC is there for a reason.
I believe (from what I heard) there are cases where the event for the same keystroke can be received again, leading to duplicate input. The time field is a way to identify this. The key code can not be used, since event handlers can change it, and it would then be received with the new value.
I am not sure if the origin of the 2nd event would be the OS or LCL.

Bo Berglund wrote

Or understand how the Raspbian desktop would land on the Win7 X screen. :(

As far as I know you do get a X Server implementation for Windows too. You would simply start that up, use Putty to SSH (with X11 port forwarding enabled) to the RPi, and run the Lazarus executable on the RPi. The Lazarus IDE should then appear on your Windows desktop. Obviously things like "File - Open..." will display the content on the RPi and not your Windows system - but that is normally desired anyway. ;-)

At least the above is how it works between my X11 based systems.

Regards,
- Graeme -

There was an issue in that era that keys like # when the systems were set to UK layout weren't getting through. I've not seen that for a while, but that could be because even I upgrade my OS and libraries on occasion :-)

I dont know if the issue is in the LCL, or in VNC. Apparently the data received from VNC does only occur with VNC. Other app may not have the issue, may simply mean that they do not check this particular part of the data, independent of its correctness

I've definitely seen VNC issues affect (programs written using) Delphi.

I'd expect the VNC client to use the keyboard etc. settings on that computer.

And I don't have the multiple display setup that Graeme and Mark is currently discussing on the fpc-other mail lits....

Not really relevant, that's more to do with making it look as though multiple screens are attached to the same computer than anything else.

Maybe skipping VNC in favour of X could be a solution? But I tried that when starting with the RPi2 dev system back in October and could never even understand how it worked let alone find suitable software for my Wind7 X64 laptop to work as an X server....

I answered that at some point.

Or understand how the Raspbian desktop would land on the Win7 X screen. :(

Who cares provided it works?

I will go to the RPi forum and ask people there about setting up X for this purpose.

As I've said multiple times before, you'd do best tunneling one app over SSH rather than putting the entire desktop over [any of several ways of doing it]. You might find this easiest if you investigated an X11-based system o your desktop, rather than Windows... at least while you're working out what's possible and what suits your working arrangements.

I'm not sure whether this is the same issue as in the bug report, but for me there has been a problem ever since I use Lazarus on Linux with a "non mainstream" keyboard layout, which is for several years now. It was behaving the same with Ubuntu years ago and currently I use a pretty up to date archlinux, so for me it didn't change because of external libraries. Dvorak has been mentioned and I'm using Neo (called Neo2 in most linux distros). For me it is configured as the default layout in X11, tty and my Xfce settings and I usually don't change it.

The issue for me is that some keys (even some single keystrokes) don't work at all, do something different, or modifier keys seem to be ignored, e.g. I can't type the letter '?', but strangely '?' works.

I have never tried Lazarus via VNC. For me the issue occurs when running Lazarus just normal on the local X server. But it is only the SynEdit component, which is affected. Other menus like preferences or objectinspector work just like they should. And almost all other programs like gedit, gnome-terminal, firefox, etc. don't have problems either.

I found this tutorial on how to use XMing with RPi: http://www.raspians.com/Knowledgebase/how-to-remote-desktop-with-xming-and-putty/

It is a bit roundabout, occupying the console connection via PuTTY, but it did work to bring up some form of X window on my screen. The displayed RPi desktop is very strange, though. Not at all the Jessie desktop I am used to (example: black background and generally strange looking). And it also seems like it decided that my keyboard is a US layout, which is completely wrong of course.

When I launched Lazarus it shows up pretty well, but cannot be moved inside the X window. And the X window itself cannot be moved on my Win7 desktop either...
All-in-all it does not give me much improvement....

Now I have to figure out how to get it off of my Win7 desktop... It does not act as any other Windows application does regarding the windowing.
Shutting down the Putty session eventually removes the X window but it is still present on my taskbar but won't maximize anymore. Will have to use Task Manager.

Later:
I also tried the RDP solution linked to from the page above: http://www.raspberrypiblog.com/2012/10/how-to-setup-remote-desktop-from.html

This does not have the unfamiliarities of the X-ming solution but instead the key eating was present there too...
So the < and + keys could not be used.
So the exact same keys were affected in the same way, strange eh?

And the clipboard worked even worse than with TightVNC.

Seems like I will have to stick with TightVNC for the time being.

I'm not sure that Putty includes an X server, but it will interwork with (not sure if this name is 100% accurate) XMingw32. That's one reason why I suggested starting off with an X11 (Linux etc.) desktop system as a client.

As an additional point but not directly relevant to SSH tunneling, I don't know whether the display manager (Bo, if you don't grok that see Wp) supplied as default with Raspbian allows remote logins. I've started using pukka Debian on an RPi2 with KDE hence KDM etc., which turns out to be better than Raspbian on several fronts.

At least the above is how it works between my X11 based systems.

Discussion of the remote access side of things might be better continued in either fpc-other or lazarus-other. One of the list managers warned us some while ago that this was off-topic.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

Discussion of the remote access side of things might be better continued in either fpc-other or lazarus-other. One of the list managers warned us some while ago that this was off-topic.

I know, but I started this again after seeing yet some glitches directlty connected to the Lazarus code editor when using VNC. And this was on the RELEASE version 1.6.
So I thought it to be on-topic then.
Of course now discussing how to set up various displays on an RPi system might not qualify... ;-/

However, Gmane does not carry the "-other" mail lists on its news mirror and I do all of my talking here through Gmane.... Can't stand the email interface because I lose totally the overview and threading offered by a news service.

Stop right there. What you're describing there is doing a remote X11 login to the display manager [qv] running on the RPi, which starts off a window manager [qv]. The window manager supplied as default by Raspbian assumes that it's running on an RPi, and won't like being accessed over the LAN from XMing which is fairly old code and lacks stuff added comparatively recently to X11.

WITH THE IMPORTANT CAVEAT THAT I'VE NOT DONE THIS MYSELF ON WINDOWS:

What you should be doing is making sure that your SSH client (Putty or whatever) is set up to tunnel X11 sessions, and that the SSH server on the RPi is set up to make them available (it is on most distreaux).

Then SSH into the RPi to get a shell, and run your Lazarus binary. At that point the X11 messages originated by Lazarus are tunneled over the SSH session, and the Lazarus windows/forms /should/ (if Putty+XMing really does behave like SSH etc. does on unix) appear as separate windows on your client system. What's more, /if/ things are working properly, then cut-and-paste should work.

AGAIN, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS ON UNIX. MY UNDERSTANDING IS THAT THE COMBINATION OF PUTTY AND XMING SHOULD GIVE YOU SOMETHING COMPARABLE ON WINDOWS, BUT I'VE NOT DONE IT MYSELF.

With apologies to the list managers if this is considered off-topic.

I agree, which is why I suggested that you raise it as a bug.

Sorry, not my problem. (But I think fpc-other was added a few days ago, for the sake of the ifthen controversy).

> The displayed RPi desktop Stop right there. What you're describing there is doing a remote X11

...

I entered the startlazarus command I have set up for Lazarus 1.6 release into the putty console after logging in and following starting XMing on windows.
Amazingly I got the lazarus separate panels painted on top of my Win7 desktop but it was not possible to copy/paste or anything and the windows were sluggish at best and could not be moved. Better closing this discussion before we get purged from the list.... Thanks for your suggestions.

Craving managerial indulgence one last time...

Try it from a desktop Linux system. I've put a lot of work over the last six months or so into an RPi attached to an HDTV screen for a hacker with sight problems, the RPi didn't work but as soon as I upgraded to an RPi2 everything came to life. That allowed me to put together a desktop system running Debian (not Raspbian) at 3840 x 2160, that can SSH into arbitrary Linux/unix systems and put Lazarus etc. onto the full sized screen (i.e. not limited by the display resolution or size on the server system) with reliable cut-and-paste. I'm also able to run some Windows versions in Qemu hosted on x86-64, and get a desktop as a window on the big display at 2560 x 1600 which is rather better than any physical displays available here, although in this case there's no direct cut-and-paste.

So the end result was a damn big screen, able to run Lazarus etc. over SSH on any attached Linux/unix system, and able to run Windows in a Window. The really important thing is the SSH tunneling, and I've...

Better closing this discussion before we get purged from the list.... Thanks for your suggestions.

..been saying that for months :-)

On 24/02/16 17:58, Bo Berglund wrote:
[...]

It does now for fpc-other at least

gmane.comp.compilers.free-pascal.social = fpc-other ... recently added (less than a week ago)

don't know whether lazarus-other has been submitted to Gmane yet,
not sure whether it's the list admin that needs to do that; probably yes;

-L.

Lukasz Sokol wrote

gmane.comp.compilers.free-pascal.social = fpc-other ... recently added (less than a week ago)

I saw the "social" one and thought that it is another than "other".... I'll have a look there.

Yeah just have seen some posts coming through on it this morning (posted yesterday);
there is however no history (the archive has not been imported yet) so only really new messages appear;
and Gmane devs / staff give themselves a lot of play in timelines definitions (see gmane faq)...
(which is not really that surprising given their manpower and being volunteers etc.);

-L.