[Bug 31344] F1 opens Gnome Terminal Help which is no always what you want

[Martin Flack]

Public bug reported:
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/31344

Affects: gnome-terminal (Ubuntu)
       Severity: Normal
       Priority: (none set)
         Status: Unconfirmed

Description:
Some terminal applications such as mutt, mc, and multiview have very
helpful screens that appear at the press of F1. Newbies and power users
alike have the need to refer to these screens from time to time.
Sometimes you cannot remember a command and the only way to proceed with
your work is to look it up.

This key is widely known to produce a context-sensitive help screen on
many platforms. While it is accurate to have a Gnome Terminal help
screen appear for F1, Gnome Terminal is already quite a self-explanatory
application, and IMHO the user is more likely to want help on the
application inside the terminal rather than the terminal emulator
itself.

Altering the keybindings allows a user to send an F1 to the running
program, but this is too many clicks for the long term solution, and
encourages two states (default Help=F1 keybinding; or Help redefined)
which is annoying when you cannot remember which state you left the
application in.

Altering the help keybindings in all your terminal-based programs is
also an option but far too much work for such a simple issue.

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Leave keybindings as-is, but add "Send F1 to terminal" option on the
right-click menu.

2. If you want to be fancier, run through all the set keybindings and
add "Send xxx to terminal" for keys that are likely to conflict (at
least F1...F12).

3. If you want to cover all the special keys at once but don't want it
dynamic, just add a submenu to the right-click menu that says "Send
Special Character" and lets you choose F1...F12, Home, End, etc. which
are all preselected and static.

4. Leave keybindings as-is, but add "Send raw key to terminal" option on
the right-click menu, which when selected, disables keybindings for the
next key pressed only.

5. Change default F1 keybinding so that it brings up a choice: Send F1
to Application or View Gnome Terminal Help. This adds an extra, unusal
step, but has the advantage of being completely self-explanatory.