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RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS |
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Meta, Features & Commandline Issues |
3 |
My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human? |
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Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel |
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"#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be |
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interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :). |
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|
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I use Gentoo, and I have a problem... |
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There are two big problems with Gentoo Linux: first, most if not all |
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Gentoo systems are completely broken (missing or mismatched header |
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files, broken compiler etc. are just the tip of the iceberg); secondly, |
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it should be called Gentoo GNU/Linux. |
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|
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For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo. |
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Problems appearing on Gentoo systems will usually simply be ignored |
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unless they can be reproduced on non-Gentoo systems. |
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|
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Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? |
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Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a |
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simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these |
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should give you tabs: |
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|
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urxvt -pe tabbed |
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|
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URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed |
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|
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It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window |
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managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow |
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it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed |
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or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt |
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(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application. |
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|
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How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? |
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The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape |
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sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When |
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using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon. |
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|
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Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? |
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Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something |
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you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings |
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that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by |
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design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be |
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loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your |
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characters. |
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|
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Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger |
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scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6 |
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bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a |
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kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if |
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full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets |
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worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. |
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|
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How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way? |
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Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the |
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listening socket and then fork. |
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|
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How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc? |
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If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and |
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the daemon isn't running yet, use this script: |
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|
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#!/bin/sh |
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urxvtc "$@" |
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if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then |
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urxvtd -q -o -f |
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urxvtc "$@" |
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fi |
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|
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This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2, |
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meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and |
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re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the |
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existing daemon. |
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|
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How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular |
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xterm? I need this to decide about setting colours etc. |
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The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable |
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"COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several |
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programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this |
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variable to decide whether or not to use colour. |
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|
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How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable? |
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If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled |
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insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script |
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snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode |
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wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) |
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then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from |
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a regular xterm. |
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|
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Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script |
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snippets: |
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|
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# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells: |
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[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know |
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if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then |
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stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not |
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printf "\eZ" |
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read term_id |
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stty icanon echo |
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if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then |
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printf '\e[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string |
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read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell |
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fi |
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fi |
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|
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How do I compile the manual pages on my own? |
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You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl, |
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one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::Xhtml). |
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Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc". |
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|
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Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? |
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I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra |
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bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see |
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that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always |
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being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after |
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startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit |
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unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion, |
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iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. |
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|
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text data bss drs rss filename |
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98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything |
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188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything |
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|
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When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft |
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and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my |
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libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so. |
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|
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text data bss drs rss filename |
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163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything |
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1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything |
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|
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The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian |
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encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else |
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and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those |
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encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++ |
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compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of |
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memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds |
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a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even |
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when not used. |
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|
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Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of |
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one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use |
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more memory. |
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|
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Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this |
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still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like |
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gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole |
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(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half |
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a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits |
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out), it fares extremely well *g*. |
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|
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Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? |
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Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I |
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had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a |
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fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put |
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even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. |
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|
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My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in |
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the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits |
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are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and |
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unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself. |
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|
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Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs |
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in C that use gobs of memory, and certainly possible to write programs |
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in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this |
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is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on |
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my system with a minimal config: |
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|
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libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) |
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libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) |
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libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) |
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/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) |
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|
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And here is rxvt-unicode: |
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|
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libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) |
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libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) |
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libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) |
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libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) |
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/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) |
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|
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No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically), |
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except maybe libX11 :) |
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|
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Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues |
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I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? |
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First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, |
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so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you |
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may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a |
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rite of passage: ... and you failed. |
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|
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Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option |
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descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it! |
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|
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1. Use transparent mode: |
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|
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Esetroot wallpaper.jpg |
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urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40 |
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|
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That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting |
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support, or you are unable to read. This method requires that the |
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background-setting program sets the _XROOTPMAP_ID or ESETROOT_PMAP_ID |
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property. Compatible programs are Esetroot, hsetroot and feh. |
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|
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2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you |
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to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever |
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your picture with gimp or any other tool: |
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|
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convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg |
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urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root" |
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|
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That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack GDK-PixBuf support, or you |
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are unable to read. |
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|
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3. Use an ARGB visual: |
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|
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urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc |
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|
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This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that |
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doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't |
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there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the |
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necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but |
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that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place. |
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|
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4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job: |
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|
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xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \ |
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-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000 |
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|
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Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000 |
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by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and |
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your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces. |
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|
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Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings? |
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Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that |
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character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal |
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use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode |
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will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too |
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wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent |
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characters. |
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|
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All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, |
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however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed |
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bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct |
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way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is |
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wrong in these cases). |
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|
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It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype, |
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or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try |
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using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't |
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work, you might be forced to use a different font. |
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|
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All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their |
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bounding box data is correct. |
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|
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How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much? |
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First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings |
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("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then |
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make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise |
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rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect: |
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|
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URxvt.colorBD: white |
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URxvt.colorIT: green |
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|
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Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that? |
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For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird |
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colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the |
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standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of |
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course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very |
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good reasons. |
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|
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In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo |
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definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will |
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fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features. |
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|
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Can I switch the fonts at runtime? |
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Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the |
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same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately: |
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|
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printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" |
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|
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This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a |
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japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where |
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japanese fonts would only be in your way. |
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|
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You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. |
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|
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Why do italic characters look as if clipped? |
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Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For |
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example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans |
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Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to |
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enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this: |
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|
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URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true |
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URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true |
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|
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Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? |
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Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it |
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is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable |
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antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of |
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memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. |
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|
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Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? |
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Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to |
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fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts, |
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because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has |
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antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they |
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look best that way. |
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|
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If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. |
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|
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What's with this bold/blink stuff? |
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If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the |
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standard foreground colour. |
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|
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For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text |
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blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without |
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"--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored. |
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|
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On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity |
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foreground/background colours. |
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|
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color0-7 are the low-intensity colours. |
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|
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color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colours. |
324 |
|
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I don't like the screen colours. How do I change them? |
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You can change the screen colours at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults |
327 |
resources (or as long-options). |
328 |
|
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Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including |
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the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow: |
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|
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URxvt.color0: #000000 |
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URxvt.color1: #A80000 |
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URxvt.color2: #00A800 |
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URxvt.color3: #A8A800 |
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URxvt.color4: #0000A8 |
337 |
URxvt.color5: #A800A8 |
338 |
URxvt.color6: #00A8A8 |
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URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8 |
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|
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URxvt.color8: #000054 |
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URxvt.color9: #FF0054 |
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URxvt.color10: #00FF54 |
344 |
URxvt.color11: #FFFF54 |
345 |
URxvt.color12: #0000FF |
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URxvt.color13: #FF00FF |
347 |
URxvt.color14: #00FFFF |
348 |
URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF |
349 |
|
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And here is a more complete set of non-standard colours. |
351 |
|
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URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 |
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URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 |
354 |
URxvt.background: #0e0e0e |
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URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 |
356 |
URxvt.color0: #000000 |
357 |
URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 |
358 |
URxvt.color1: #dc74d1 |
359 |
URxvt.color9: #dc74d1 |
360 |
URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7 |
361 |
URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7 |
362 |
URxvt.color3: #dfe37e |
363 |
URxvt.color11: #dfe37e |
364 |
URxvt.color5: #9e88f0 |
365 |
URxvt.color13: #9e88f0 |
366 |
URxvt.color6: #73f7ff |
367 |
URxvt.color14: #73f7ff |
368 |
URxvt.color7: #e1dddd |
369 |
URxvt.color15: #e1dddd |
370 |
|
371 |
They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly". |
372 |
|
373 |
Why do some characters look so much different than others? |
374 |
See next entry. |
375 |
|
376 |
How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? |
377 |
Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. |
378 |
Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your |
379 |
system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to |
380 |
display. |
381 |
|
382 |
rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. |
383 |
Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks |
384 |
bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't |
385 |
resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial |
386 |
intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe |
387 |
the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct. |
388 |
|
389 |
In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list, |
390 |
e.g.: |
391 |
|
392 |
urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... |
393 |
|
394 |
When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font. |
395 |
If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next |
396 |
font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this |
397 |
search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server. |
398 |
|
399 |
The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the |
400 |
base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size, |
401 |
which must be the same due to the way terminals work. |
402 |
|
403 |
Why do some chinese characters look so different than others? |
404 |
This is because there is a difference between script and language -- |
405 |
rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as |
406 |
it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a |
407 |
japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display. |
408 |
Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese |
409 |
characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first |
410 |
non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese |
411 |
font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font |
412 |
for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font. |
413 |
|
414 |
The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font |
415 |
list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a |
416 |
preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font |
417 |
first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first. |
418 |
|
419 |
In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at |
420 |
runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different |
421 |
fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this |
422 |
has been designed yet). |
423 |
|
424 |
Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can |
425 |
I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document). |
426 |
|
427 |
How can I make mplayer display video correctly? |
428 |
We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something |
429 |
like: |
430 |
|
431 |
urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...' |
432 |
|
433 |
Why is the cursor now blinking in emacs/vi/...? |
434 |
This is likely caused by your editor/program's use of the "cvvis" |
435 |
terminfo capability. Emacs uses it by default, as well as some versions |
436 |
of vi and possibly other programs. |
437 |
|
438 |
In emacs, you can switch that off by adding this to your ".emacs" file: |
439 |
|
440 |
(setq visible-cursor nil) |
441 |
|
442 |
For other programs, if they do not have an option, your have to remove |
443 |
the "cvvis" capability from the terminfo description. |
444 |
|
445 |
When urxvt first added the blinking cursor option, it didn't add a |
446 |
"cvvis" capability, which served no purpose before. Version 9.21 |
447 |
introduced "cvvis" (and the ability to control blinking independent of |
448 |
cursor shape) for compatibility with other terminals, which |
449 |
traditionally use a blinking cursor for "cvvis". This also reflects the |
450 |
intent of programs such as emacs, who expect "cvvis" to enable a |
451 |
blinking cursor. |
452 |
|
453 |
Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction |
454 |
The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words? |
455 |
If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following |
456 |
setting: |
457 |
|
458 |
URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) |
459 |
|
460 |
If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and |
461 |
more. |
462 |
|
463 |
To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this |
464 |
pattern: |
465 |
|
466 |
URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) |
467 |
|
468 |
Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also |
469 |
selects words like the old code. |
470 |
|
471 |
I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it? |
472 |
You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the |
473 |
perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps |
474 |
rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. |
475 |
|
476 |
If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to |
477 |
identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section |
478 |
PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to |
479 |
disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this |
480 |
perl-ext-common resource: |
481 |
|
482 |
URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup |
483 |
|
484 |
This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup |
485 |
extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, |
486 |
scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other |
487 |
combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource: |
488 |
|
489 |
URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s |
490 |
|
491 |
The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off? |
492 |
See next entry. |
493 |
|
494 |
During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this? |
495 |
These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal |
496 |
circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the |
497 |
line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment, |
498 |
but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in |
499 |
some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly. |
500 |
|
501 |
You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline" |
502 |
extension: |
503 |
|
504 |
URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline |
505 |
|
506 |
My numeric keypad acts weird and generates differing output? |
507 |
Some Debian GNU/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no |
508 |
specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is |
509 |
caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and |
510 |
how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a |
511 |
compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please |
512 |
report if that helped. |
513 |
|
514 |
My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. |
515 |
The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set |
516 |
correctly, or you specified a preeditType that is not supported by your |
517 |
input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input |
518 |
method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not |
519 |
support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode |
520 |
will continue without an input method. |
521 |
|
522 |
In this case either do not specify a preeditType or specify more than |
523 |
one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None. |
524 |
|
525 |
If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support |
526 |
compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you |
527 |
don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS". |
528 |
|
529 |
I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755 |
530 |
Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on |
531 |
international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your |
532 |
advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for |
533 |
other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet |
534 |
escape character and so on. |
535 |
|
536 |
Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. |
537 |
Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some |
538 |
editors prematurely may leave it active. I've heard that tcsh may use |
539 |
mouse reporting unless it is otherwise specified. A quick check is to |
540 |
see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are pressed. |
541 |
|
542 |
What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? |
543 |
Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace |
544 |
keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are |
545 |
two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?". |
546 |
|
547 |
Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the |
548 |
debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only |
549 |
correct choice :). |
550 |
|
551 |
It is possible to toggle between "^H" and "^?" with the DECBKM private |
552 |
mode: |
553 |
|
554 |
# use Backspace = ^H |
555 |
$ stty erase ^H |
556 |
$ printf "\e[?67h" |
557 |
|
558 |
# use Backspace = ^? |
559 |
$ stty erase ^? |
560 |
$ printf "\e[?67l" |
561 |
|
562 |
This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but |
563 |
if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value |
564 |
properly reflects that. |
565 |
|
566 |
The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace |
567 |
problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the |
568 |
Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for |
569 |
Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo. |
570 |
|
571 |
Some other Backspace problems: |
572 |
|
573 |
some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect |
574 |
Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help. |
575 |
|
576 |
Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner. |
577 |
|
578 |
I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them? |
579 |
There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless |
580 |
you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can |
581 |
use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with |
582 |
keysyms. |
583 |
|
584 |
Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt" |
585 |
|
586 |
URxvt.keysym.Prior: \033[5~ |
587 |
URxvt.keysym.Next: \033[6~ |
588 |
URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[7~ |
589 |
URxvt.keysym.End: \033[8~ |
590 |
URxvt.keysym.Up: \033[A |
591 |
URxvt.keysym.Down: \033[B |
592 |
URxvt.keysym.Right: \033[C |
593 |
URxvt.keysym.Left: \033[D |
594 |
|
595 |
See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource. |
596 |
|
597 |
I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the following map |
598 |
KP_Insert == Insert |
599 |
F22 == Print |
600 |
F27 == Home |
601 |
F29 == Prior |
602 |
F33 == End |
603 |
F35 == Next |
604 |
|
605 |
Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various |
606 |
possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the |
607 |
keys as required for your particular machine. |
608 |
|
609 |
Terminal Configuration |
610 |
Can I see a typical configuration? |
611 |
The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like |
612 |
that much, but it's least surprise to regular users. |
613 |
|
614 |
As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest |
615 |
time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the |
616 |
author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's |
617 |
certainly not *typical*, but what's typical... |
618 |
|
619 |
URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|' |
620 |
URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/tmp/xxx |
621 |
|
622 |
These are just for testing stuff. |
623 |
|
624 |
URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8 |
625 |
URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None |
626 |
|
627 |
This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with |
628 |
the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit |
629 |
type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me |
630 |
with correct-looking fonts. |
631 |
|
632 |
URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt |
633 |
URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard |
634 |
URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+) |
635 |
URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\ |
636 |
URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/ |
637 |
URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/ |
638 |
|
639 |
This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library |
640 |
directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I |
641 |
develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I |
642 |
write. |
643 |
|
644 |
The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware |
645 |
and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the |
646 |
relevant file and go to the error line number. |
647 |
|
648 |
URxvt.scrollstyle: plain |
649 |
URxvt.secondaryScroll: true |
650 |
|
651 |
As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the |
652 |
author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen |
653 |
apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's |
654 |
scrollback buffer. |
655 |
|
656 |
URxvt.background: #000000 |
657 |
URxvt.foreground: gray90 |
658 |
URxvt.color7: gray90 |
659 |
URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff |
660 |
URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080 |
661 |
URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0 |
662 |
URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0 |
663 |
|
664 |
Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults, |
665 |
but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set |
666 |
foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the |
667 |
colour 7 matches the default foreground colour. |
668 |
|
669 |
URxvt.underlineColor: yellow |
670 |
|
671 |
Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts, |
672 |
but is mostly a nice effect. |
673 |
|
674 |
URxvt.geometry: 154x36 |
675 |
URxvt.loginShell: false |
676 |
URxvt.meta: ignore |
677 |
URxvt.utmpInhibit: true |
678 |
|
679 |
Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults |
680 |
manually, I can quickly switch them for testing. |
681 |
|
682 |
URxvt.saveLines: 8192 |
683 |
|
684 |
A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really. |
685 |
|
686 |
URxvt.mapAlert: true |
687 |
|
688 |
The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep |
689 |
iconified till people msg me (which beeps). |
690 |
|
691 |
URxvt.visualBell: true |
692 |
|
693 |
The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd. |
694 |
|
695 |
URxvt.insecure: true |
696 |
|
697 |
Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops... |
698 |
|
699 |
URxvt.pastableTabs: false |
700 |
|
701 |
I once thought this is a great idea. |
702 |
|
703 |
urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\ |
704 |
-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\ |
705 |
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \ |
706 |
[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \ |
707 |
xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \ |
708 |
xft:Code2000:antialias=false |
709 |
urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15 |
710 |
urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true |
711 |
urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true |
712 |
|
713 |
I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be |
714 |
overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually |
715 |
the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally |
716 |
different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless |
717 |
characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from |
718 |
XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so |
719 |
I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use |
720 |
italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with |
721 |
Bitstream Vera anti-aliased. |
722 |
|
723 |
Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of |
724 |
my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal |
725 |
(Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between |
726 |
bold and normal fonts. |
727 |
|
728 |
Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt" |
729 |
class name. That is because I use different configs for different |
730 |
purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and |
731 |
uses these defaults: |
732 |
|
733 |
IRC*title: IRC |
734 |
IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542 |
735 |
IRC*saveLines: 0 |
736 |
IRC*mapAlert: true |
737 |
IRC*font: suxuseuro |
738 |
IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro |
739 |
IRC*colorBD: white |
740 |
IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007 |
741 |
IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007 |
742 |
|
743 |
"Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes. |
744 |
"suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while |
745 |
keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated |
746 |
(e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font. |
747 |
|
748 |
The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor |
749 |
"xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname" |
750 |
file for different hosts, for example, on my main desktop, I use: |
751 |
|
752 |
URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t |
753 |
URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t |
754 |
URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t |
755 |
URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t |
756 |
URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test |
757 |
|
758 |
The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows |
759 |
in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop |
760 |
immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the |
761 |
same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key |
762 |
combinations :-> |
763 |
|
764 |
Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? |
765 |
Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X |
766 |
applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads |
767 |
resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will |
768 |
ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read |
769 |
$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display. |
770 |
|
771 |
If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources |
772 |
are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after |
773 |
every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). |
774 |
|
775 |
Also consider the form resources have to use: |
776 |
|
777 |
URxvt.resource: value |
778 |
|
779 |
If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of |
780 |
specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it |
781 |
works. If unsure, use the form above. |
782 |
|
783 |
When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? |
784 |
The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available |
785 |
as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often |
786 |
arises). |
787 |
|
788 |
The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this |
789 |
can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as |
790 |
well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install |
791 |
the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as |
792 |
user and root): |
793 |
|
794 |
REMOTE=remotesystem.domain |
795 |
infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" |
796 |
|
797 |
One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of |
798 |
$HOME/.terminfo for this to work. |
799 |
|
800 |
If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set |
801 |
"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of |
802 |
problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different |
803 |
colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice |
804 |
quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though. |
805 |
|
806 |
If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you |
807 |
can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a |
808 |
resource to set it: |
809 |
|
810 |
URxvt.termName: rxvt |
811 |
|
812 |
If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace |
813 |
the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt". |
814 |
|
815 |
nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode" |
816 |
This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by |
817 |
nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with |
818 |
your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution. |
819 |
|
820 |
"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. |
821 |
Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by |
822 |
"enacs=\E[0@" and try again. |
823 |
|
824 |
"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt. |
825 |
See next entry. |
826 |
|
827 |
I need a termcap file entry. |
828 |
One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating |
829 |
systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap |
830 |
library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry |
831 |
for "rxvt-unicode". |
832 |
|
833 |
You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many |
834 |
cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp |
835 |
program like this: |
836 |
|
837 |
infocmp -C rxvt-unicode |
838 |
|
839 |
Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap, |
840 |
generated by the command above. |
841 |
|
842 |
Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? |
843 |
The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to |
844 |
decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration |
845 |
file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among |
846 |
with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: |
847 |
|
848 |
TERM rxvt-unicode |
849 |
|
850 |
to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: |
851 |
|
852 |
alias ls='ls --color=auto' |
853 |
|
854 |
to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". |
855 |
|
856 |
Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? |
857 |
See next entry. |
858 |
|
859 |
Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? |
860 |
See next entry. |
861 |
|
862 |
Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? |
863 |
Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged |
864 |
distributions break rxvt-unicode by setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which |
865 |
doesn't have these extra features. Unfortunately, some of these |
866 |
furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so |
867 |
you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in |
868 |
to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do |
869 |
this). |
870 |
|
871 |
Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues |
872 |
Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? |
873 |
See next entry. |
874 |
|
875 |
Unicode does not seem to work? |
876 |
If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but |
877 |
getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output |
878 |
is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings. |
879 |
|
880 |
Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the |
881 |
programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, |
882 |
while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes |
883 |
the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this |
884 |
is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems. |
885 |
|
886 |
The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely |
887 |
run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your |
888 |
.profile. |
889 |
|
890 |
printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too |
891 |
|
892 |
If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not |
893 |
supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which |
894 |
displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as |
895 |
it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays |
896 |
something like: |
897 |
|
898 |
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ... |
899 |
|
900 |
Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. |
901 |
|
902 |
If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then |
903 |
you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't |
904 |
support locales :( |
905 |
|
906 |
How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? |
907 |
See next entry. |
908 |
|
909 |
Is there an option to switch encodings? |
910 |
Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no |
911 |
specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know |
912 |
about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O. |
913 |
|
914 |
The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for |
915 |
selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating |
916 |
this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties |
917 |
such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*. |
918 |
Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, |
919 |
"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own, |
920 |
locale-independent table under all locales). |
921 |
|
922 |
Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All |
923 |
programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the |
924 |
interpretation of characters. |
925 |
|
926 |
Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor |
927 |
is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. |
928 |
|
929 |
On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable |
930 |
contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed |
931 |
locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", |
932 |
"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. |
933 |
"de" or "german") are also common. |
934 |
|
935 |
Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the |
936 |
encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. |
937 |
"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode. |
938 |
|
939 |
If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start |
940 |
rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category. |
941 |
|
942 |
Can I switch locales at runtime? |
943 |
Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets |
944 |
rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". |
945 |
|
946 |
printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS |
947 |
|
948 |
See also the previous answer. |
949 |
|
950 |
Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one |
951 |
locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g. |
952 |
UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first |
953 |
switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later: |
954 |
|
955 |
printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS |
956 |
xjdic -js |
957 |
printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8 |
958 |
|
959 |
You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine, |
960 |
except for some locales where character width differs between program- |
961 |
and rxvt-unicode-locales. |
962 |
|
963 |
I have problems getting my input method working. |
964 |
Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input |
965 |
method server. |
966 |
|
967 |
Here is a checklist: |
968 |
|
969 |
- Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS. |
970 |
Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS. |
971 |
|
972 |
- Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your |
973 |
XIM. |
974 |
For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use |
975 |
"ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent. |
976 |
|
977 |
- Make sure your XIM server is actually running. |
978 |
- Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when |
979 |
*starting* rxvt-unicode. |
980 |
When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2". |
981 |
For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are |
982 |
running with this command: |
983 |
|
984 |
xprop -root XIM_SERVERS |
985 |
|
986 |
My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do? |
987 |
You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of |
988 |
the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": |
989 |
|
990 |
URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP |
991 |
|
992 |
Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still |
993 |
use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your |
994 |
Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" |
995 |
in a normal way then, as your input method limits you. |
996 |
|
997 |
Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. |
998 |
Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by |
999 |
design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory |
1000 |
leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at |
1001 |
exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while |
1002 |
SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes |
1003 |
cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate. |
1004 |
|
1005 |
So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. |
1006 |
|
1007 |
Operating Systems / Package Maintaining |
1008 |
I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation? |
1009 |
You should build one binary with the default options. configure now |
1010 |
enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them |
1011 |
runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling |
1012 |
them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter |
1013 |
should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely |
1014 |
more in the future) depends on it. |
1015 |
|
1016 |
You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources |
1017 |
system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful |
1018 |
behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty |
1019 |
"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the |
1020 |
perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it. |
1021 |
|
1022 |
If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one |
1023 |
with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with |
1024 |
"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of |
1025 |
encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used). |
1026 |
|
1027 |
I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe? |
1028 |
It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly |
1029 |
install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. |
1030 |
|
1031 |
When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork |
1032 |
into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some |
1033 |
systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges |
1034 |
immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep |
1035 |
privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains |
1036 |
things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers). |
1037 |
|
1038 |
This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very |
1039 |
early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before |
1040 |
main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should |
1041 |
result in very little risk. |
1042 |
|
1043 |
I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. |
1044 |
Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in |
1045 |
your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it, |
1046 |
whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that |
1047 |
wchar_t is represented as unicode. |
1048 |
|
1049 |
As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor |
1050 |
does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of |
1051 |
wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards. |
1052 |
|
1053 |
However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and |
1054 |
"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t). |
1055 |
|
1056 |
"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps |
1057 |
in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) |
1058 |
representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t |
1059 |
(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without |
1060 |
implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There |
1061 |
simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current |
1062 |
locale encoding. |
1063 |
|
1064 |
Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by |
1065 |
carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with |
1066 |
them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple |
1067 |
conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements |
1068 |
encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator). |
1069 |
|
1070 |
The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the |
1071 |
system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry |
1072 |
complete replacements for them :) |
1073 |
|
1074 |
How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? |
1075 |
rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the |
1076 |
X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer |
1077 |
supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single |
1078 |
font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or |
1079 |
"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the |
1080 |
old libW11 emulation. |
1081 |
|
1082 |
At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any |
1083 |
multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are |
1084 |
likely limited to 8-bit encodings. |
1085 |
|
1086 |
Character widths are not correct. |
1087 |
urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the |
1088 |
width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will |
1089 |
likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where |
1090 |
single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and |
1091 |
Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1. |
1092 |
|
1093 |
The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A |
1094 |
possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like |
1095 |
|
1096 |
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c |
1097 |
|