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Revision 1.39 by root, Tue Jan 31 20:52:19 2006 UTC

1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
3 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
4 Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5 "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
6 interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
7
8 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
9 Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
10 simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
11 should give you tabs:
12
13 rxvt -pe tabbed
14
15 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
16
17 It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
18 managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
19 it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
20 or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
21 (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
22
2 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? 23 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
3 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape 24 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
4 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. 25 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
26 using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
5 27
6 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... 28 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
7 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large 29 Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
8 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. 30 you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
9 Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please 31 that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
10 download and install the genuine version 32 design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
11 (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce the 33 loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
12 problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific 34 characters.
13 to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the
14 Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
15 35
16 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and 36 Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
17 probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's 37 scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
18 also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for 38 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
19 other users that might encounter the same issue. 39 kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
40 full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
41 worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
20 42
43 How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?
44 Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the
45 listening socket and then fork.
46
47 How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
48 rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you can
49 check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn,
50 Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether
51 or not to use color.
52
53 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
54 If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
55 insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
56 snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
57 wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
58 then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
59 a regular xterm.
60
61 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
62 snippets:
63
64 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
65 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
66 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
67 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
68 echo -n '^[Z'
69 read term_id
70 stty icanon echo
71 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
72 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
73 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
74 fi
75 fi
76
77 How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
78 You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
79 one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. Then go to the doc
80 subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
81
82 Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
83 I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
84 bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
85 that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
86 being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
87 startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
88 unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
89 iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
90
91 text data bss drs rss filename
92 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
93 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
94
95 When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft
96 and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
97 libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
98
99 text data bss drs rss filename
100 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
101 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
102
103 The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
104 encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
105 and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
106 encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
107 compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
108 memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
109 a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
110 when not used.
111
112 Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
113 one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
114 more memory.
115
116 Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
117 still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
118 gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
119 (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
120 a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
121 out), it fares extremely well *g*.
122
123 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
124 Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
125 had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
126 fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
127 even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
128
129 My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
130 the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
131 are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
132 unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
133
134 Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
135 in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in
136 C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is
137 not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my
138 system with a minimal config:
139
140 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
141 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
142 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
143 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
144
145 And here is rxvt-unicode:
146
147 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
148 libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
149 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
150 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
151 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
152
153 No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
154 except maybe libX11 :)
155
156 Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
157 I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
158 First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,
159 so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you
160 may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
161 rite of passage: ... and you failed.
162
163 Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
164 descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
165
166 1. Use inheritPixmap:
167
168 Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
169 rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40
170
171 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
172 support, or you are unable to read.
173
174 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
175 to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
176 your picture with gimp or any other tool:
177
178 convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm
179 rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background
180
181 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or
182 you are unable to read.
183
184 3. Use an ARGB visual:
185
186 rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
187
188 This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
189 doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
190 there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
191 neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work,
192 but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
193
194 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
195
196 xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
197 -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
198
199 Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
200 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
201 your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
202
203 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
204 This is because there is a difference between script and language --
205 rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
206 it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
207 japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
208 Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
209 characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
210 non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
211 font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
212 for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
213
214 The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
215 list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
216 preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
217 first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
218
219 In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
220 runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
221 fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
222 has been designed yet).
223
224 Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
225 I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
226
227 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
228 Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
229 character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
230 use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
231 will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
232 wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
233 characters.
234
235 All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
236 however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
237 bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
238 way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
239 wrong in these cases).
240
241 It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
242 or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
243 using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
244 work, you might be forced to use a different font.
245
246 All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
247 bounding box data is correct.
248
249 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
250 First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
251 ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
252 make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
253 rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
254
255 URxvt.colorBD: white
256 URxvt.colorIT: green
257
258 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
259 For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
260 colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
261 standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
262 course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
263 good reasons.
264
265 In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
266 definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
267 fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
268
269 Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
270 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
271 same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
272
273 printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
274
275 This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
276 japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
277 japanese fonts would only be in your way.
278
279 You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
280
281 Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
282 Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
283 example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
284 Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to
285 enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
286
287 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
288 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
289
290 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
291 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
292 is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
293 antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
294 memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
295
296 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
297 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
298 fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core
299 fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
300 antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
301 look best that way.
302
303 If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
304
305 What's with this bold/blink stuff?
306 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
307 standard foreground colour.
308
309 For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
310 blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard colours.
311 Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be ignored.
312
313 On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
314 foreground/background colors.
315
316 color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
317
318 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
319
320 I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
321 You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
322 resources (or as long-options).
323
324 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
325 the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
326
327 URxvt.color0: #000000
328 URxvt.color1: #A80000
329 URxvt.color2: #00A800
330 URxvt.color3: #A8A800
331 URxvt.color4: #0000A8
332 URxvt.color5: #A800A8
333 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
334 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
335
336 URxvt.color8: #000054
337 URxvt.color9: #FF0054
338 URxvt.color10: #00FF54
339 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
340 URxvt.color12: #0000FF
341 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
342 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
343 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
344
345 And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described (not by
346 me) as "pretty girly".
347
348 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
349 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
350 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
351 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
352 URxvt.color0: #000000
353 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
354 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
355 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
356 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
357 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
358 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
359 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
360 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
361 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
362 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
363 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
364 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
365 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
366
367 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
368 See next entry.
369
370 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
371 Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
372 Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
373 system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
374 display.
375
376 rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
377 Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
378 bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
379 resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
380 intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
381 the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
382
383 In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
384 e.g.:
385
386 rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
387
388 When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
389 If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
390 font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
391 search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
392
393 The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
394 base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
395 which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
396
397 Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
398 The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
399 If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
400 setting:
401
402 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
403
404 If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
405 more.
406
407 To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
408 pattern:
409
410 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
411
412 Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination also
413 selects words like the old code.
414
415 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
416 You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
417 perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
418 rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
419
420 If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
421 identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
422 PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
423 disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
424 perl-ext-common resource:
425
426 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
427
428 This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
429 extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
430 scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
431 combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
432
433 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
434
435 The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
436 See next entry.
437
438 During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
439 These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
440 circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
441 line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
442 but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
443 some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
444
445 You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
446 extension:
447
448 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
449
450 My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
451 Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
452 specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
453 caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether and
454 how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
455 compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
456 report if that helped.
457
458 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
459 The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
460 correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
461 input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
462 method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
463 support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
464 will continue without an input method.
465
466 In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
467 one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
468
469 I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
470 Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
471 international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
472 advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
473 other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
474 escape character and so on.
475
476 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
477 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
478 editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
479 that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
480 check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
481 depressed.
482
483 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
484 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace
485 keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
486 two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
487
488 Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
489 debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only only
490 correct choice :).
491
492 Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
493 value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
494 wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell),
495 then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in
496 <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as your stty
497 setting).
498
499 For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
500
501 # use Backspace = ^H
502 $ stty erase ^H
503 $ rxvt
504
505 # use Backspace = ^?
506 $ stty erase ^?
507 $ rxvt
508
509 Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
510
511 For an existing rxvt-unicode:
512
513 # use Backspace = ^H
514 $ stty erase ^H
515 $ echo -n "^[[36h"
516
517 # use Backspace = ^?
518 $ stty erase ^?
519 $ echo -n "^[[36l"
520
521 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
522 if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
523 properly reflects that.
524
525 The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
526 problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
527 Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
528 Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
529
530 Some other Backspace problems:
531
532 some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
533 Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
534
535 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
536
537 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
538 There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
539 you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
540 use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
541 keysyms.
542
543 Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name URxvt"
544
545 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
546 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
547 URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
548 URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
549 URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
550 URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
551 URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
552 URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
553 URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
554 URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
555 URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
556 URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
557 URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
558 URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
559 URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
560 URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
561 URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
562 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
563 URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
564 URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
565
566 See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
567
568 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
569 KP_Insert == Insert
570 F22 == Print
571 F27 == Home
572 F29 == Prior
573 F33 == End
574 F35 == Next
575
576 Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
577 possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
578 keys as required for your particular machine.
579
580 Terminal Configuration
581 Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
582 Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
583 applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
584 resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
585 ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
586 $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
587
588 If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
589 are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
590 every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
591
592 Also consider the form resources have to use:
593
594 URxvt.resource: value
595
596 If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
597 specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it works.
598 If unsure, use the form above.
599
21 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 600 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
22 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely 601 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
23 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same 602 as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
24 problem often arises). 603 arises).
25 604
26 The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, 605 The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
27 this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): 606 can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):
28 607
29 REMOTE=remotesystem.domain 608 REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
30 infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" 609 infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
31 610
32 ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, 611 ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,
33 612
34 If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set 613 If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
35 "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of 614 "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
36 problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and 615 problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
37 different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen 616 colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
38 applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, 617 quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
39 though.
40 618
41 If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) 619 If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
42 you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or 620 can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
43 use a resource to set it: 621 resource to set it:
44 622
45 URxvt.termName: rxvt 623 URxvt.termName: rxvt
46 624
47 If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also 625 If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
48 replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. 626 the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.
49 627
50 "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. 628 "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
51 Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it 629 Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
52 by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. 630 "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
53 631
54 "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt. 632 "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt.
633 See next entry.
634
55 I need a termcap file entry. 635 I need a termcap file entry.
56 One reason you might want this is that some distributions or 636 One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
57 operating systems still compile some programs using the 637 systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
58 long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) 638 library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
59 and rely on a termcap entry for "rxvt-unicode". 639 for "rxvt-unicode".
60 640
61 You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many 641 You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many cases.
62 cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's 642 You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp program
63 infocmp program like this: 643 like this:
64 644
65 infocmp -C rxvt-unicode 645 infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
66 646
67 Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above: 647 Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:
68 648
69 rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\ 649 rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
70 :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\ 650 :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
71 :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ 651 :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
72 :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ 652 :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
73 :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ 653 :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
74 :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ 654 :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
75 :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ 655 :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
76 :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ 656 :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
77 :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ 657 :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
78 :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ 658 :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
79 :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ 659 :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
80 :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ 660 :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
81 :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ 661 :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
82 :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ 662 :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
83 :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\ 663 :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
84 :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\ 664 :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
85 :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ 665 :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
86 :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ 666 :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
87 :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ 667 :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
88 :vs=\E[?25h: 668 :vs=\E[?25h:
89 669
90 Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? 670 Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
91 The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to 671 The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
92 decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration 672 decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration
93 file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file 673 file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file (among
94 (among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: 674 with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
95 675
96 TERM rxvt-unicode 676 TERM rxvt-unicode
97 677
98 to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: 678 to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
99 679
100 alias ls='ls --color=auto' 680 alias ls='ls --color=auto'
101 681
102 to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". 682 to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
103 683
104 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? 684 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
685 See next entry.
686
105 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? 687 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
688 See next entry.
689
106 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? 690 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
107 Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged 691 Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
108 distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by 692 distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
109 setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. 693 setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
110 Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) 694 Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
111 furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, 695 furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
112 so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I 696 you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
113 log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on 697 to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
114 how to do this). 698 this).
115 699
116 My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output? 700 Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
117 Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
118 specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
119 caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether
120 and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
121 compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and
122 please report if that helped.
123
124 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? 701 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
702 See next entry.
703
125 Unicode does not seem to work? 704 Unicode does not seem to work?
126 If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character 705 If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
127 but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program 706 getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
128 output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale 707 is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
129 settings.
130 708
131 Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the 709 Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
132 programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the 710 programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the
133 login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the 711 login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale
134 locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this 712 to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this is not
135 is not going to work. 713 going to work.
136 714
137 The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will 715 The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
138 likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in 716 run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
139 your .profile. 717 .profile.
140 718
141 printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" 719 printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"
142 720
143 If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification 721 If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
144 not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command 722 supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
145 which displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale 723 displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
146 settings, as it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). 724 it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
147 If it displays something like: 725 something like:
148 726
149 locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ... 727 locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
150 728
151 Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. 729 Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
152 730
153 If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly 731 If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
154 then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs 732 you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
155 just don't support locales :( 733 support locales :(
156 734
157 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
158 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
159 Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
160 Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
161 your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you
162 want to display.
163
164 rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
165 Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
166 bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that
167 don't resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the
168 artificial intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it
169 has to believe the font that the characters it claims to contain
170 indeed look correct.
171
172 In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font
173 list, e.g.:
174
175 urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
176
177 When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
178 font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to
179 the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed
180 up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the
181 X-server.
182
183 The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
184 base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell
185 size, which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
186
187 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
188 This is because there is a difference between script and language --
189 rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
190 is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
191 first sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese
192 font for display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font.
193 Now, many chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts,
194 so when the first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will
195 look for a chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will
196 still use the japanese font for chinese characters that are also in
197 the japanese font.
198
199 The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your
200 font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font
201 list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a
202 japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font
203 first.
204
205 In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
206 runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using
207 different fonts for the same character at the same time, but no
208 interface for this has been designed yet).
209
210 Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see
211 "Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
212
213 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
214 Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
215 character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for
216 terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide.
217 Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are
218 just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used
219 that redraws adjacent characters.
220
221 All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
222 however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
223 bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the
224 correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which
225 unfortunately is wrong in these cases).
226
227 It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft,
228 freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you
229 might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If
230 that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.
231
232 All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
233 bounding box data is correct.
234
235 On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
236 Seems to be a known bug, read
237 <http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
238 following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
239
240 #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
241
242 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
243 The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not
244 set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported
245 by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and
246 your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose
247 keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual),
248 then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
249
250 In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more
251 than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
252
253 I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO
254 14755
255 Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
256 international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
257 advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
258 other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default
259 telnet escape character and so on.
260
261 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
262 First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal
263 settings ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these
264 effects. Then make sure you have specified colours for italic and
265 bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate
266 the effect:
267
268 URxvt.colorBD: white
269 URxvt.colorIT: green
270
271 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how
272 can I fix that?
273 For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very
274 weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than
275 the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is,
276 of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours
277 without very good reasons.
278
279 In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
280 definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which
281 will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode
282 features.
283
284 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
285 Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined
286 in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements
287 it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__"
288 requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode.
289
290 As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl
291 nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal
292 representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with
293 respect to standards.
294
295 However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1"
296 and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
297
298 "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language
299 apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
300 representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between
301 wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other
302 encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and
303 every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into
304 anything except the current locale encoding.
305
306 Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this
307 by carrying their own replacement functions for character set
308 handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or
309 doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the
310 OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal
311 emulator).
312
313 The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in
314 the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app
315 to carry complete replacements for them :)
316
317 I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
318 Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
319 problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
320
321 How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
322 rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
323 the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
324 longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
325 single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
326 "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as
327 the old libW11 emulation.
328
329 At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
330 multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
331 likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
332
333 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? 735 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
736 See next entry.
737
334 Is there an option to switch encodings? 738 Is there an option to switch encodings?
335 Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, 739 Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
336 and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't 740 specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
337 even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to 741 about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
338 terminal I/O.
339 742
340 The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for 743 The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
341 selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating 744 selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
342 this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties 745 this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
343 such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*. 746 such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
344 Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, 747 Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
345 "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, 748 "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own,
346 locale-independent table under all locales). 749 locale-independent table under all locales).
347 750
348 Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. 751 Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
349 All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree 752 programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
350 in the interpretation of characters. 753 interpretation of characters.
351 754
352 Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, 755 Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
353 nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. 756 is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
354 757
355 On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable 758 On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
356 contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an 759 contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
357 already-installed locale. Common names for locales are 760 locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
358 "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. 761 "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
359 "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german") 762 "de" or "german") are also common.
360 are also common.
361 763
362 Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the 764 Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
363 encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. 765 encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
364 "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to 766 "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
365 rxvt-unicode.
366 767
367 If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you 768 If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
368 start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category. 769 rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
369 770
370 Can I switch locales at runtime? 771 Can I switch locales at runtime?
371 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets 772 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
372 rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". 773 rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
373 774
775 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
776
777 See also the previous answer.
778
779 Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
780 locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
781 UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
782 switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
783
374 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS 784 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
375
376 See also the previous answer.
377
378 Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in
379 one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it
380 (e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which
381 first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
382
383 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
384 xjdic -js 785 xjdic -js
385 printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8 786 printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
386 787
387 You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine, 788 You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
388 except for some locales where character width differs between 789 except for some locales where character width differs between program-
389 program- and rxvt-unicode-locales. 790 and rxvt-unicode-locales.
390 791
391 Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
392 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has
393 the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect
394 immediately:
395
396 printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
397
398 This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer
399 a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily,
400 where japanese fonts would only be in your way.
401
402 You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
403
404 Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
405 Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
406 example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera
407 Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might
408 be to enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
409
410 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
411 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
412
413 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do? 792 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
414 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest 793 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
415 of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": 794 the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
416 795
417 URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP 796 URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
418 797
419 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and 798 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
420 still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not 799 use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able
421 be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, 800 to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, as your input
422 as your input method limits you. 801 method limits you.
423 802
424 Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. 803 Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
425 Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by 804 Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
426 design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory 805 design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
427 leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering 806 leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
428 at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally 807 exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
429 succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, 808 SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
430 however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides 809 cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
431 cooperate.
432 810
433 So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. 811 So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
434 812
435 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? 813 Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
436 Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for 814 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
437 something you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure 815 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
438 out all settings that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a 816 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
439 resource hog by design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no 817 unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
440 Xft font will be loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find 818 the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
441 a font for your characters. 819 version (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
820 the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
821 to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian
822 Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
442 823
443 Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger 824 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
444 scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will 825 probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
445 use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to 826 bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
446 almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will 827 that might encounter the same issue.
447 then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3"
448 it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
449 828
450 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? 829 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
451 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, 830 You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
452 as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to 831 enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
453 disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves 832 runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
454 lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. 833 them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
834 should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
835 more in the future) depends on it.
455 836
456 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? 837 You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" resources
457 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to 838 system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
458 fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core 839 behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
459 fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It 840 "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
460 has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author 841 perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
461 thinks they look best that way.
462 842
463 If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. 843 If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
844 with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
845 "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
846 encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
464 847
465 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. 848 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
466 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing 849 It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
467 some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. 850 install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
468 I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise
469 specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
470 or Shift keys are depressed. See urxvt(7)
471 851
472 What's with this bold/blink stuff? 852 When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
473 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using 853 into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
474 the standard foreground colour. 854 systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
855 immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
856 privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
857 things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
475 858
476 For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the 859 This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
477 text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard 860 early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
478 colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be 861 main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
479 ignored. 862 result in very little risk.
480 863
481 On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set 864 On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
482 high-intensity foreground/background colors. 865 Seems to be a known bug, read
866 <http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
867 following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
483 868
484 color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. 869 #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
485 870
486 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. 871 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
872 Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
873 your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
874 wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
875 wchar_t is represented as unicode.
487 876
488 I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? 877 As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl nor
489 You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults 878 does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal representation of
490 resources (or as long-options). 879 wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
491 880
492 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, 881 However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
493 including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow: 882 "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
494 883
495 URxvt.color0: #000000 884 "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
496 URxvt.color1: #A80000 885 in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
497 URxvt.color2: #00A800 886 representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
498 URxvt.color3: #A8A800 887 (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
499 URxvt.color4: #0000A8 888 implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
500 URxvt.color5: #A800A8 889 simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
501 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8 890 locale encoding.
502 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
503 891
504 URxvt.color8: #000054 892 Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
505 URxvt.color9: #FF0054 893 carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
506 URxvt.color10: #00FF54 894 them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
507 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54 895 conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
508 URxvt.color12: #0000FF 896 encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
509 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
510 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
511 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
512 897
513 And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described 898 The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
514 (not by me) as "pretty girly". 899 system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
900 complete replacements for them :)
515 901
516 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 902 I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
517 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 903 Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
518 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e 904 problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
519 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
520 URxvt.color0: #000000
521 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
522 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
523 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
524 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
525 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
526 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
527 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
528 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
529 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
530 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
531 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
532 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
533 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
534 905
535 How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way? 906 How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
536 Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create 907 rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
537 the listening socket and then fork. 908 X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
909 supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
910 font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
911 "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
912 old libW11 emulation.
538 913
539 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? 914 At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
540 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the 915 multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
541 BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following 916 likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
542 question) there are two standard values that can be used for
543 Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
544 917
545 Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
546 debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only
547 only correct choice :).
548
549 Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
550 value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
551 wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote
552 shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to
553 CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as
554 your stty setting).
555
556 For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
557
558 # use Backspace = ^H
559 $ stty erase ^H
560 $ urxvt
561
562 # use Backspace = ^?
563 $ stty erase ^?
564 $ urxvt
565
566 Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l" as documented in urxvt(7).
567
568 For an existing rxvt-unicode:
569
570 # use Backspace = ^H
571 $ stty erase ^H
572 $ echo -n "^[[36h"
573
574 # use Backspace = ^?
575 $ stty erase ^?
576 $ echo -n "^[[36l"
577
578 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
579 but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo
580 value properly reflects that.
581
582 The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
583 problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys,
584 the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the
585 vt100 for Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied
586 termcap/terminfo.
587
588 Some other Backspace problems:
589
590 some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told)
591 expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for
592 help.
593
594 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
595
596 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
597 There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
598 Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
599 option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
600 associated with keysyms.
601
602 Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name
603 URxvt"
604
605 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
606 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
607 URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
608 URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
609 URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
610 URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
611 URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
612 URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
613 URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
614 URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
615 URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
616 URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
617 URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
618 URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
619 URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
620 URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
621 URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
622 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
623 URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
624 URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
625
626 See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
627
628 I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How
629 do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the
630 following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
631 KP_Insert == Insert
632 F22 == Print
633 F27 == Home
634 F29 == Prior
635 F33 == End
636 F35 == Next
637
638 Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
639 possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap
640 the keys as required for your particular machine.
641
642 How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
643 I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
644 rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you
645 can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
646 slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
647 whether or not to use color.
648
649 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
650 If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
651 insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
652 snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of
653 rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in
654 these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to
655 distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm.
656
657 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
658 script snippets:
659
660 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
661 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
662 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
663 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
664 echo -n '^[Z'
665 read term_id
666 stty icanon echo
667 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
668 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
669 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
670 fi
671 fi
672
673 How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
674 You need to have a recent version of perl installed as
675 /usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html.
676 Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
677
678 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
679 Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net",
680 channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might
681 be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not
682 FAQs :).
683

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