--- rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2005/04/17 22:36:12 1.13 +++ rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2006/01/30 22:49:30 1.34 @@ -1,23 +1,255 @@ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS + The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select + single words? + Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can + use the following resource: + + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) + + If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more + and more. + + To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this + pattern: + + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) + + Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination + also selects words like the old code. + + I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I + change/disable it? + You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the + perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps + rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. + + If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to + identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the + section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For + example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify + this perl-ext-common resource: + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup + + This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup + extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, + scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any + other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback + resource: + + URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s + + Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? + Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X + applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS + loads resources into the X display (the right way to do it), + rxvt-unicode will ignore any resource files in your home directory. + It will only read $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to + the display. + + If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that + resources are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to + re-login after every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). + + Also consider the form resources have to use: + + URxvt.resource: value + + If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of + specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it + works. If unsure, use the form above. + + I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? + First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in + rxvt-unicode, so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author + about it (but you may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it + working consider it a rite of passage, and you failed. + + Here are three ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and + option descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. + Really, do it! + + 1. Use inheritPixmap: + + Esetroot wallpaper.jpg + rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40 + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and + tinting support, or you are unable to read. + + 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables + you to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just + shade/tint/whatever your picture with gimp: + + convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm + rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, + or you are unable to read. + + 3. Use an ARGB visual: + + rxvt -depth 432 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/0000/c000 + + This requires XFT support, and support form your X-server. If that + doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals + aren't there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains + the neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it + work. + + Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? + I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause + extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you + can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables + always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) + after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is + a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding + conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything + 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything + + When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves + xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 + and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything + 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything + + The very large size of the text section is explained by the + east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but + nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core + fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k + emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course + doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font + instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft + indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used. + + Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of + one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use + more memory. + + Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), + this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like + gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or + konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after + exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of + warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*. + + Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? + Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: + I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a + fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). + Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. + + My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but + in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability + limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale + support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than + C++ itself. + + Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write + programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to + write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large + libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is + what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + And here is rxvt-unicode: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in + statically), except maybe libX11 :) + + Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? + Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that + implements a simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so + any of these should give you tabs: + + rxvt -pe tabbed + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed + + It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window + managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features + allow it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by + doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which + features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding + application. + How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. + When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the + daemon. I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... - The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode contains large patches - that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. Before - reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download - and install the genuine version - () and try to reproduce the - problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific - to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the - Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug). + The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large + patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but + unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug + to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the + genuine version () and try + to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the + problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should + be reported via the Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to + report the bug). For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users that might encounter the same issue. + I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any + recommendation? + You should build one binary with the default options. configure now + enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them + runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling + them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl + interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, + selection, likely more in the future) depends on it. + + You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" + resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will + result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, + add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. + This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables + it. + + If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal + one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with + "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot + of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely + used). + + I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this + safe? + It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to + properly install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. + + When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will + fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling + on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop + privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals + that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, + as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" + to attackers). + + This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very + early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before + main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which + should result in very little risk. + When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same @@ -47,6 +279,10 @@ If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. + "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. + Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it + by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. + "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. I need a termcap file entry. One reason you might want this is that some distributions or @@ -228,6 +464,13 @@ All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their bounding box data is correct. + On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. + Seems to be a known bug, read + . Some people use the + following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: + + #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) + My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported @@ -303,6 +546,22 @@ the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry complete replacements for them :) + I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. + Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst + problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. + + How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? + rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using + the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no + longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a + single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or + "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as + the old libW11 emulation. + + At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any + multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are + likely limited to 8-bit encodings. + How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? Is there an option to switch encodings? Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, @@ -387,7 +646,7 @@ You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": - URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP + URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not @@ -423,8 +682,8 @@ Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to - disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialiasing=false"), which - saves lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. + disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves + lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to @@ -440,7 +699,7 @@ some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt - or Shift keys are depressed. See rxvt(7) + or Shift keys are depressed. What's with this bold/blink stuff? If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using @@ -506,14 +765,8 @@ URxvt.color15: #e1dddd How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? - Despite it's name, rxvtd is not a real daemon, but more like a - server that answers rxvtc's requests, so it doesn't background - itself. - - To ensure rxvtd is listening on it's socket, you can use the - following method to wait for the startup message before continuing: - - { rxvtd & } | read + Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the + listening socket and then fork. What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the @@ -542,7 +795,7 @@ $ stty erase ^? $ rxvt - Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l" as documented in rxvt(7). + Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l". For an existing rxvt-unicode: