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Revision 1.31 by root, Tue Jan 17 16:22:41 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.73 by root, Fri May 14 13:47:43 2021 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 two big problems with Gentoo Linux: first, most if not all
		10	Gentoo systems are completely broken (missing or mismatched header
		11	files, broken compiler etc. are just the tip of the iceberg); secondly,
		12	it should be called Gentoo GNU/Linux.
8		13
9	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more	14	For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo.
10	and more.	15	Problems appearing on Gentoo systems will usually simply be ignored
		16	unless they can be reproduced on non-Gentoo systems.
11		17
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 rxvtperl(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?	18	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
118	rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with	19	Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
119	tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing	20	simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
120	programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into	21	should give you tabs:
121	other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming	22
		23	urxvt -pe tabbed
		24
		25	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
		26
		27	It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
		28	managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
		29	it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
122	"Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)	30	or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
123	terminal as an example embedding application.	31	(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
124		32
125	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?	33	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
126	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape	34	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.	35	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
128	When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the	36	using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
129	daemon.
130		37
131	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...	38	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
132	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large	39	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
133	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.	40	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	41	that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
135	download and install the genuine version	42	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	43	loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
137	problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific	44	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		45
141	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and	46	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
142	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's	47	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	48	bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
144	other users that might encounter the same issue.	49	kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
		50	full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
		51	worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
145		52
146	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any	53	How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
147	recommendation?	54	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	55	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		56
155	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"	57	How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
156	resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will	58	If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
157	result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,	59	the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
158	add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.	60
159	This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables	61	#!/bin/sh
		62	urxvtc "$@"
		63	if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
		64	urxvtd -q -o -f
		65	urxvtc "$@"
160	it.	66	fi
161		67
162	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal	68	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	69	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	70	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	71	existing daemon.
166	used).
167		72
168	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this	73	Another option is to use systemd socket-based activation (see
169	safe?	74	systemd.socket(5)). Here is an example of a service unit file and of a
170	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to	75	socket unit file for the default socket path:
171	properly install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
172		76
173	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will	77	urxvtd.service
174	fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling	78	[Unit]
175	on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop	79	Description=urxvt terminal daemon
176	privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals	80	Requires=urxvtd.socket
177	that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt,
178	as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful"
179	to attackers).
180		81
181	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very	82	[Service]
182	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before	83	ExecStart=/usr/bin/urxvtd -o
183	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which
184	should result in very little risk.
185		84
		85	urxvtd.socket
		86	[Unit]
		87	Description=urxvt terminal daemon socket
		88
		89	[Socket]
		90	ListenStream=%h/.urxvt/urxvtd-%H
		91
		92	[Install]
		93	WantedBy=sockets.target
		94
		95	How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular
		96	xterm? I need this to decide about setting colours etc.
		97	The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
		98	"COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
		99	programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
		100	variable to decide whether or not to use colour.
		101
		102	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
		103	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
		104	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
		105	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
		106	wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
		107	then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
		108	a regular xterm.
		109
		110	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
		111	snippets:
		112
		113	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
		114	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
		115	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
		116	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
		117	printf "\eZ"
		118	read term_id
		119	stty icanon echo
		120	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
		121	printf '\e[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
		122	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
		123	fi
		124	fi
		125
		126	How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
		127	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
		128	one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::Xhtml).
		129	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
		130
		131	Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
		132	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
		133	bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
		134	that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
		135	being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
		136	startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
		137	unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
		138	iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
		139
		140	text data bss drs rss filename
		141	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
		142	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
		143
		144	When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
		145	and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
		146	libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
		147
		148	text data bss drs rss filename
		149	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
		150	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
		151
		152	The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
		153	encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
		154	and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
		155	encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
		156	compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
		157	memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
		158	a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
		159	when not used.
		160
		161	Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
		162	one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
		163	more memory.
		164
		165	Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
		166	still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
		167	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
		168	(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
		169	a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
		170	out), it fares extremely well *g*.
		171
		172	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
		173	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
		174	had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
		175	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
		176	even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
		177
		178	My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
		179	the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
		180	are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
		181	unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
		182
		183	Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
		184	in C that use gobs of memory, and certainly possible to write programs
		185	in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this
		186	is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on
		187	my system with a minimal config:
		188
		189	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		190	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
		191	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
		192	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		193
		194	And here is rxvt-unicode:
		195
		196	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		197	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
		198	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
		199	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
		200	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		201
		202	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
		203	except maybe libX11 :)
		204
		205	Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
		206	I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
		207	First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,
		208	so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you
		209	may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
		210	rite of passage: ... and you failed.
		211
		212	Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
		213	descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
		214
		215	1. Use transparent mode:
		216
		217	Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
		218	urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40
		219
		220	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
		221	support, or you are unable to read. This method requires that the
		222	background-setting program sets the _XROOTPMAP_ID or ESETROOT_PMAP_ID
		223	property. Compatible programs are Esetroot, hsetroot and feh.
		224
		225	2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
		226	to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
		227	your picture with gimp or any other tool:
		228
		229	convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg
		230	urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root"
		231
		232	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack GDK-PixBuf support, or you
		233	are unable to read.
		234
		235	3. Use an ARGB visual:
		236
		237	urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
		238
		239	This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
		240	doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
		241	there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
		242	necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
		243	that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
		244
		245	4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
		246
		247	xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
		248	-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
		249
		250	Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
		251	by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
		252	your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
		253
		254	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
		255	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
		256	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
		257	use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
		258	will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
		259	wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
		260	characters.
		261
		262	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
		263	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
		264	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
		265	way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
		266	wrong in these cases).
		267
		268	It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
		269	or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
		270	using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
		271	work, you might be forced to use a different font.
		272
		273	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
		274	bounding box data is correct.
		275
		276	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
		277	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
		278	("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
		279	make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
		280	rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
		281
		282	URxvt.colorBD: white
		283	URxvt.colorIT: green
		284
		285	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
		286	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
		287	colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
		288	standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
		289	course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
		290	good reasons.
		291
		292	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
		293	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
		294	fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
		295
		296	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
		297	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
		298	same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
		299
		300	printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
		301
		302	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
		303	japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
		304	japanese fonts would only be in your way.
		305
		306	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
		307
		308	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
		309	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
		310	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
		311	Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
		312	enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
		313
		314	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		315	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		316
		317	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
		318	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
		319	is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
		320	antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
		321	memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
		322
		323	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
		324	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
		325	fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
		326	because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
		327	antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
		328	look best that way.
		329
		330	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
		331
		332	What's with this bold/blink stuff?
		333	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
		334	standard foreground colour.
		335
		336	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
		337	blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without
		338	"--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored.
		339
		340	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
		341	foreground/background colours.
		342
		343	color0-7 are the low-intensity colours.
		344
		345	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colours.
		346
		347	I don't like the screen colours. How do I change them?
		348	You can change the screen colours at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
		349	resources (or as long-options).
		350
		351	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
		352	the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
		353
		354	URxvt.color0: #000000
		355	URxvt.color1: #A80000
		356	URxvt.color2: #00A800
		357	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
		358	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
		359	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
		360	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
		361	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
		362
		363	URxvt.color8: #000054
		364	URxvt.color9: #FF0054
		365	URxvt.color10: #00FF54
		366	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
		367	URxvt.color12: #0000FF
		368	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
		369	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
		370	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
		371
		372	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colours.
		373
		374	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
		375	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
		376	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
		377	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
		378	URxvt.color0: #000000
		379	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
		380	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
		381	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
		382	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
		383	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
		384	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
		385	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
		386	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
		387	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
		388	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
		389	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
		390	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
		391	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
		392
		393	They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
		394
		395	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
		396	See next entry.
		397
		398	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
		399	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
		400	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
		401	system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
		402	display.
		403
		404	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
		405	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
		406	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
		407	resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
		408	intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
		409	the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
		410
		411	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
		412	e.g.:
		413
		414	urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
		415
		416	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
		417	If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
		418	font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
		419	search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
		420
		421	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
		422	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
		423	which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
		424
		425	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
		426	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
		427	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
		428	it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
		429	japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
		430	Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
		431	characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
		432	non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
		433	font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
		434	for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
		435
		436	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
		437	list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
		438	preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
		439	first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
		440
		441	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
		442	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
		443	fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
		444	has been designed yet).
		445
		446	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
		447	I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
		448
		449	How can I make mplayer display video correctly?
		450	We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something
		451	like:
		452
		453	urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...'
		454
		455	Why is the cursor now blinking in emacs/vi/...?
		456	This is likely caused by your editor/program's use of the "cvvis"
		457	terminfo capability. Emacs uses it by default, as well as some versions
		458	of vi and possibly other programs.
		459
		460	In emacs, you can switch that off by adding this to your ".emacs" file:
		461
		462	(setq visible-cursor nil)
		463
		464	For other programs, if they do not have an option, your have to remove
		465	the "cvvis" capability from the terminfo description.
		466
		467	When urxvt first added the blinking cursor option, it didn't add a
		468	"cvvis" capability, which served no purpose before. Version 9.21
		469	introduced "cvvis" (and the ability to control blinking independent of
		470	cursor shape) for compatibility with other terminals, which
		471	traditionally use a blinking cursor for "cvvis". This also reflects the
		472	intent of programs such as emacs, who expect "cvvis" to enable a
		473	blinking cursor.
		474
		475	Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
		476	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
		477	If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
		478	setting:
		479
		480	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
		481
		482	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
		483	more.
		484
		485	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
		486	pattern:
		487
		488	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
		489
		490	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also
		491	selects words like the old code.
		492
		493	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
		494	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
		495	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
		496	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
		497
		498	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
		499	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
		500	PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
		501	disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
		502	perl-ext-common resource:
		503
		504	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
		505
		506	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
		507	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
		508	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
		509	combination by adding a keysym resource that binds the desired
		510	combination to the "start" action of "searchable-scrollback" and another
		511	one that binds M-s to the "builtin:" action:
		512
		513	URxvt.keysym.CM-s: searchable-scrollback:start
		514	URxvt.keysym.M-s: builtin:
		515
		516	The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
		517	See next entry.
		518
		519	During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
		520	These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
		521	circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
		522	line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
		523	but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
		524	some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
		525
		526	You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
		527	extension:
		528
		529	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
		530
		531	My numeric keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
		532	Some Debian GNU/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
		533	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
		534	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
		535	how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
		536	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
		537	report if that helped.
		538
		539	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
		540	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
		541	correctly, or you specified a preeditType that is not supported by your
		542	input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
		543	method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
		544	support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
		545	will continue without an input method.
		546
		547	In this case either do not specify a preeditType or specify more than
		548	one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
		549
		550	If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support
		551	compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you
		552	don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS".
		553
		554	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
		555	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
		556	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
		557	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
		558	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
		559	escape character and so on.
		560
		561	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
		562	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
		563	editors prematurely may leave it active. I've heard that tcsh may use
		564	mouse reporting unless it is otherwise specified. A quick check is to
		565	see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are pressed.
		566
		567	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
		568	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
		569	keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
		570	two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
		571
		572	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
		573	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
		574	correct choice :).
		575
		576	It is possible to toggle between "^H" and "^?" with the DECBKM private
		577	mode:
		578
		579	# use Backspace = ^H
		580	$ stty erase ^H
		581	$ printf "\e[?67h"
		582
		583	# use Backspace = ^?
		584	$ stty erase ^?
		585	$ printf "\e[?67l"
		586
		587	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
		588	if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
		589	properly reflects that.
		590
		591	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
		592	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
		593	Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
		594	Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
		595
		596	Some other Backspace problems:
		597
		598	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
		599	Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
		600
		601	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
		602
		603	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
		604	There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
		605	you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
		606	use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
		607	keysyms.
		608
		609	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
		610
		611	URxvt.keysym.Prior: \033[5~
		612	URxvt.keysym.Next: \033[6~
		613	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[7~
		614	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[8~
		615	URxvt.keysym.Up: \033[A
		616	URxvt.keysym.Down: \033[B
		617	URxvt.keysym.Right: \033[C
		618	URxvt.keysym.Left: \033[D
		619
		620	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
		621
		622	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
		623	KP_Insert == Insert
		624	F22 == Print
		625	F27 == Home
		626	F29 == Prior
		627	F33 == End
		628	F35 == Next
		629
		630	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
		631	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
		632	keys as required for your particular machine.
		633
		634	Terminal Configuration
		635	Can I see a typical configuration?
		636	The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
		637	that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
		638
		639	As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
		640	time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
		641	author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
		642	certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
		643
		644	URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
		645	URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/some/path
		646
		647	These are just for testing stuff.
		648
		649	URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
		650	URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
		651
		652	This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
		653	the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
		654	type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
		655	with correct-looking fonts.
		656
		657	URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
		658	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
		659	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
		660	URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
		661	URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		662	URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		663
		664	This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
		665	directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
		666	develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
		667	write.
		668
		669	The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
		670	and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
		671	relevant file and go to the error line number.
		672
		673	URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
		674	URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
		675
		676	As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
		677	author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
		678	apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
		679	scrollback buffer.
		680
		681	URxvt.background: #000000
		682	URxvt.foreground: gray90
		683	URxvt.color7: gray90
		684	URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
		685	URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
		686	URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
		687	URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
		688
		689	Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
		690	but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
		691	foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
		692	colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
		693
		694	URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
		695
		696	Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
		697	but is mostly a nice effect.
		698
		699	URxvt.geometry: 154x36
		700	URxvt.loginShell: false
		701	URxvt.meta: ignore
		702	URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
		703
		704	Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
		705	manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
		706
		707	URxvt.saveLines: 8192
		708
		709	A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
		710
		711	URxvt.mapAlert: true
		712
		713	The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
		714	iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
		715
		716	URxvt.visualBell: true
		717
		718	The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
		719
		720	URxvt.insecure: true
		721
		722	Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
		723
		724	URxvt.pastableTabs: false
		725
		726	I once thought this is a great idea.
		727
		728	urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
		729	-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
		730	-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
		731	[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
		732	xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
		733	xft:Code2000:antialias=false
		734	urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
		735	urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		736	urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		737
		738	I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
		739	overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
		740	the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
		741	different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
		742	characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
		743	XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
		744	I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
		745	italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
		746	Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
		747
		748	Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
		749	my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
		750	(Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
		751	bold and normal fonts.
		752
		753	Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
		754	class name. That is because I use different configs for different
		755	purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
		756	uses these defaults:
		757
		758	IRC*title: IRC
		759	IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
		760	IRC*saveLines: 0
		761	IRC*mapAlert: true
		762	IRC*font: suxuseuro
		763	IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
		764	IRC*colorBD: white
		765	IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
		766	IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
		767
		768	"Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes.
		769	"suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
		770	keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
		771	(e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
		772
		773	The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
		774	"xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
		775	file for different hosts, for example, on my main desktop, I use:
		776
		777	URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
		778	URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
		779	URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
		780	URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
		781	URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
		782
		783	The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
		784	in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
		785	immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
		786	same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
		787	combinations :->
		788
		789	Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
		790	Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
		791	applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
		792	resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
		793	ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
		794	$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
		795
		796	If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
		797	are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
		798	every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
		799
		800	Also consider the form resources have to use:
		801
		802	URxvt.resource: value
		803
		804	If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
		805	specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
		806	works. If unsure, use the form above.
		807
186	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?	808	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
187	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely	809	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
188	available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same	810	as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
189	problem often arises).	811	arises).
190		812
191	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo,	813	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
192	this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):	814	can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as
		815	well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install
		816	the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as
		817	user and root):
193		818
194	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain	819	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
195	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"	820	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
196		821
197	... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,	822	One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
		823	$HOME/.terminfo for this to work.
198		824
199	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set	825	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
200	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of	826	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
201	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and	827	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
202	different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen	828	colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
203	applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases,	829	quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
204	though.
205		830
206	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences)	831	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
207	you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or	832	can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
208	use a resource to set it:	833	resource to set it:
209		834
210	URxvt.termName: rxvt	835	URxvt.termName: rxvt
211		836
212	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also	837	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
213	replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.	838	the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
214		839
		840	nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode"
		841	This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by
		842	nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with
		843	your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution.
		844
215	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.	845	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
216	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it	846	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
217	by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.	847	"enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
218		848
219	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt.	849	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
		850	See next entry.
		851
220	I need a termcap file entry.	852	I need a termcap file entry.
221	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or	853	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
222	operating systems still compile some programs using the	854	systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
223	long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example)	855	library (Fedora's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry for
224	and rely on a termcap entry for "rxvt-unicode".	856	"rxvt-unicode".
225		857
226	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many	858	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
227	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's	859	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
228	infocmp program like this:	860	program like this:
229		861
230	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode	862	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
231		863
232	Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:	864	Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap,
		865	generated by the command above.
233		866
234	rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
235	:am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
236	:co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
237	:AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
238	:K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
239	:RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
240	:as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
241	:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
242	:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
243	:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
244	:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
245	:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
246	:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
247	:kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
248	:kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
249	:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
250	:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
251	:te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
252	:us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
253	:vs=\E[?25h:
254
255	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?	867	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
256	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to	868	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
257	decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration	869	decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
258	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file	870	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
259	(among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:	871	with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
260		872
261	TERM rxvt-unicode	873	TERM rxvt-unicode
262		874
263	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:	875	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
264		876
265	alias ls='ls --color=auto'	877	alias ls='ls --color=auto'
266		878
267	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".	879	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
268		880
269	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?	881	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
		882	See next entry.
		883
270	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?	884	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
		885	See next entry.
		886
271	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?	887	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
272	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged	888	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
273	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by	889	distributions break rxvt-unicode by setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which
274	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.	890	doesn't have these extra features. Unfortunately, some of these
275	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
276	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file,	891	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
277	so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I	892	you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
278	log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on	893	to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
279	how to do this).	894	this).
280		895
281	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?	896	Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
282	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
283	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
284	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether
285	and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
286	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and
287	please report if that helped.
288
289	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?	897	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
		898	See next entry.
		899
290	Unicode does not seem to work?	900	Unicode does not seem to work?
291	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character	901	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
292	but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program	902	getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
293	output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale	903	is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
294	settings.
295		904
296	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the	905	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
297	programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the	906	programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
298	login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the	907	while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
299	locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this	908	the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
300	is not going to work.	909	is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
301		910
302	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will	911	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
303	likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in	912	run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
304	your .profile.	913	.profile.
305		914
306	printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"	915	printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
307		916
308	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification	917	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
309	not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command	918	supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
310	which displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale	919	displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
311	settings, as it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale).	920	it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
312	If it displays something like:	921	something like:
313		922
314	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...	923	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
315		924
316	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.	925	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
317		926
318	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly	927	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
319	then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs	928	you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
320	just don't support locales :(	929	support locales :(
321		930
322	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
323	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
324	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
325	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
326	your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you
327	want to display.
328
329	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
330	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
331	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that
332	don't resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the
333	artificial intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it
334	has to believe the font that the characters it claims to contain
335	indeed look correct.
336
337	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font
338	list, e.g.:
339
340	rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
341
342	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
343	font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to
344	the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed
345	up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the
346	X-server.
347
348	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
349	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell
350	size, which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
351
352	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
353	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
354	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
355	is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
356	first sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese
357	font for display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font.
358	Now, many chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts,
359	so when the first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will
360	look for a chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will
361	still use the japanese font for chinese characters that are also in
362	the japanese font.
363
364	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your
365	font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font
366	list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a
367	japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font
368	first.
369
370	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
371	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using
372	different fonts for the same character at the same time, but no
373	interface for this has been designed yet).
374
375	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see
376	"Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
377
378	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
379	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
380	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for
381	terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide.
382	Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are
383	just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used
384	that redraws adjacent characters.
385
386	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
387	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
388	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the
389	correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which
390	unfortunately is wrong in these cases).
391
392	It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft,
393	freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you
394	might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If
395	that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.
396
397	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
398	bounding box data is correct.
399
400	On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
401	Seems to be a known bug, read
402	<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
403	following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
404
405	#define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
406
407	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
408	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not
409	set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported
410	by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and
411	your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose
412	keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual),
413	then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
414
415	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more
416	than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
417
418	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO
419	14755
420	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
421	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
422	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
423	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default
424	telnet escape character and so on.
425
426	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
427	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal
428	settings ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these
429	effects. Then make sure you have specified colours for italic and
430	bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate
431	the effect:
432
433	URxvt.colorBD: white
434	URxvt.colorIT: green
435
436	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how
437	can I fix that?
438	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very
439	weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than
440	the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is,
441	of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours
442	without very good reasons.
443
444	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
445	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which
446	will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode
447	features.
448
449	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
450	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined
451	in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements
452	it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__"
453	requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode.
454
455	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl
456	nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal
457	representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with
458	respect to standards.
459
460	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1"
461	and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
462
463	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language
464	apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
465	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between
466	wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other
467	encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and
468	every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into
469	anything except the current locale encoding.
470
471	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this
472	by carrying their own replacement functions for character set
473	handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or
474	doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the
475	OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal
476	emulator).
477
478	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in
479	the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app
480	to carry complete replacements for them :)
481
482	I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
483	Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
484	problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
485
486	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
487	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
488	the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
489	longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
490	single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
491	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as
492	the old libW11 emulation.
493
494	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
495	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
496	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
497
498	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?	931	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
		932	See next entry.
		933
499	Is there an option to switch encodings?	934	Is there an option to switch encodings?
500	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch,	935	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
501	and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't	936	specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
502	even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to	937	about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
503	terminal I/O.
504		938
505	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for	939	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
506	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating	940	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
507	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties	941	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
508	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.	942	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
509	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,	943	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
510	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own,	944	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
511	locale-independent table under all locales).	945	locale-independent table under all locales).
512		946
513	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding.	947	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
514	All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree	948	programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
515	in the interpretation of characters.	949	interpretation of characters.
516		950
517	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales,	951	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
518	nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.	952	is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
519		953
520	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable	954	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
521	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an	955	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
522	already-installed locale. Common names for locales are	956	locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
523	"en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e.	957	"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
524	"language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german")	958	"de" or "german") are also common.
525	are also common.
526		959
527	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the	960	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
528	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.	961	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
529	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to	962	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
530	rxvt-unicode.
531		963
532	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you	964	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
533	start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.	965	rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
534		966
535	Can I switch locales at runtime?	967	Can I switch locales at runtime?
536	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets	968	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
537	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".	969	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
538		970
539	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	971	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
540		972
541	See also the previous answer.	973	See also the previous answer.
542		974
543	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in	975	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
544	one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it	976	locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
545	(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which	977	UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
546	first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:	978	switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
547		979
548	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	980	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
549	xjdic -js	981	xjdic -js
550	printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8	982	printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
551		983
552	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,	984	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
553	except for some locales where character width differs between	985	except for some locales where character width differs between program-
554	program- and rxvt-unicode-locales.	986	and rxvt-unicode-locales.
555		987
556	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?	988	I have problems getting my input method working.
557	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has	989	Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
558	the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect	990	method server.
559	immediately:
560		991
561	printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"	992	Here is a checklist:
562		993
563	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer	994	- Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
564	a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily,	995	Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
565	where japanese fonts would only be in your way.
566		996
567	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.	997	- Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
		998	XIM.
		999	For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
		1000	"ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
568		1001
569	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?	1002	- Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
570	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For	1003	- Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
571	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera	1004	*starting* rxvt-unicode.
572	Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might	1005	When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
573	be to enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:	1006	For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
		1007	running with this command:
574		1008
575	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true	1009	xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
576	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
577		1010
578	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?	1011	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
579	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest	1012	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
580	of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":	1013	the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
581		1014
582	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP	1015	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
583		1016
584	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and	1017	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
585	still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not	1018	use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
586	be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then,	1019	Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
587	as your input method limits you.	1020	in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
588		1021
589	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.	1022	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
590	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by	1023	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
591	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory	1024	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
592	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering	1025	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
593	at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally	1026	exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
594	succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end,	1027	SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
595	however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides	1028	cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
596	cooperate.
597		1029
598	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.	1030	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
599		1031
600	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?	1032	Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
601	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for	1033	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
602	something you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure	1034	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
603	out all settings that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a	1035	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
604	resource hog by design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no	1036	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
605	Xft font will be loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find	1037	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
606	a font for your characters.	1038	should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
		1039	more in the future) depends on it.
607		1040
608	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger	1041	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources
609	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will	1042	system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
610	use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to	1043	behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
611	almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will	1044	"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
612	then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3"	1045	perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
613	it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
614		1046
615	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?	1047	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
616	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely,	1048	with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
617	as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to	1049	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
618	disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves	1050	encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
619	lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
620		1051
621	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?	1052	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
622	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to	1053	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
623	fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core	1054	install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
624	fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It
625	has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author
626	thinks they look best that way.
627		1055
628	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.	1056	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
		1057	into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
		1058	systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
		1059	immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
		1060	privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
		1061	things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
629		1062
630	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.	1063	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
631	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing	1064	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
632	some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode.	1065	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
633	I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise	1066	result in very little risk.
634	specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
635	or Shift keys are depressed.
636		1067
637	What's with this bold/blink stuff?	1068	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
638	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using	1069	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
639	the standard foreground colour.	1070	your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
		1071	whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
		1072	wchar_t is represented as unicode.
640		1073
641	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the	1074	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
642	text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard	1075	does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
643	colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be	1076	wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
644	ignored.
645		1077
646	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set	1078	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
647	high-intensity foreground/background colors.	1079	"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t).
648		1080
649	color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.	1081	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
		1082	in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
		1083	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
		1084	(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
		1085	implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
		1086	simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
		1087	locale encoding.
650		1088
651	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.	1089	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
		1090	carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
		1091	them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
		1092	conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
		1093	encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
652		1094
653	I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?	1095	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
654	You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults	1096	system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
655	resources (or as long-options).	1097	complete replacements for them :)
656		1098
657	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,	1099	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
658	including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:	1100	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
		1101	X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
		1102	supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
		1103	font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
		1104	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
		1105	old libW11 emulation.
659		1106
660	URxvt.color0: #000000	1107	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
661	URxvt.color1: #A80000	1108	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
662	URxvt.color2: #00A800	1109	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
663	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
664	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
665	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
666	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
667	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
668		1110
669	URxvt.color8: #000054	1111	Character widths are not correct.
670	URxvt.color9: #FF0054	1112	urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the
671	URxvt.color10: #00FF54	1113	width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will
672	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54	1114	likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where
673	URxvt.color12: #0000FF	1115	single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and
674	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF	1116	Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1.
675	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
676	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
677		1117
678	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described	1118	The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A
679	(not by me) as "pretty girly".	1119	possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like
680		1120
681	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1	1121	http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
682	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
683	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
684	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
685	URxvt.color0: #000000
686	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
687	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
688	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
689	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
690	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
691	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
692	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
693	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
694	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
695	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
696	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
697	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
698	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
699		1122
700	How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?
701	Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the
702	listening socket and then fork.
703
704	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
705	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
706	BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
707	question) there are two standard values that can be used for
708	Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
709
710	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
711	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only
712	only correct choice :).
713
714	Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
715	value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
716	wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote
717	shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to
718	CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as
719	your stty setting).
720
721	For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
722
723	# use Backspace = ^H
724	$ stty erase ^H
725	$ rxvt
726
727	# use Backspace = ^?
728	$ stty erase ^?
729	$ rxvt
730
731	Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
732
733	For an existing rxvt-unicode:
734
735	# use Backspace = ^H
736	$ stty erase ^H
737	$ echo -n "^[[36h"
738
739	# use Backspace = ^?
740	$ stty erase ^?
741	$ echo -n "^[[36l"
742
743	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
744	but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo
745	value properly reflects that.
746
747	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
748	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys,
749	the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the
750	vt100 for Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied
751	termcap/terminfo.
752
753	Some other Backspace problems:
754
755	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told)
756	expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for
757	help.
758
759	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
760
761	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
762	There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
763	Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
764	option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
765	associated with keysyms.
766
767	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name
768	URxvt"
769
770	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
771	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
772	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
773	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
774	URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
775	URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
776	URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
777	URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
778	URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
779	URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
780	URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
781	URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
782	URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
783	URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
784	URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
785	URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
786	URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
787	URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
788	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
789	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
790
791	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
792
793	I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How
794	do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the
795	following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
796	KP_Insert == Insert
797	F22 == Print
798	F27 == Home
799	F29 == Prior
800	F33 == End
801	F35 == Next
802
803	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
804	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap
805	the keys as required for your particular machine.
806
807	How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
808	I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
809	rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you
810	can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
811	slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
812	whether or not to use color.
813
814	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
815	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
816	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
817	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of
818	rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in
819	these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to
820	distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm.
821
822	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
823	script snippets:
824
825	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
826	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
827	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
828	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
829	echo -n '^[Z'
830	read term_id
831	stty icanon echo
832	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
833	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
834	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
835	fi
836	fi
837
838	How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
839	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as
840	/usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html.
841	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
842
843	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
844	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net",
845	channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might
846	be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not
847	FAQs :).
848

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