Allow Ctrl-J to validate the password

[bew]

Hello guys,

First of all, thanks for this simple but perfect locker !

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As a vim user, I like not to move my hands, for exemple to access the Enter key.. I usually use Ctrl-J to validate something, and would like to have that feature in i3lock also.

So for exemple, I type my password as usual, then I type Ctrl-J to validate the password

I went through the code, and think that there is something to change arround thoses lines :
https://github.com/i3/i3lock/blob/master/i3lock.c#L369

What do you think about this ?

[Airblader]

I usually use Ctrl-J to validate something, and would like to have that feature in i3lock also.

I think this captures the problem perfectly: everybody would want something else. However, we don't want a generic binding configurability in i3lock because it would make it a whole lot more complex and therefore potentially unsafe.

IMHO you'd be best served by implementing this as a local patch.

[acrisci]

I don't use i3lock, but I could see why the user base would consider this feature valuable by giving i3lock a "terminal" feel. Ctrl-j will enter a password that you enter from a terminal, for instance.

As for this being a gateway to bindings in i3lock, I don't think that would be the case. However, it would be a gateway to supporting any of the emacs-based terminal commands (such as ctrl-h for backspace, ctrl-u for kill line) which might be complicated and is definitely would be an increase of scope for i3lock. I'm not sure if there is a library that already handles that kind of user input but there might be.

I don't feel strongly either way about this, however. i3lock would be very easy to fork and make your own project out of with more scope.

[bew]

everybody would want something else
Yes maybe, but here, C-j is not really a user-special-case..
In almost every terminal program, C-j is handled as Enter

As we don't need readline abilities (like moving the cursor, etc) but only key inputs then Enter, I don't think that multiple ways to type "Enter" is too much.

I'm I clear enough?

[acrisci]

Now that I think about it, I can't imagine this exploding into either bindings or readline. If you make ctrl-j work however, people will expect ctrl-h for backspace as well.

Maybe @Airblader is not aware that this is a widely used standard in interactive unix programs and text editors (maybe from before there was an enter key or something? I don't know.).

[He-Ro]

Chiming in here. I think that, ctrl-u would also be expected to work, if crtl-j is supported. ctrl-u deletes the whole line before the cursor. Thus I think it should delete the whole passphrase that was entered until that point, because the cursor is always at the end.

[Airblader]

So Ctrl+J now already went to Ctrl+J, Ctrl+U, Ctrl+H in less than 24 hours. See my point?

[karulont]

Ctrl+U is already in the code. I know that every feature adds unwanted complexity to i3lock. But I think in this case a few lines to add support for the Ctrl+J and Ctrl+H are not that complex. To me adding them now seems like a "bug" fix, because the three keys form a whole, and Ctrl+U is alone at the moment. One option would be to remove Ctrl+U, however that would break someones workflow. So I propose that these minor features should be added.

[stapelberg]

Given that we already support the keypad return key as an alternative to return, I think adding ctrl+j would be okay — it should be just another case statement.

[bew]

You did it, thanks all!