[Info-vax] How to get F Keys to works on Putty Terminal Emulation

[Peter 'EPLAN' LANGSTOeGER]

In article <965cabe0-012a-4c45-8878-3824ed9774a4 at googlegroups.com>, sy3913 at googlemail.com writes:
>Functions keys F5 and onwards on my Putty terminal emulation onto VMS 7.1-2 do not work. 

Au contraire.

F1-F5 do not get sent to VMS (as they are local to a real VT terminal)
and F6 to F12 do work (with Shifted-F1 to F10 as F11 to F20)

BTW:
KiTTY - a PuTTY derivate - do have problems with the F17 (Shift-F7) key.
F17 is by default mapped to a Print Function and you do have to add
"shortcuts=no" to kitty.ini to make it work as intended
(AFAIK, even remapping the print function to another key doesn't free up F17)


>Am using a Toshiba laptop to remote desktop onto another windows machine
>running Win server 2008, and running Putty on there to access the vms server. 

Why? To have yet another variable in the equation?

>Function keys F1 to F4 work, but F5 onwards do not. 

You repeat yourself without evidence. Why not start testing yourself
by e.g.

$ SET TERMINAL/NOLINE_EDITING/APPLICATION
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      PF1     "!PF1"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      PF2     "!PF2"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      PF3     "!PF3"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      PF4     "!PF4"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP0     "!KP0"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP1     "!KP1"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP2     "!KP2"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP3     "!KP3"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP4     "!KP4"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP5     "!KP5"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP6     "!KP6"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP7     "!KP7"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP8     "!KP8"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      KP9     "!KP9"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      PERIOD  "!PERIOD"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      COMMA   "!COMMA"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      MINUS   "!MINUS"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      ENTER   "!ENTER"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      LEFT    "!LEFT"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      RIGHT   "!RIGHT"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E1      "!Find (E1)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E2      "!Insert Here (E2)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E3      "!Remove (E3)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E4      "!Select (E4)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E5      "!Prev Screen (E5)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      E6      "!Next Screen (E6)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F6      "!F6"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F7      "!F7"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F8      "!F8"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F9      "!F9"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F10     "!F10"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F11     "!F11"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F12     "!F12"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F13     "!F13"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F14     "!F14"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      HELP    "!HELP (F15)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      DO      "!DO (F16)"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F17     "!F17"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F18     "!F18"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F19     "!F19"
$ DEFINE/KEY/ERASE/ECHO/TERM/NOLOG      F20     "!F20"

Note: There is no F1-F5 as a definable key for VMS DCL DEFINE/KEY command
(F1-F5 is kept by the terminal - emulator - to do local things like "Setup")

>I have tried all Keyboard settings on Putty (VT100+, VT400 etc) to no avail.

There is no difference in the keyboard setting of a real VT100 and a VT400
(don't know what PuTTY does with these settings. I have mine on the
default setting of "ESC[n~" which I therefore recommend also to you)

>Any advice would be greatly appreciated ! 

Connect your (most current) PuTTY client directly to the VMS system for tests

Good luck

-- 
Peter "EPLAN" LANGSTÖGER
Network and OpenVMS system specialist
E-mail  Peter at LANGSTOeGER.at
A-1030 VIENNA  AUSTRIA              I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist