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Revision 1.28 by root, Fri Jan 13 12:40:46 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.66 by root, Thu May 10 22:42:02 2012 UTC

1	FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS	1	RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select	2	Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
3	single words?	3	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
4	Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can	4	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5	use the following resource:	5	"#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
		6	interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
6		7
7	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)	8	I use Gentoo, and I have a problem...
		9	There are three big problems with Gentoo Linux: first of all, most if
		10	not all Gentoo systems are completely broken (missing or mismatched
		11	header files, broken compiler etc. are just the tip of the iceberg);
		12	secondly, the Gentoo maintainer thinks it is a good idea to add broken
		13	patches to the code; and lastly, it should be called Gentoo GNU/Linux.
8		14
9	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more	15	For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo.
10	and more.	16	Problems appearing on Gentoo systems will usually simply be ignored
		17	unless they can be reproduced on non-Gentoo systems.
11		18
12	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
13	pattern:
14
15	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
16
17	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination
18	also selects words like the old code.
19
20	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I
21	change/disable it?
22	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
23	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
24	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
25
26	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
27	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the
28	section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For
29	example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify
30	this perl-ext-common resource:
31
32	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
33
34	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
35	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
36	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any
37	other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback
38	resource:
39
40	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
41
42	Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
43	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause
44	extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you
45	can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables
46	always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS)
47	after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is
48	a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding
49	conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
50
51	text data bss drs rss filename
52	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
53	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
54
55	When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves
56	xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11
57	and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
58
59	text data bss drs rss filename
60	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
61	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
62
63	The very large size of the text section is explained by the
64	east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but
65	nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core
66	fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k
67	emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course
68	doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font
69	instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft
70	indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.
71
72	Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
73	one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
74	more memory.
75
76	Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k),
77	this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
78	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or
79	konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after
80	exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of
81	warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.
82
83	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
84	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is:
85	I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
86	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me).
87	Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
88
89	My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but
90	in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability
91	limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale
92	support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than
93	C++ itself.
94
95	Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write
96	programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to
97	write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large
98	libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is
99	what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:
100
101	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
102	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
103	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
104	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
105
106	And here is rxvt-unicode:
107
108	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
109	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
110	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
111	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
112	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
113
114	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in
115	statically), except maybe libX11 :)
116
117	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?	19	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
118	rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with	20	Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
119	tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing	21	simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
120	programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into	22	should give you tabs:
121	other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming	23
		24	urxvt -pe tabbed
		25
		26	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
		27
		28	It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
		29	managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
		30	it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
122	"Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)	31	or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
123	terminal as an example embedding application.	32	(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
124		33
125	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?	34	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
126	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape	35	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
127	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number.	36	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
128	When using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the	37	using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
129	daemon.
130		38
131	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...	39	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
132	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large	40	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
133	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.	41	you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
134	Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please	42	that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
135	download and install the genuine version	43	design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
136	(<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce the	44	loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
137	problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific	45	characters.
138	to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the
139	Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
140		46
141	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and	47	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
142	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's	48	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
143	also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for	49	bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
144	other users that might encounter the same issue.	50	kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
		51	full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
		52	worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
145		53
146	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any	54	How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
147	recommendation?	55	Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the
148	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now	56	listening socket and then fork.
149	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
150	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
151	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl
152	interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus,
153	selection, likely more in the future) depends on it.
154		57
155	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"	58	How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
156	resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will	59	If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
157	result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,	60	the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
158	add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.	61
159	This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables	62	#!/bin/sh
		63	urxvtc "$@"
		64	if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
		65	urxvtd -q -o -f
		66	urxvtc "$@"
160	it.	67	fi
161		68
162	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal	69	This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
163	one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with	70	meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
164	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot	71	re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
165	of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely	72	existing daemon.
166	used).
167		73
168	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this	74	How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular
169	safe?	75	xterm? I need this to decide about setting colours etc.
170	Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably	76	The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
171	not bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of	77	"COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
172	freetype + fontconfig + xft + xlib + perl + ... + rxvt-unicode	78	programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
173	itself to all be secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options	79	variable to decide whether or not to use colour.
174	when it detects that it runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice.
175	Besides, with the embedded perl interpreter the possibility for
176	security problems easily multiplies.
177		80
178	Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on	81	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
179	some systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra	82	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
180	privileges for ptys, but some need it for utmp support). It is	83	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
181	planned to mvoe this into a forked handler process, but this is not	84	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
182	yet done.	85	wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
		86	then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
		87	a regular xterm.
183		88
184	So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on	89	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
185	your typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always	90	snippets:
186	remember that its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked
187	for security issues regularly.
188		91
		92	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
		93	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
		94	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
		95	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
		96	echo -n '^[Z'
		97	read term_id
		98	stty icanon echo
		99	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
		100	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
		101	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
		102	fi
		103	fi
		104
		105	How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
		106	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
		107	one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::Xhtml).
		108	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
		109
		110	Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
		111	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
		112	bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
		113	that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
		114	being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
		115	startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
		116	unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
		117	iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
		118
		119	text data bss drs rss filename
		120	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
		121	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
		122
		123	When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
		124	and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
		125	libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
		126
		127	text data bss drs rss filename
		128	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
		129	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
		130
		131	The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
		132	encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
		133	and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
		134	encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
		135	compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
		136	memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
		137	a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
		138	when not used.
		139
		140	Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
		141	one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
		142	more memory.
		143
		144	Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
		145	still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
		146	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
		147	(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
		148	a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
		149	out), it fares extremely well *g*.
		150
		151	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
		152	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
		153	had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
		154	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
		155	even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
		156
		157	My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
		158	the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
		159	are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
		160	unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
		161
		162	Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
		163	in C that use gobs of memory, and certainly possible to write programs
		164	in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this
		165	is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on
		166	my system with a minimal config:
		167
		168	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		169	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
		170	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
		171	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		172
		173	And here is rxvt-unicode:
		174
		175	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		176	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
		177	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
		178	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
		179	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		180
		181	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
		182	except maybe libX11 :)
		183
		184	Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
		185	I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
		186	First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,
		187	so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you
		188	may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
		189	rite of passage: ... and you failed.
		190
		191	Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
		192	descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
		193
		194	1. Use transparent mode:
		195
		196	Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
		197	urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40
		198
		199	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
		200	support, or you are unable to read. This method requires that the
		201	background-setting program sets the _XROOTPMAP_ID or ESETROOT_PMAP_ID
		202	property. Compatible programs are Esetroot, hsetroot and feh.
		203
		204	2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
		205	to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
		206	your picture with gimp or any other tool:
		207
		208	convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg
		209	urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root"
		210
		211	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack GDK-PixBuf support, or you
		212	are unable to read.
		213
		214	3. Use an ARGB visual:
		215
		216	urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
		217
		218	This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
		219	doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
		220	there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
		221	necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
		222	that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
		223
		224	4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
		225
		226	xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
		227	-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
		228
		229	Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
		230	by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
		231	your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
		232
		233	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
		234	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
		235	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
		236	use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
		237	will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
		238	wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
		239	characters.
		240
		241	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
		242	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
		243	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
		244	way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
		245	wrong in these cases).
		246
		247	It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
		248	or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
		249	using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
		250	work, you might be forced to use a different font.
		251
		252	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
		253	bounding box data is correct.
		254
		255	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
		256	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
		257	("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
		258	make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
		259	rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
		260
		261	URxvt.colorBD: white
		262	URxvt.colorIT: green
		263
		264	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
		265	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
		266	colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
		267	standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
		268	course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
		269	good reasons.
		270
		271	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
		272	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
		273	fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
		274
		275	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
		276	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
		277	same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
		278
		279	printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
		280
		281	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
		282	japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
		283	japanese fonts would only be in your way.
		284
		285	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
		286
		287	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
		288	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
		289	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
		290	Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
		291	enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
		292
		293	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		294	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		295
		296	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
		297	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
		298	is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
		299	antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
		300	memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
		301
		302	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
		303	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
		304	fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
		305	because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
		306	antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
		307	look best that way.
		308
		309	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
		310
		311	What's with this bold/blink stuff?
		312	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
		313	standard foreground colour.
		314
		315	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
		316	blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without
		317	"--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored.
		318
		319	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
		320	foreground/background colours.
		321
		322	color0-7 are the low-intensity colours.
		323
		324	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colours.
		325
		326	I don't like the screen colours. How do I change them?
		327	You can change the screen colours at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
		328	resources (or as long-options).
		329
		330	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
		331	the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
		332
		333	URxvt.color0: #000000
		334	URxvt.color1: #A80000
		335	URxvt.color2: #00A800
		336	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
		337	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
		338	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
		339	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
		340	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
		341
		342	URxvt.color8: #000054
		343	URxvt.color9: #FF0054
		344	URxvt.color10: #00FF54
		345	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
		346	URxvt.color12: #0000FF
		347	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
		348	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
		349	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
		350
		351	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colours.
		352
		353	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
		354	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
		355	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
		356	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
		357	URxvt.color0: #000000
		358	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
		359	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
		360	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
		361	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
		362	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
		363	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
		364	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
		365	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
		366	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
		367	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
		368	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
		369	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
		370	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
		371
		372	They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
		373
		374	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
		375	See next entry.
		376
		377	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
		378	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
		379	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
		380	system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
		381	display.
		382
		383	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
		384	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
		385	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
		386	resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
		387	intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
		388	the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
		389
		390	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
		391	e.g.:
		392
		393	urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
		394
		395	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
		396	If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
		397	font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
		398	search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
		399
		400	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
		401	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
		402	which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
		403
		404	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
		405	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
		406	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
		407	it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
		408	japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
		409	Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
		410	characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
		411	non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
		412	font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
		413	for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
		414
		415	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
		416	list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
		417	preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
		418	first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
		419
		420	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
		421	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
		422	fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
		423	has been designed yet).
		424
		425	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
		426	I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
		427
		428	How can I make mplayer display video correctly?
		429	We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something
		430	like:
		431
		432	urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...'
		433
		434	Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
		435	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
		436	If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
		437	setting:
		438
		439	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
		440
		441	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
		442	more.
		443
		444	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
		445	pattern:
		446
		447	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
		448
		449	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also
		450	selects words like the old code.
		451
		452	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
		453	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
		454	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
		455	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
		456
		457	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
		458	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
		459	PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
		460	disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
		461	perl-ext-common resource:
		462
		463	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
		464
		465	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
		466	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
		467	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
		468	combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
		469
		470	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
		471
		472	The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
		473	See next entry.
		474
		475	During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
		476	These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
		477	circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
		478	line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
		479	but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
		480	some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
		481
		482	You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
		483	extension:
		484
		485	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
		486
		487	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
		488	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
		489	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
		490	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
		491	how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
		492	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
		493	report if that helped.
		494
		495	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
		496	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
		497	correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
		498	input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
		499	method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
		500	support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
		501	will continue without an input method.
		502
		503	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
		504	one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
		505
		506	If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support
		507	compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you
		508	don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS".
		509
		510	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
		511	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
		512	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
		513	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
		514	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
		515	escape character and so on.
		516
		517	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
		518	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
		519	editors prematurely may leave it active. I've heard that tcsh may use
		520	mouse reporting unless it is otherwise specified. A quick check is to
		521	see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are pressed.
		522
		523	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
		524	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
		525	keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
		526	two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
		527
		528	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
		529	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
		530	correct choice :).
		531
		532	It is possible to toggle between "^H" and "^?" with the DECBKM private
		533	mode:
		534
		535	# use Backspace = ^H
		536	$ stty erase ^H
		537	$ echo -n "^[[?67h"
		538
		539	# use Backspace = ^?
		540	$ stty erase ^?
		541	$ echo -n "^[[?67l"
		542
		543	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
		544	if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
		545	properly reflects that.
		546
		547	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
		548	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
		549	Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
		550	Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
		551
		552	Some other Backspace problems:
		553
		554	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
		555	Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
		556
		557	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
		558
		559	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
		560	There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
		561	you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
		562	use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
		563	keysyms.
		564
		565	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
		566
		567	URxvt.keysym.Prior: \033[5~
		568	URxvt.keysym.Next: \033[6~
		569	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[7~
		570	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[8~
		571	URxvt.keysym.Up: \033[A
		572	URxvt.keysym.Down: \033[B
		573	URxvt.keysym.Right: \033[C
		574	URxvt.keysym.Left: \033[D
		575
		576	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
		577
		578	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
		579	KP_Insert == Insert
		580	F22 == Print
		581	F27 == Home
		582	F29 == Prior
		583	F33 == End
		584	F35 == Next
		585
		586	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
		587	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
		588	keys as required for your particular machine.
		589
		590	Terminal Configuration
		591	Can I see a typical configuration?
		592	The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
		593	that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
		594
		595	As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
		596	time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
		597	author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
		598	certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
		599
		600	URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
		601	URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/tmp/xxx
		602
		603	These are just for testing stuff.
		604
		605	URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
		606	URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
		607
		608	This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
		609	the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
		610	type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
		611	with correct-looking fonts.
		612
		613	URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
		614	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
		615	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
		616	URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
		617	URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		618	URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		619
		620	This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
		621	directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
		622	develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
		623	write.
		624
		625	The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
		626	and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
		627	relevant file and go to the error line number.
		628
		629	URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
		630	URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
		631
		632	As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
		633	author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
		634	apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
		635	scrollback buffer.
		636
		637	URxvt.background: #000000
		638	URxvt.foreground: gray90
		639	URxvt.color7: gray90
		640	URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
		641	URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
		642	URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
		643	URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
		644
		645	Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
		646	but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
		647	foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
		648	colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
		649
		650	URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
		651
		652	Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
		653	but is mostly a nice effect.
		654
		655	URxvt.geometry: 154x36
		656	URxvt.loginShell: false
		657	URxvt.meta: ignore
		658	URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
		659
		660	Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
		661	manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
		662
		663	URxvt.saveLines: 8192
		664
		665	A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
		666
		667	URxvt.mapAlert: true
		668
		669	The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
		670	iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
		671
		672	URxvt.visualBell: true
		673
		674	The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
		675
		676	URxvt.insecure: true
		677
		678	Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
		679
		680	URxvt.pastableTabs: false
		681
		682	I once thought this is a great idea.
		683
		684	urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
		685	-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
		686	-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
		687	[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
		688	xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
		689	xft:Code2000:antialias=false
		690	urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
		691	urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		692	urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		693
		694	I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
		695	overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
		696	the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
		697	different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
		698	characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
		699	XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
		700	I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
		701	italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
		702	Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
		703
		704	Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
		705	my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
		706	(Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
		707	bold and normal fonts.
		708
		709	Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
		710	class name. That is because I use different configs for different
		711	purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
		712	uses these defaults:
		713
		714	IRC*title: IRC
		715	IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
		716	IRC*saveLines: 0
		717	IRC*mapAlert: true
		718	IRC*font: suxuseuro
		719	IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
		720	IRC*colorBD: white
		721	IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
		722	IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
		723
		724	"Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes.
		725	"suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
		726	keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
		727	(e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
		728
		729	The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
		730	"xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
		731	file for different hosts, for example, on my main desktop, I use:
		732
		733	URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
		734	URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
		735	URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
		736	URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
		737	URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
		738
		739	The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
		740	in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
		741	immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
		742	same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
		743	combinations :->
		744
		745	Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
		746	Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
		747	applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
		748	resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
		749	ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
		750	$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
		751
		752	If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
		753	are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
		754	every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
		755
		756	Also consider the form resources have to use:
		757
		758	URxvt.resource: value
		759
		760	If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
		761	specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
		762	works. If unsure, use the form above.
		763
189	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?	764	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
190	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely	765	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
191	available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same	766	as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
192	problem often arises).	767	arises).
193		768
194	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo,	769	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
195	this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):	770	can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as
		771	well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install
		772	the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as
		773	user and root):
196		774
197	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain	775	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
198	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"	776	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
199		777
200	... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,	778	One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
		779	$HOME/.terminfo for this to work. Debian systems have a broken tic which
		780	will not be able to overwrite the existing rxvt-unicode terminfo entry -
		781	you might have to manually delete all traces of rxvt-unicode* from
		782	/etc/terminfo.
201		783
202	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set	784	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
203	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of	785	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
204	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and	786	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
205	different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen	787	colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
206	applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases,	788	quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
207	though.
208		789
209	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences)	790	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
210	you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or	791	can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
211	use a resource to set it:	792	resource to set it:
212		793
213	URxvt.termName: rxvt	794	URxvt.termName: rxvt
214		795
215	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also	796	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
216	replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.	797	the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
217		798
		799	nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode"
		800	This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by
		801	nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with
		802	your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution.
		803
218	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.	804	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
219	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it	805	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
220	by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.	806	"enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
221		807
222	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.	808	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
		809	See next entry.
		810
223	I need a termcap file entry.	811	I need a termcap file entry.
224	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or	812	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
225	operating systems still compile some programs using the	813	systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
226	long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example)	814	library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
227	and rely on a termcap entry for "rxvt-unicode".	815	for "rxvt-unicode".
228		816
229	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many	817	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
230	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's	818	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
231	infocmp program like this:	819	program like this:
232		820
233	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode	821	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
234		822
235	Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:	823	Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap,
		824	generated by the command above.
236		825
237	rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
238	:am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
239	:co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
240	:AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
241	:K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
242	:RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
243	:as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
244	:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
245	:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
246	:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
247	:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
248	:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
249	:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
250	:kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
251	:kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
252	:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
253	:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
254	:te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
255	:us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
256	:vs=\E[?25h:
257
258	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?	826	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
259	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to	827	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
260	decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration	828	decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
261	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file	829	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
262	(among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:	830	with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
263		831
264	TERM rxvt-unicode	832	TERM rxvt-unicode
265		833
266	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:	834	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
267		835
268	alias ls='ls --color=auto'	836	alias ls='ls --color=auto'
269		837
270	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".	838	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
271		839
272	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?	840	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
		841	See next entry.
		842
273	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?	843	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
		844	See next entry.
		845
274	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?	846	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
275	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged	847	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
276	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by	848	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
277	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.	849	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
278	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)	850	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
279	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file,	851	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
280	so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I	852	you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
281	log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on	853	to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
282	how to do this).	854	this).
283		855
284	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?	856	Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
285	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
286	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
287	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether
288	and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
289	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and
290	please report if that helped.
291
292	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?	857	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
		858	See next entry.
		859
293	Unicode does not seem to work?	860	Unicode does not seem to work?
294	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character	861	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
295	but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program	862	getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
296	output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale	863	is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
297	settings.
298		864
299	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the	865	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
300	programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the	866	programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
301	login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the	867	while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
302	locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this	868	the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
303	is not going to work.	869	is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
304		870
305	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will	871	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
306	likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in	872	run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
307	your .profile.	873	.profile.
308		874
309	printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"	875	printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
310		876
311	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification	877	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
312	not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command	878	supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
313	which displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale	879	displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
314	settings, as it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale).	880	it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
315	If it displays something like:	881	something like:
316		882
317	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...	883	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
318		884
319	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.	885	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
320		886
321	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly	887	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
322	then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs	888	you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
323	just don't support locales :(	889	support locales :(
324		890
325	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
326	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
327	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
328	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
329	your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you
330	want to display.
331
332	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
333	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
334	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that
335	don't resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the
336	artificial intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it
337	has to believe the font that the characters it claims to contain
338	indeed look correct.
339
340	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font
341	list, e.g.:
342
343	urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
344
345	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
346	font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to
347	the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed
348	up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the
349	X-server.
350
351	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
352	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell
353	size, which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
354
355	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
356	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
357	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
358	is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
359	first sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese
360	font for display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font.
361	Now, many chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts,
362	so when the first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will
363	look for a chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will
364	still use the japanese font for chinese characters that are also in
365	the japanese font.
366
367	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your
368	font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font
369	list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a
370	japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font
371	first.
372
373	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
374	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using
375	different fonts for the same character at the same time, but no
376	interface for this has been designed yet).
377
378	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see
379	"Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
380
381	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
382	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
383	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for
384	terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide.
385	Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are
386	just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used
387	that redraws adjacent characters.
388
389	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
390	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
391	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the
392	correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which
393	unfortunately is wrong in these cases).
394
395	It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft,
396	freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you
397	might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If
398	that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.
399
400	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
401	bounding box data is correct.
402
403	On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
404	Seems to be a known bug, read
405	<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
406	following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
407
408	#define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
409
410	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
411	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not
412	set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported
413	by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and
414	your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose
415	keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual),
416	then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
417
418	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more
419	than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
420
421	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO
422	14755
423	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
424	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
425	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
426	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default
427	telnet escape character and so on.
428
429	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
430	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal
431	settings ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these
432	effects. Then make sure you have specified colours for italic and
433	bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate
434	the effect:
435
436	URxvt.colorBD: white
437	URxvt.colorIT: green
438
439	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how
440	can I fix that?
441	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very
442	weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than
443	the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is,
444	of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours
445	without very good reasons.
446
447	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
448	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which
449	will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode
450	features.
451
452	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
453	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined
454	in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements
455	it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__"
456	requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode.
457
458	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl
459	nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal
460	representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with
461	respect to standards.
462
463	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1"
464	and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
465
466	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language
467	apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
468	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between
469	wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other
470	encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and
471	every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into
472	anything except the current locale encoding.
473
474	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this
475	by carrying their own replacement functions for character set
476	handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or
477	doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the
478	OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal
479	emulator).
480
481	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in
482	the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app
483	to carry complete replacements for them :)
484
485	I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
486	Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
487	problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
488
489	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
490	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
491	the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
492	longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
493	single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
494	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as
495	the old libW11 emulation.
496
497	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
498	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
499	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
500
501	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?	891	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
		892	See next entry.
		893
502	Is there an option to switch encodings?	894	Is there an option to switch encodings?
503	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch,	895	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
504	and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't	896	specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
505	even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to	897	about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
506	terminal I/O.
507		898
508	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for	899	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
509	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating	900	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
510	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties	901	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
511	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.	902	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
512	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,	903	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
513	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own,	904	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
514	locale-independent table under all locales).	905	locale-independent table under all locales).
515		906
516	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding.	907	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
517	All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree	908	programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
518	in the interpretation of characters.	909	interpretation of characters.
519		910
520	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales,	911	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
521	nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.	912	is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
522		913
523	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable	914	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
524	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an	915	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
525	already-installed locale. Common names for locales are	916	locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
526	"en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e.	917	"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
527	"language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german")	918	"de" or "german") are also common.
528	are also common.
529		919
530	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the	920	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
531	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.	921	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
532	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to	922	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
533	rxvt-unicode.
534		923
535	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you	924	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
536	start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.	925	rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
537		926
538	Can I switch locales at runtime?	927	Can I switch locales at runtime?
539	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets	928	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
540	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".	929	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
541		930
542	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	931	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
543		932
544	See also the previous answer.	933	See also the previous answer.
545		934
546	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in	935	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
547	one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it	936	locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
548	(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which	937	UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
549	first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:	938	switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
550		939
551	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	940	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
552	xjdic -js	941	xjdic -js
553	printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8	942	printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
554		943
555	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,	944	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
556	except for some locales where character width differs between	945	except for some locales where character width differs between program-
557	program- and rxvt-unicode-locales.	946	and rxvt-unicode-locales.
558		947
559	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?	948	I have problems getting my input method working.
560	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has	949	Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
561	the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect	950	method server.
562	immediately:
563		951
564	printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"	952	Here is a checklist:
565		953
566	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer	954	- Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
567	a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily,	955	Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
568	where japanese fonts would only be in your way.
569		956
570	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.	957	- Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
		958	XIM.
		959	For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
		960	"ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
571		961
572	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?	962	- Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
573	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For	963	- Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
574	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera	964	*starting* rxvt-unicode.
575	Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might	965	When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
576	be to enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:	966	For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
		967	running with this command:
577		968
578	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true	969	xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
579	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
580		970
		971
		972
581	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?	973	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
582	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest	974	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
583	of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":	975	the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
584		976
585	URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP	977	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
586		978
587	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and	979	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
588	still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not	980	use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
589	be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then,	981	Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
590	as your input method limits you.	982	in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
591		983
592	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.	984	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
593	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by	985	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
594	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory	986	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
595	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering	987	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
596	at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally	988	exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
597	succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end,	989	SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
598	however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides	990	cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
599	cooperate.
600		991
601	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.	992	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
602		993
603	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?	994	Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
604	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for	995	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
605	something you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure	996	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
606	out all settings that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a	997	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
607	resource hog by design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no	998	unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
608	Xft font will be loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find	999	the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
609	a font for your characters.	1000	version (<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html>) and try to
		1001	reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are
		1002	specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via
		1003	the Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
610		1004
611	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger	1005	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
612	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will	1006	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
613	use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to	1007	bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
614	almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will	1008	that might encounter the same issue.
615	then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3"
616	it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
617		1009
618	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?	1010	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
619	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely,	1011	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
620	as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to	1012	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
621	disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves	1013	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
622	lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.	1014	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
		1015	should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
		1016	more in the future) depends on it.
623		1017
624	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?	1018	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources
625	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to	1019	system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
626	fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core	1020	behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
627	fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It	1021	"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
628	has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author	1022	perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
629	thinks they look best that way.
630		1023
631	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.	1024	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
		1025	with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
		1026	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
		1027	encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
632		1028
633	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.	1029	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
634	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing	1030	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
635	some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode.	1031	install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
636	I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise
637	specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
638	or Shift keys are depressed.
639		1032
640	What's with this bold/blink stuff?	1033	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
641	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using	1034	into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
642	the standard foreground colour.	1035	systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
		1036	immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
		1037	privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
		1038	things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
643		1039
644	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the	1040	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
645	text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard	1041	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
646	colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be	1042	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
647	ignored.	1043	result in very little risk.
648		1044
649	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set	1045	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
650	high-intensity foreground/background colors.	1046	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
		1047	your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
		1048	whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
		1049	wchar_t is represented as unicode.
651		1050
652	color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.	1051	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
		1052	does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
		1053	wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
653		1054
654	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.	1055	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
		1056	"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t).
655		1057
656	I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?	1058	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
657	You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults	1059	in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
658	resources (or as long-options).	1060	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
		1061	(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
		1062	implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
		1063	simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
		1064	locale encoding.
659		1065
660	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,	1066	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
661	including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:	1067	carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
		1068	them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
		1069	conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
		1070	encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
662		1071
663	URxvt.color0: #000000	1072	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
664	URxvt.color1: #A80000	1073	system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
665	URxvt.color2: #00A800	1074	complete replacements for them :)
666	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
667	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
668	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
669	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
670	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
671		1075
672	URxvt.color8: #000054	1076	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
673	URxvt.color9: #FF0054	1077	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
674	URxvt.color10: #00FF54	1078	X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
675	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54	1079	supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
676	URxvt.color12: #0000FF	1080	font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
677	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF	1081	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
678	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF	1082	old libW11 emulation.
679	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
680		1083
681	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described	1084	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
682	(not by me) as "pretty girly".	1085	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
		1086	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
683		1087
684	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1	1088	Character widths are not correct.
685	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1	1089	urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the
686	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e	1090	width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will
687	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1	1091	likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where
688	URxvt.color0: #000000	1092	single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and
689	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93	1093	Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1.
690	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
691	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
692	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
693	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
694	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
695	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
696	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
697	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
698	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
699	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
700	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
701	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
702		1094
703	How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?	1095	The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A
704	Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create	1096	possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like
705	the listening socket and then fork.
706		1097
707	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?	1098	http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
708	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
709	BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
710	question) there are two standard values that can be used for
711	Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
712		1099
713	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
714	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only
715	only correct choice :).
716
717	Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
718	value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
719	wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote
720	shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to
721	CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as
722	your stty setting).
723
724	For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
725
726	# use Backspace = ^H
727	$ stty erase ^H
728	$ urxvt
729
730	# use Backspace = ^?
731	$ stty erase ^?
732	$ urxvt
733
734	Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
735
736	For an existing rxvt-unicode:
737
738	# use Backspace = ^H
739	$ stty erase ^H
740	$ echo -n "^[[36h"
741
742	# use Backspace = ^?
743	$ stty erase ^?
744	$ echo -n "^[[36l"
745
746	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
747	but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo
748	value properly reflects that.
749
750	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
751	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys,
752	the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the
753	vt100 for Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied
754	termcap/terminfo.
755
756	Some other Backspace problems:
757
758	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told)
759	expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for
760	help.
761
762	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
763
764	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
765	There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
766	Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
767	option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
768	associated with keysyms.
769
770	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name
771	URxvt"
772
773	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
774	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
775	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
776	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
777	URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
778	URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
779	URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
780	URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
781	URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
782	URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
783	URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
784	URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
785	URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
786	URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
787	URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
788	URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
789	URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
790	URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
791	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
792	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
793
794	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
795
796	I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How
797	do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the
798	following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
799	KP_Insert == Insert
800	F22 == Print
801	F27 == Home
802	F29 == Prior
803	F33 == End
804	F35 == Next
805
806	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
807	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap
808	the keys as required for your particular machine.
809
810	How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
811	I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
812	rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you
813	can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
814	slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
815	whether or not to use color.
816
817	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
818	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
819	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
820	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of
821	rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in
822	these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to
823	distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm.
824
825	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
826	script snippets:
827
828	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
829	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
830	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
831	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
832	echo -n '^[Z'
833	read term_id
834	stty icanon echo
835	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
836	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
837	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
838	fi
839	fi
840
841	How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
842	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as
843	/usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html.
844	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
845
846	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
847	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net",
848	channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might
849	be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not
850	FAQs :).
851

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