--- rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2006/01/31 00:53:49 1.36 +++ rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2006/01/31 00:58:20 1.37 @@ -1,941 +1,905 @@ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select - single words? - Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can - use the following resource: - - URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) - - If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more - and more. - - To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this - pattern: - - URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) - - Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination - also selects words like the old code. - - I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I - change/disable it? - You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the - perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps - rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. - - If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to - identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the - section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For - example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify - this perl-ext-common resource: - - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup - - This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup - extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, - scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any - other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback - resource: - - URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s - - The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I - switch this off? - During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs - strange escape sequences, how do I fix this? - These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal - circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into - the line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong - moment, but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor - movements or in some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to - detect this properly. - - You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the - "readline" extension: - - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline - - Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? - Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X - applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS - loads resources into the X display (the right way to do it), - rxvt-unicode will ignore any resource files in your home directory. - It will only read $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to - the display. - - If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that - resources are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to - re-login after every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). - - Also consider the form resources have to use: - - URxvt.resource: value - - If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of - specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it - works. If unsure, use the form above. - - I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? - First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in - rxvt-unicode, so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author - about it (but you may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it - working consider it a rite of passage: ... and you failed. - - Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and - option descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. - Really, do it! - - 1. Use inheritPixmap: - - Esetroot wallpaper.jpg - rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40 - - That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and - tinting support, or you are unable to read. - - 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables - you to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just - shade/tint/whatever your picture with gimp: - - convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm - rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background - - That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, - or you are unable to read. - - 3. Use an ARGB visual: - - rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc - - This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that - doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals - aren't there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains - the neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it - work, but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in - place. - - 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job: - - xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \ - -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000 - - Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace - 0xc0000000 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it - doesn't work and your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces. - - Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? - I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause - extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you - can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables - always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) - after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is - a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding - conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. - - text data bss drs rss filename - 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything - 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything - - When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves - xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 - and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. - - text data bss drs rss filename - 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything - 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything - - The very large size of the text section is explained by the - east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but - nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core - fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k - emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course - doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font - instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft - indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used. - - Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of - one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use - more memory. - - Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), - this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like - gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or - konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after - exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of - warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*. - - Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? - Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: - I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a - fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). - Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. - - My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but - in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability - limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale - support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than - C++ itself. - - Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write - programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to - write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large - libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is - what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config: - - libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) - libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) - libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) - /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) - - And here is rxvt-unicode: - - libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) - libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) - libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) - libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) - /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) - - No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in - statically), except maybe libX11 :) - - Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? - Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that - implements a simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so - any of these should give you tabs: - - rxvt -pe tabbed - - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed - - It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window - managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features - allow it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by - doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which - features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding - application. - - How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? - The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape - sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. - When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the - daemon. - - I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... - The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large - patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but - unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug - to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the - genuine version () and try - to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the - problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should - be reported via the Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to - report the bug). - - For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and - probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's - also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for - other users that might encounter the same issue. - - I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any - recommendation? - You should build one binary with the default options. configure now - enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them - runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling - them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl - interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, - selection, likely more in the future) depends on it. - - You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" - resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will - result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, - add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. - This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables - it. - - If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal - one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with - "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot - of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely - used). - - I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this - safe? - It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to - properly install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. - - When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will - fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling - on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop - privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals - that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, - as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" - to attackers). - - This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very - early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before - main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which - should result in very little risk. - - When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? - The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely - available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same - problem often arises). - - The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, - this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): - - REMOTE=remotesystem.domain - infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" - - ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, - - If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set - "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of - problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and - different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen - applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, - though. - - If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) - you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or - use a resource to set it: - - URxvt.termName: rxvt - - If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also - replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. - - "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. - Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it - by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. - - "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. - I need a termcap file entry. - One reason you might want this is that some distributions or - operating systems still compile some programs using the - long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) - and rely on a termcap entry for "rxvt-unicode". - - You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many - cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's - infocmp program like this: - - infocmp -C rxvt-unicode - - Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above: - - rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\ - :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\ - :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ - :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ - :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ - :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ - :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ - :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ - :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ - :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ - :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ - :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ - :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ - :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ - :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\ - :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\ - :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ - :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ - :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ - :vs=\E[?25h: - - Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? - The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to - decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration - file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file - (among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: - - TERM rxvt-unicode - - to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: - - alias ls='ls --color=auto' - - to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". - - Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? - Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? - Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? - Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged - distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by - setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. - Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) - furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, - so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I - log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on - how to do this). - - My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output? - Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no - specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is - caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether - and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a - compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and - please report if that helped. - - Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? - Unicode does not seem to work? - If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character - but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program - output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale - settings. - - Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the - programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the - login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the - locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this - is not going to work. - - The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will - likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in - your .profile. - - printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" - - If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification - not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command - which displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale - settings, as it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). - If it displays something like: - - locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ... - - Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. - - If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly - then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs - just don't support locales :( - - Why do some characters look so much different than others? - How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? - Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. - Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of - your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you - want to display. - - rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. - Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks - bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that - don't resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the - artificial intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it - has to believe the font that the characters it claims to contain - indeed look correct. - - In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font - list, e.g.: - - rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... - - When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base - font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to - the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed - up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the - X-server. - - The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the - base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell - size, which must be the same due to the way terminals work. - - Why do some chinese characters look so different than others? - This is because there is a difference between script and language -- - rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output - is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode - first sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese - font for display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. - Now, many chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, - so when the first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will - look for a chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will - still use the japanese font for chinese characters that are also in - the japanese font. - - The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your - font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font - list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a - japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font - first. - - In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at - runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using - different fonts for the same character at the same time, but no - interface for this has been designed yet). - - Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see - "Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document). - - Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings? - Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that - character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for - terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. - Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are - just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used - that redraws adjacent characters. - - All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, - however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed - bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the - correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which - unfortunately is wrong in these cases). - - It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, - freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you - might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If - that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font. - - All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their - bounding box data is correct. - - On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. - Seems to be a known bug, read - . Some people use the - following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: - - #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) - - My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. - The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not - set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported - by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and - your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose - keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual), - then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method. - - In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more - than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None. - - I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO - 14755 - Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on - international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your - advantage, typing to get a ASCII NUL. This works for - other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default - telnet escape character and so on. - - How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much? - First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal - settings ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these - effects. Then make sure you have specified colours for italic and - bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate - the effect: - - URxvt.colorBD: white - URxvt.colorIT: green - - Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how - can I fix that? - For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very - weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than - the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, - of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours - without very good reasons. - - In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo - definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which - will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode - features. - - I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. - Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined - in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements - it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" - requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode. - - As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl - nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal - representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with - respect to standards. - - However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" - and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t. - - "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language - apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) - representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between - wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other - encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and - every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into - anything except the current locale encoding. - - Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this - by carrying their own replacement functions for character set - handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or - doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the - OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal - emulator). - - The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in - the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app - to carry complete replacements for them :) - - I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. - Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst - problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. - - How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? - rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using - the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no - longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a - single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or - "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as - the old libW11 emulation. - - At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any - multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are - likely limited to 8-bit encodings. - - How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? - Is there an option to switch encodings? - Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, - and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't - even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to - terminal I/O. - - The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for - selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating - this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties - such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*. - Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, - "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, - locale-independent table under all locales). - - Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. - All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree - in the interpretation of characters. - - Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, - nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. - - On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable - contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an - already-installed locale. Common names for locales are - "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. - "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german") - are also common. - - Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the - encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. - "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to - rxvt-unicode. - - If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you - start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category. - - Can I switch locales at runtime? - Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets - rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". - - printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS - - See also the previous answer. - - Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in - one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it - (e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which - first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later: - - printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS - xjdic -js - printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8 - - You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine, - except for some locales where character width differs between - program- and rxvt-unicode-locales. - - Can I switch the fonts at runtime? - Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has - the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect - immediately: - - printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" - - This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer - a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, - where japanese fonts would only be in your way. - - You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. - - Why do italic characters look as if clipped? - Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For - example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera - Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might - be to enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this: - - URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true - URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true - - My input method wants but I want UTF-8, what can I do? - You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest - of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": - - URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP - - Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and - still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not - be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, - as your input method limits you. - - Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. - Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by - design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory - leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering - at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally - succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, - however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides - cooperate. - - So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. - - Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? - Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for - something you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure - out all settings that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a - resource hog by design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no - Xft font will be loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find - a font for your characters. - - Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger - scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will - use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to - almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will - then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" - it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. - - Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? - Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, - as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to - disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves - lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. - - Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? - Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to - fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core - fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It - has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author - thinks they look best that way. - - If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. - - Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. - Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing - some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. - I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise - specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt - or Shift keys are depressed. - - What's with this bold/blink stuff? - If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using - the standard foreground colour. - - For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the - text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard - colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be - ignored. - - On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set - high-intensity foreground/background colors. - - color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. - - color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. - - I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? - You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults - resources (or as long-options). - - Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, - including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow: - - URxvt.color0: #000000 - URxvt.color1: #A80000 - URxvt.color2: #00A800 - URxvt.color3: #A8A800 - URxvt.color4: #0000A8 - URxvt.color5: #A800A8 - URxvt.color6: #00A8A8 - URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8 - - URxvt.color8: #000054 - URxvt.color9: #FF0054 - URxvt.color10: #00FF54 - URxvt.color11: #FFFF54 - URxvt.color12: #0000FF - URxvt.color13: #FF00FF - URxvt.color14: #00FFFF - URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF - - And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described - (not by me) as "pretty girly". - - URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 - URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 - URxvt.background: #0e0e0e - URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 - URxvt.color0: #000000 - URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 - URxvt.color1: #dc74d1 - URxvt.color9: #dc74d1 - URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7 - URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7 - URxvt.color3: #dfe37e - URxvt.color11: #dfe37e - URxvt.color5: #9e88f0 - URxvt.color13: #9e88f0 - URxvt.color6: #73f7ff - URxvt.color14: #73f7ff - URxvt.color7: #e1dddd - URxvt.color15: #e1dddd - - How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? - Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the - listening socket and then fork. - - What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? - Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the - BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following - question) there are two standard values that can be used for - Backspace: "^H" and "^?". - - Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the - debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only - only correct choice :). - - Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the - value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode - wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote - shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to - CERASE in , will be used (which may not be the same as - your stty setting). - - For starting a new rxvt-unicode: - - # use Backspace = ^H - $ stty erase ^H - $ rxvt - - # use Backspace = ^? - $ stty erase ^? - $ rxvt - - Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l". - - For an existing rxvt-unicode: - - # use Backspace = ^H - $ stty erase ^H - $ echo -n "^[[36h" - - # use Backspace = ^? - $ stty erase ^? - $ echo -n "^[[36l" - - This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, - but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo - value properly reflects that. - - The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace - problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, - the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the - vt100 for Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied - termcap/terminfo. - - Some other Backspace problems: - - some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) - expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for - help. - - Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner. - - I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them? - There are some compile-time selections available via configure. - Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" - option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings - associated with keysyms. - - Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name - URxvt" - - URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~ - URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~ - URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033 - URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033 - URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033 - URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007 - - See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource. - - 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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize. - KP_Insert == Insert - F22 == Print - F27 == Home - F29 == Prior - F33 == End - F35 == Next - - Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various - possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap - the keys as required for your particular machine. - - How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? - I need this to decide about setting colors etc. - rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you - can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, - slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide - whether or not to use color. - - How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable? - If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled - insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script - snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of - rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in - these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to - distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm. - - Courtesy of Chuck Blake with the following shell - script snippets: - - # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells: - [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know - if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then - stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not - echo -n '^[Z' - read term_id - stty icanon echo - if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then - echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string - read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell - fi - fi - - How do I compile the manual pages for myself? - You need to have a recent version of perl installed as - /usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. - Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc". - - My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human? - Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", - channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might - be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not - FAQs :). + The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select +single words? + If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following + setting: + + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) + + If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and + more. + + To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this + pattern: + + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) + + Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination also + selects words like the old code. + + I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I +change/disable it? + You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the + perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps + rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. + + If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to + identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section + PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to + disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this + perl-ext-common resource: + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup + + This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup + extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, + scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other + combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource: + + URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s + + The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how +do I switch this off? + During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor +outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this? + These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal + circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the + line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment, + but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in + some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly. + + You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline" + extension: + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline + + Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? + Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X + applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads + resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will + ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read + $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display. + + If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources + are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after + every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). + + Also consider the form resources have to use: + + URxvt.resource: value + + If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of + specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it works. + If unsure, use the form above. + + I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? + First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, + so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you + may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a + rite of passage: ... and you failed. + + Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option + descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it! + + 1. Use inheritPixmap: + + Esetroot wallpaper.jpg + rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40 + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting + support, or you are unable to read. + + 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you + to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever + your picture with gimp: + + convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm + rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or + you are unable to read. + + 3. Use an ARGB visual: + + rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc + + This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that + doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't + there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the + neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, + but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place. + + 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job: + + xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \ + -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000 + + Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000 + by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and + your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces. + + Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? + I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra + bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see + that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always + being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after + startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit + unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion, + iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything + 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything + + When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft + and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my + libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything + 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything + + The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian + encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else + and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those + encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++ + compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of + memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds + a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even + when not used. + + Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of + one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use + more memory. + + Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this + still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like + gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole + (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half + a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits + out), it fares extremely well *g*. + + Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? + Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I + had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a + fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put + even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. + + My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in + the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits + are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and + unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself. + + Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs + in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in + C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is + not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my + system with a minimal config: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + And here is rxvt-unicode: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically), + except maybe libX11 :) + + Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? + Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a + simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these + should give you tabs: + + rxvt -pe tabbed + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed + + It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window + managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow + it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed + or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt + (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application. + + How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? + The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape + sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When + using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon. + + I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... + The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large + patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but + unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to + the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine + version () and try to reproduce + the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific + to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian + Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug). + + For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and + probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a + bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users + that might encounter the same issue. + + I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any +recommendation? + You should build one binary with the default options. configure now + enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them + runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling + them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter + should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely + more in the future) depends on it. + + You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" resources + system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful + behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty + "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the + perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it. + + If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one + with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with + "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of + encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used). + + I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe? + It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly + install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. + + When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork + into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some + systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges + immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep + privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains + things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers). + + This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very + early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before + main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should + result in very little risk. + + When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? + The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available + as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often + arises). + + The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this + can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): + + REMOTE=remotesystem.domain + infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" + + ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, + + If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set + "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of + problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different + colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice + quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though. + + If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you + can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a + resource to set it: + + URxvt.termName: rxvt + + If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace + the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. + + "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. + Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by + "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. + + "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. + I need a termcap file entry. + One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating + systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap + library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry + for "rxvt-unicode". + + You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many cases. + You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp program + like this: + + infocmp -C rxvt-unicode + + Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above: + + rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\ + :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\ + :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ + :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ + :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ + :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ + :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ + :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ + :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ + :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ + :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ + :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ + :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ + :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ + :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\ + :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\ + :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ + :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ + :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ + :vs=\E[?25h: + + Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? + The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to + decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration + file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file (among + with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: + + TERM rxvt-unicode + + to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: + + alias ls='ls --color=auto' + + to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". + + Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? + Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? + Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? + Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged + distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by + setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. + Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) + furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so + you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in + to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do + this). + + My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output? + Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no + specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is + caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether and + how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a + compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please + report if that helped. + + Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? + Unicode does not seem to work? + If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but + getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output + is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings. + + Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the + programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the + login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale + to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this is not + going to work. + + The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely + run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your + .profile. + + printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" + + If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not + supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which + displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as + it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays + something like: + + locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ... + + Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. + + If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then + you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't + support locales :( + + Why do some characters look so much different than others? + How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? + Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. + Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your + system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to + display. + + rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. + Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks + bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't + resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial + intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe + the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct. + + In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list, + e.g.: + + rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... + + When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font. + If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next + font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this + search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server. + + The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the + base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size, + which must be the same due to the way terminals work. + + Why do some chinese characters look so different than others? + This is because there is a difference between script and language -- + rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as + it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a + japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display. + Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese + characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first + non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese + font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font + for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font. + + The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font + list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a + preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font + first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first. + + In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at + runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different + fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this + has been designed yet). + + Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can + I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document). + + Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings? + Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that + character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal + use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode + will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too + wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent + characters. + + All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, + however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed + bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct + way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is + wrong in these cases). + + It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype, + or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try + using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't + work, you might be forced to use a different font. + + All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their + bounding box data is correct. + + On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. + Seems to be a known bug, read + . Some people use the + following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: + + #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) + + My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. + The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set + correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your + input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input + method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not + support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode + will continue without an input method. + + In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than + one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None. + + I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755 + Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on + international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your + advantage, typing to get a ASCII NUL. This works for + other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet + escape character and so on. + + How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much? + First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings + ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then + make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise + rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect: + + URxvt.colorBD: white + URxvt.colorIT: green + + Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that? + For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird + colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the + standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of + course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very + good reasons. + + In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo + definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will + fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features. + + I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. + Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in + your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it, + wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that + wchar_t is represented as unicode. + + As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl nor + does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal representation of + wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards. + + However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and + "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t. + + "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps + in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) + representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t + (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without + implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There + simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current + locale encoding. + + Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by + carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with + them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple + conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements + encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator). + + The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the + system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry + complete replacements for them :) + + I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. + Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst + problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. + + How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? + rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the + X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer + supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single + font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or + "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the + old libW11 emulation. + + At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any + multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are + likely limited to 8-bit encodings. + + How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? + Is there an option to switch encodings? + Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no + specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know + about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O. + + The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for + selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating + this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties + such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*. + Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, + "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, + locale-independent table under all locales). + + Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All + programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the + interpretation of characters. + + Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor + is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. + + On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable + contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed + locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", + "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. + "de" or "german") are also common. + + Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the + encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. + "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode. + + If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start + rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category. + + Can I switch locales at runtime? + Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets + rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". + + printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS + + See also the previous answer. + + Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one + locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g. + UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first + switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later: + + printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS + xjdic -js + printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8 + + You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine, + except for some locales where character width differs between program- + and rxvt-unicode-locales. + + Can I switch the fonts at runtime? + Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the + same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately: + + printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" + + This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a + japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where + japanese fonts would only be in your way. + + You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. + + Why do italic characters look as if clipped? + Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For + example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans + Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to + enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this: + + URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true + URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true + + My input method wants but I want UTF-8, what can I do? + You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of + the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": + + URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP + + Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still + use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able + to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, as your input + method limits you. + + Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. + Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by + design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory + leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at + exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while + SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes + cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate. + + So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. + + Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? + Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something + you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings + that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by + design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be + loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your + characters. + + Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger + scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6 + bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a + kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if + full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets + worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. + + Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? + Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it + is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable + antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of + memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. + + Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? + Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to + fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core + fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has + antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they + look best that way. + + If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. + + Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. + Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some + editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard + that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick + check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are + depressed. + + What's with this bold/blink stuff? + If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the + standard foreground colour. + + For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text + blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard colours. + Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be ignored. + + On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity + foreground/background colors. + + color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. + + color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. + + I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? + You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults + resources (or as long-options). + + Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including + the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow: + + URxvt.color0: #000000 + URxvt.color1: #A80000 + URxvt.color2: #00A800 + URxvt.color3: #A8A800 + URxvt.color4: #0000A8 + URxvt.color5: #A800A8 + URxvt.color6: #00A8A8 + URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8 + + URxvt.color8: #000054 + URxvt.color9: #FF0054 + URxvt.color10: #00FF54 + URxvt.color11: #FFFF54 + URxvt.color12: #0000FF + URxvt.color13: #FF00FF + URxvt.color14: #00FFFF + URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF + + And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described (not by + me) as "pretty girly". + + URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 + URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 + URxvt.background: #0e0e0e + URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 + URxvt.color0: #000000 + URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 + URxvt.color1: #dc74d1 + URxvt.color9: #dc74d1 + URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7 + URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7 + URxvt.color3: #dfe37e + URxvt.color11: #dfe37e + URxvt.color5: #9e88f0 + URxvt.color13: #9e88f0 + URxvt.color6: #73f7ff + URxvt.color14: #73f7ff + URxvt.color7: #e1dddd + URxvt.color15: #e1dddd + + How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? + Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the + listening socket and then fork. + + What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? + Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace + keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are + two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?". + + Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the + debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only only + correct choice :). + + Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the + value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode + wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), + then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in + , will be used (which may not be the same as your stty + setting). + + For starting a new rxvt-unicode: + + # use Backspace = ^H + $ stty erase ^H + $ rxvt + + # use Backspace = ^? + $ stty erase ^? + $ rxvt + + Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l". + + For an existing rxvt-unicode: + + # use Backspace = ^H + $ stty erase ^H + $ echo -n "^[[36h" + + # use Backspace = ^? + $ stty erase ^? + $ echo -n "^[[36l" + + This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but + if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value + properly reflects that. + + The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace + problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the + Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for + Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo. + + Some other Backspace problems: + + some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect + Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help. + + Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner. + + I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them? + There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless + you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can + use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with + keysyms. + + Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name URxvt" + + URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~ + URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~ + URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033 + URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033 + URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033 + URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007 + + See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource. + + 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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize. + KP_Insert == Insert + F22 == Print + F27 == Home + F29 == Prior + F33 == End + F35 == Next + + Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various + possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the + keys as required for your particular machine. + + How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? +I need this to decide about setting colors etc. + rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you can + check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn, + Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether + or not to use color. + + How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable? + If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled + insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script + snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode + wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) + then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from + a regular xterm. + + Courtesy of Chuck Blake with the following shell script + snippets: + + # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells: + [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know + if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then + stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not + echo -n '^[Z' + read term_id + stty icanon echo + if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then + echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string + read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell + fi + fi + + How do I compile the manual pages for myself? + You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl, + one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. Then go to the doc + subdirectory and enter "make alldoc". + + My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human? + Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel + "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be + interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).