Alt/Meta key combinations

[rndusr]

(I've read the relevant FAQ.)

When I run textual keys and press alt+x, nothing happens. If I press alt+x again, I get:

Key(key='circumflex_accent', character='^', name='circumflex_accent', is_printable=True)
Key(key='x', character='x', name='x', is_printable=True)

If I press alt+x and f any number of times, nothing happens until I press any alt+... combination, which then prints all the collected key press events.

I suspect this has something to do with how terminals provide alt combinations. (alt+x is provided as two keys, escape and x.) Is that correct?

I've been living in the terminal for decades. Translating escape sequences to alt+... keys is very common. This is usually done by waiting a short, configurable amount of time for the escape sequence to complete before defaulting to sending a single escape character. Emacs seems to wait indefinitely to complete escape sequences.

Developers (and users if the developers think this should be configurable) can set this delay to 0 to get an immediate escape key. Or they could add a small delay (e.g. 30ms) and get an almost immediate escape key and lots of additional keybindings.

Is there any way I can configure this in Textual?

Would a PR that adds a configurable escape sequence delay be accepted?

I need lots of keybindings in my application and cutting the possible combinations almost in half would probably be a dealbreaker for me.

[rndusr]

In case anyone else is affected by the lack of Alt keybindings, I'm working on it.

[rndusr]

This is fixed by #3563.