ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ
(Generate patch)

Comparing rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ (file contents):
Revision 1.32 by root, Thu Jan 19 19:26:30 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.39 by root, Tue Jan 31 20:52:19 2006 UTC

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

Diff Legend

Removed lines
+ Added lines
< Changed lines
> Changed lines