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Revision 1.38 by root, Tue Jan 31 01:42:21 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.72 by root, Sat May 14 08:28:25 2016 UTC

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

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