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Revision 1.31 by root, Tue Jan 17 16:22:41 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.58 by root, Tue Mar 16 00:54:46 2010 UTC

1	FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS	1	RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select	2	Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
3	single words?	3	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
4	Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can	4	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5	use the following resource:	5	"#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
		6	interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
6		7
7	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)	8	I use Gentoo, and I have a problem...
		9	There are three big problems with Gentoo Linux: first of all, most if
		10	not all Gentoo systems are completely broken (missing or mismatched
		11	header files, broken compiler etc. are just the tip of the iceberg);
		12	secondly, the Gentoo maintainer thinks it is a good idea to add broken
		13	patches to the code; and lastly, it should be called Gentoo GNU/Linux.
8		14
9	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more	15	For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo.
10	and more.	16	Problems appearing on Gentoo systems will usually simply be ignored
		17	unless they can be reproduced on non-Gentoo systems.
11		18
12	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
13	pattern:
14
15	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
16
17	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination
18	also selects words like the old code.
19
20	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I
21	change/disable it?
22	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
23	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
24	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
25
26	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
27	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the
28	section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For
29	example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify
30	this perl-ext-common resource:
31
32	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
33
34	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
35	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
36	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any
37	other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback
38	resource:
39
40	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
41
42	Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
43	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause
44	extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you
45	can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables
46	always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS)
47	after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is
48	a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding
49	conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
50
51	text data bss drs rss filename
52	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
53	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
54
55	When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves
56	xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11
57	and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
58
59	text data bss drs rss filename
60	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
61	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
62
63	The very large size of the text section is explained by the
64	east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but
65	nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core
66	fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k
67	emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course
68	doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font
69	instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft
70	indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.
71
72	Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
73	one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
74	more memory.
75
76	Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k),
77	this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
78	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or
79	konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after
80	exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of
81	warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.
82
83	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
84	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is:
85	I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
86	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me).
87	Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
88
89	My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but
90	in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability
91	limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale
92	support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than
93	C++ itself.
94
95	Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write
96	programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to
97	write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large
98	libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is
99	what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:
100
101	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
102	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
103	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
104	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
105
106	And here is rxvt-unicode:
107
108	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
109	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
110	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
111	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
112	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
113
114	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in
115	statically), except maybe libX11 :)
116
117	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?	19	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
118	rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with	20	Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
119	tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing	21	simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
120	programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into	22	should give you tabs:
121	other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming	23
		24	urxvt -pe tabbed
		25
		26	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
		27
		28	It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
		29	managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
		30	it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
122	"Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)	31	or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
123	terminal as an example embedding application.	32	(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
124		33
125	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?	34	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
126	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape	35	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
127	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number.	36	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
128	When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the	37	using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
129	daemon.
130		38
131	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...	39	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
132	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large	40	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
133	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.	41	you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
134	Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please	42	that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
135	download and install the genuine version	43	design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
136	(<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce the	44	loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
137	problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific	45	characters.
138	to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the
139	Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
140		46
141	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and	47	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
142	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's	48	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
143	also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for	49	bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
144	other users that might encounter the same issue.	50	kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
		51	full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
		52	worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
145		53
146	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any	54	How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
147	recommendation?	55	Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the
148	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now	56	listening socket and then fork.
149	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
150	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
151	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl
152	interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus,
153	selection, likely more in the future) depends on it.
154		57
155	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"	58	How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
156	resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will	59	If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
157	result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,	60	the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
158	add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.	61
159	This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables	62	#!/bin/sh
		63	urxvtc "$@"
		64	if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
		65	urxvtd -q -o -f
		66	urxvtc "$@"
160	it.	67	fi
161		68
162	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal	69	This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
163	one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with	70	meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
164	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot	71	re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
165	of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely	72	existing daemon.
166	used).
167		73
168	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this	74	How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
169	safe?	75	The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
170	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to	76	"COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
171	properly install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.	77	programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
		78	variable to decide whether or not to use color.
172		79
173	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will	80	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
174	fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling	81	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
175	on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop	82	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
176	privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals	83	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
177	that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt,	84	wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
178	as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful"	85	then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
179	to attackers).	86	a regular xterm.
180		87
181	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very	88	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
182	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before	89	snippets:
183	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which
184	should result in very little risk.
185		90
		91	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
		92	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
		93	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
		94	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
		95	echo -n '^[Z'
		96	read term_id
		97	stty icanon echo
		98	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
		99	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
		100	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
		101	fi
		102	fi
		103
		104	How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
		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".
		108
		109	Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
		110	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
		111	bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
		112	that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
		113	being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
		114	startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
		115	unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
		116	iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
		117
		118	text data bss drs rss filename
		119	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
		120	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
		121
		122	When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
		123	and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
		124	libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
		125
		126	text data bss drs rss filename
		127	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
		128	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
		129
		130	The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
		131	encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
		132	and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
		133	encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
		134	compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
		135	memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
		136	a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
		137	when not used.
		138
		139	Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
		140	one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
		141	more memory.
		142
		143	Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
		144	still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
		145	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
		146	(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
		147	a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
		148	out), it fares extremely well *g*.
		149
		150	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
		151	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
		152	had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
		153	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
		154	even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
		155
		156	My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
		157	the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
		158	are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
		159	unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
		160
		161	Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
		162	in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in
		163	C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is
		164	not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my
		165	system with a minimal config:
		166
		167	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		168	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
		169	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
		170	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		171
		172	And here is rxvt-unicode:
		173
		174	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
		175	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
		176	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
		177	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
		178	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
		179
		180	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
		181	except maybe libX11 :)
		182
		183	Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
		184	I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
		185	First of all, please address all transparency related issues to Sasha
		186	Vasko at sasha@aftercode.net and do not bug the author about it. Also,
		187	if you can't get it working consider it a rite of passage: ... and you
		188	failed.
		189
		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!
		192
		193	1. Use transparent mode:
		194
		195	Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
		196	urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40
		197
		198	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
		199	support, or you are unable to read.
		200
		201	2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
		202	to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
		203	your picture with gimp or any other tool:
		204
		205	convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg
		206	urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root"
		207
		208	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack AfterImage support, or you
		209	are unable to read.
		210
		211	3. Use an ARGB visual:
		212
		213	urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
		214
		215	This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
		216	doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
		217	there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
		218	necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
		219	that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
		220
		221	4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
		222
		223	xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
		224	-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
		225
		226	Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
		227	by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
		228	your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
		229
		230	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
		231	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
		232	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
		233	use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
		234	will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
		235	wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
		236	characters.
		237
		238	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
		239	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
		240	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
		241	way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
		242	wrong in these cases).
		243
		244	It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
		245	or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
		246	using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
		247	work, you might be forced to use a different font.
		248
		249	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
		250	bounding box data is correct.
		251
		252	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
		253	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
		254	("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
		255	make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
		256	rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
		257
		258	URxvt.colorBD: white
		259	URxvt.colorIT: green
		260
		261	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
		262	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
		263	colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
		264	standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
		265	course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
		266	good reasons.
		267
		268	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
		269	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
		270	fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
		271
		272	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
		273	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
		274	same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
		275
		276	printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
		277
		278	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
		279	japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
		280	japanese fonts would only be in your way.
		281
		282	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
		283
		284	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
		285	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
		286	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
		287	Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
		288	enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
		289
		290	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		291	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		292
		293	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
		294	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
		295	is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
		296	antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
		297	memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
		298
		299	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
		300	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
		301	fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
		302	because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
		303	antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
		304	look best that way.
		305
		306	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
		307
		308	What's with this bold/blink stuff?
		309	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
		310	standard foreground colour.
		311
		312	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
		313	blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without
		314	"--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored.
		315
		316	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
		317	foreground/background colors.
		318
		319	color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
		320
		321	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
		322
		323	I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
		324	You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
		325	resources (or as long-options).
		326
		327	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
		328	the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
		329
		330	URxvt.color0: #000000
		331	URxvt.color1: #A80000
		332	URxvt.color2: #00A800
		333	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
		334	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
		335	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
		336	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
		337	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
		338
		339	URxvt.color8: #000054
		340	URxvt.color9: #FF0054
		341	URxvt.color10: #00FF54
		342	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
		343	URxvt.color12: #0000FF
		344	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
		345	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
		346	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
		347
		348	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors.
		349
		350	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
		351	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
		352	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
		353	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
		354	URxvt.color0: #000000
		355	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
		356	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
		357	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
		358	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
		359	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
		360	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
		361	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
		362	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
		363	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
		364	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
		365	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
		366	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
		367	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
		368
		369	They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
		370
		371	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
		372	See next entry.
		373
		374	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
		375	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
		376	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
		377	system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
		378	display.
		379
		380	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
		381	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
		382	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
		383	resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
		384	intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
		385	the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
		386
		387	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
		388	e.g.:
		389
		390	urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
		391
		392	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
		393	If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
		394	font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
		395	search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
		396
		397	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
		398	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
		399	which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
		400
		401	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
		402	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
		403	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
		404	it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
		405	japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
		406	Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
		407	characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
		408	non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
		409	font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
		410	for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
		411
		412	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
		413	list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
		414	preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
		415	first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
		416
		417	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
		418	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
		419	fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
		420	has been designed yet).
		421
		422	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
		423	I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
		424
		425	How can I make mplayer display video correctly?
		426	We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something
		427	like:
		428
		429	urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...'
		430
		431	Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
		432	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
		433	If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
		434	setting:
		435
		436	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
		437
		438	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
		439	more.
		440
		441	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
		442	pattern:
		443
		444	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
		445
		446	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also
		447	selects words like the old code.
		448
		449	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
		450	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
		451	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
		452	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
		453
		454	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
		455	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
		456	PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
		457	disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
		458	perl-ext-common resource:
		459
		460	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
		461
		462	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
		463	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
		464	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
		465	combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
		466
		467	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
		468
		469	The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
		470	See next entry.
		471
		472	During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
		473	These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
		474	circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
		475	line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
		476	but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
		477	some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
		478
		479	You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
		480	extension:
		481
		482	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
		483
		484	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
		485	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
		486	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
		487	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
		488	how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
		489	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
		490	report if that helped.
		491
		492	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
		493	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
		494	correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
		495	input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
		496	method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
		497	support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
		498	will continue without an input method.
		499
		500	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
		501	one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
		502
		503	If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support
		504	compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you
		505	don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS".
		506
		507	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
		508	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
		509	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
		510	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
		511	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
		512	escape character and so on.
		513
		514	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
		515	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
		516	editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
		517	that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
		518	check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
		519	depressed.
		520
		521	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
		522	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
		523	keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
		524	two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
		525
		526	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
		527	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
		528	correct choice :).
		529
		530	Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
		531	value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
		532	wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell),
		533	then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in
		534	<termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as your stty
		535	setting).
		536
		537	For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
		538
		539	# use Backspace = ^H
		540	$ stty erase ^H
		541	$ urxvt
		542
		543	# use Backspace = ^?
		544	$ stty erase ^?
		545	$ urxvt
		546
		547	Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
		548
		549	For an existing rxvt-unicode:
		550
		551	# use Backspace = ^H
		552	$ stty erase ^H
		553	$ echo -n "^[[36h"
		554
		555	# use Backspace = ^?
		556	$ stty erase ^?
		557	$ echo -n "^[[36l"
		558
		559	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
		560	if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
		561	properly reflects that.
		562
		563	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
		564	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
		565	Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
		566	Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
		567
		568	Some other Backspace problems:
		569
		570	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
		571	Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
		572
		573	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
		574
		575	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
		576	There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
		577	you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
		578	use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
		579	keysyms.
		580
		581	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
		582
		583	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
		584	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
		585	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
		586	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
		587	URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
		588	URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
		589	URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
		590	URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
		591	URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
		592	URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
		593	URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
		594	URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
		595	URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
		596	URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
		597	URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
		598	URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
		599	URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
		600	URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
		601	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
		602	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
		603
		604	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
		605
		606	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
		607	KP_Insert == Insert
		608	F22 == Print
		609	F27 == Home
		610	F29 == Prior
		611	F33 == End
		612	F35 == Next
		613
		614	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
		615	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
		616	keys as required for your particular machine.
		617
		618	Terminal Configuration
		619	Can I see a typical configuration?
		620	The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
		621	that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
		622
		623	As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
		624	time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
		625	author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
		626	certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
		627
		628	URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
		629	URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/tmp/xxx
		630
		631	These are just for testing stuff.
		632
		633	URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
		634	URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
		635
		636	This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
		637	the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
		638	type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
		639	with correct-looking fonts.
		640
		641	URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
		642	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
		643	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
		644	URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
		645	URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		646	URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		647
		648	This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
		649	directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
		650	develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
		651	write.
		652
		653	The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
		654	and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
		655	relevant file and go to the error line number.
		656
		657	URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
		658	URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
		659
		660	As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
		661	author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
		662	apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
		663	scrollback buffer.
		664
		665	URxvt.background: #000000
		666	URxvt.foreground: gray90
		667	URxvt.color7: gray90
		668	URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
		669	URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
		670	URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
		671	URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
		672
		673	Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
		674	but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
		675	foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
		676	colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
		677
		678	URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
		679
		680	Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
		681	but is mostly a nice effect.
		682
		683	URxvt.geometry: 154x36
		684	URxvt.loginShell: false
		685	URxvt.meta: ignore
		686	URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
		687
		688	Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
		689	manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
		690
		691	URxvt.saveLines: 8192
		692
		693	A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
		694
		695	URxvt.mapAlert: true
		696
		697	The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
		698	iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
		699
		700	URxvt.visualBell: true
		701
		702	The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
		703
		704	URxvt.insecure: true
		705
		706	Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
		707
		708	URxvt.pastableTabs: false
		709
		710	I once thought this is a great idea.
		711
		712	urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
		713	-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
		714	-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
		715	[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
		716	xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
		717	xft:Code2000:antialias=false
		718	urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
		719	urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		720	urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		721
		722	I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
		723	overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
		724	the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
		725	different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
		726	characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
		727	XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
		728	I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
		729	italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
		730	Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
		731
		732	Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
		733	my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
		734	(Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
		735	bold and normal fonts.
		736
		737	Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
		738	class name. That is because I use different configs for different
		739	purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
		740	uses these defaults:
		741
		742	IRC*title: IRC
		743	IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
		744	IRC*saveLines: 0
		745	IRC*mapAlert: true
		746	IRC*font: suxuseuro
		747	IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
		748	IRC*colorBD: white
		749	IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
		750	IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
		751
		752	"Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes.
		753	"suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
		754	keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
		755	(e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
		756
		757	The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
		758	"xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
		759	file for different hosts, for example, on ym main desktop, I use:
		760
		761	URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
		762	URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
		763	URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
		764	URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
		765	URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
		766
		767	The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
		768	in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
		769	immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
		770	same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
		771	combinations :->
		772
		773	Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
		774	Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
		775	applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
		776	resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
		777	ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
		778	$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
		779
		780	If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
		781	are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
		782	every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
		783
		784	Also consider the form resources have to use:
		785
		786	URxvt.resource: value
		787
		788	If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
		789	specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
		790	works. If unsure, use the form above.
		791
186	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?	792	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
187	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely	793	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
188	available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same	794	as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
189	problem often arises).	795	arises).
190		796
191	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo,	797	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
192	this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):	798	can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as
		799	well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install
		800	the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as
		801	user and root):
193		802
194	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain	803	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
195	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"	804	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
196		805
197	... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,	806	One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
		807	$HOME/.terminfo for this to work.
198		808
199	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set	809	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
200	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of	810	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
201	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and	811	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
202	different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen	812	colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
203	applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases,	813	quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
204	though.
205		814
206	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences)	815	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
207	you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or	816	can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
208	use a resource to set it:	817	resource to set it:
209		818
210	URxvt.termName: rxvt	819	URxvt.termName: rxvt
211		820
212	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also	821	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
213	replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.	822	the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
214		823
		824	nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode"
		825	This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by
		826	nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with
		827	your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution.
		828
215	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.	829	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
216	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it	830	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
217	by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.	831	"enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
218		832
219	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt.	833	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
		834	See next entry.
		835
220	I need a termcap file entry.	836	I need a termcap file entry.
221	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or	837	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
222	operating systems still compile some programs using the	838	systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
223	long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example)	839	library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
224	and rely on a termcap entry for "rxvt-unicode".	840	for "rxvt-unicode".
225		841
226	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many	842	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
227	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's	843	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
228	infocmp program like this:	844	program like this:
229		845
230	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode	846	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
231		847
232	Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:	848	Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap,
		849	generated by the command above.
233		850
234	rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
235	:am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
236	:co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
237	:AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
238	:K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
239	:RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
240	:as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
241	:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
242	:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
243	:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
244	:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
245	:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
246	:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
247	:kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
248	:kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
249	:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
250	:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
251	:te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
252	:us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
253	:vs=\E[?25h:
254
255	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?	851	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
256	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to	852	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
257	decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration	853	decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
258	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file	854	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
259	(among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:	855	with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
260		856
261	TERM rxvt-unicode	857	TERM rxvt-unicode
262		858
263	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:	859	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
264		860
265	alias ls='ls --color=auto'	861	alias ls='ls --color=auto'
266		862
267	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".	863	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
268		864
269	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?	865	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
		866	See next entry.
		867
270	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?	868	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
		869	See next entry.
		870
271	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?	871	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
272	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged	872	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
273	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by	873	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
274	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.	874	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
275	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)	875	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
276	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file,	876	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
277	so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I	877	you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
278	log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on	878	to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
279	how to do this).	879	this).
280		880
281	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?	881	Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
282	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
283	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
284	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether
285	and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
286	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and
287	please report if that helped.
288
289	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?	882	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
		883	See next entry.
		884
290	Unicode does not seem to work?	885	Unicode does not seem to work?
291	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character	886	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
292	but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program	887	getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
293	output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale	888	is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
294	settings.
295		889
296	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the	890	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
297	programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the	891	programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
298	login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the	892	while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
299	locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this	893	the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
300	is not going to work.	894	is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
301		895
302	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will	896	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
303	likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in	897	run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
304	your .profile.	898	.profile.
305		899
306	printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"	900	printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
307		901
308	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification	902	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
309	not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command	903	supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
310	which displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale	904	displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
311	settings, as it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale).	905	it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
312	If it displays something like:	906	something like:
313		907
314	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...	908	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
315		909
316	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.	910	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
317		911
318	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly	912	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
319	then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs	913	you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
320	just don't support locales :(	914	support locales :(
321		915
322	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
323	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
324	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
325	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
326	your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you
327	want to display.
328
329	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
330	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
331	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that
332	don't resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the
333	artificial intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it
334	has to believe the font that the characters it claims to contain
335	indeed look correct.
336
337	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font
338	list, e.g.:
339
340	rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
341
342	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
343	font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to
344	the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed
345	up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the
346	X-server.
347
348	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
349	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell
350	size, which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
351
352	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
353	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
354	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
355	is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
356	first sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese
357	font for display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font.
358	Now, many chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts,
359	so when the first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will
360	look for a chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will
361	still use the japanese font for chinese characters that are also in
362	the japanese font.
363
364	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your
365	font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font
366	list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a
367	japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font
368	first.
369
370	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
371	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using
372	different fonts for the same character at the same time, but no
373	interface for this has been designed yet).
374
375	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see
376	"Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
377
378	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
379	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
380	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for
381	terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide.
382	Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are
383	just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used
384	that redraws adjacent characters.
385
386	All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
387	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
388	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the
389	correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which
390	unfortunately is wrong in these cases).
391
392	It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft,
393	freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you
394	might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If
395	that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.
396
397	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
398	bounding box data is correct.
399
400	On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
401	Seems to be a known bug, read
402	<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
403	following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
404
405	#define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
406
407	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
408	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not
409	set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported
410	by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and
411	your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose
412	keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual),
413	then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
414
415	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more
416	than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
417
418	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO
419	14755
420	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
421	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
422	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
423	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default
424	telnet escape character and so on.
425
426	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
427	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal
428	settings ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these
429	effects. Then make sure you have specified colours for italic and
430	bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate
431	the effect:
432
433	URxvt.colorBD: white
434	URxvt.colorIT: green
435
436	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how
437	can I fix that?
438	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very
439	weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than
440	the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is,
441	of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours
442	without very good reasons.
443
444	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
445	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which
446	will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode
447	features.
448
449	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
450	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined
451	in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements
452	it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__"
453	requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode.
454
455	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl
456	nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal
457	representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with
458	respect to standards.
459
460	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1"
461	and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
462
463	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language
464	apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
465	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between
466	wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other
467	encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and
468	every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into
469	anything except the current locale encoding.
470
471	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this
472	by carrying their own replacement functions for character set
473	handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or
474	doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the
475	OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal
476	emulator).
477
478	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in
479	the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app
480	to carry complete replacements for them :)
481
482	I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
483	Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
484	problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
485
486	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
487	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
488	the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
489	longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
490	single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
491	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as
492	the old libW11 emulation.
493
494	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
495	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
496	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
497
498	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?	916	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
		917	See next entry.
		918
499	Is there an option to switch encodings?	919	Is there an option to switch encodings?
500	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch,	920	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
501	and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't	921	specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
502	even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to	922	about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
503	terminal I/O.
504		923
505	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for	924	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
506	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating	925	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
507	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties	926	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
508	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.	927	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
509	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,	928	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
510	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own,	929	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
511	locale-independent table under all locales).	930	locale-independent table under all locales).
512		931
513	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding.	932	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
514	All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree	933	programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
515	in the interpretation of characters.	934	interpretation of characters.
516		935
517	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales,	936	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
518	nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.	937	is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
519		938
520	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable	939	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
521	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an	940	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
522	already-installed locale. Common names for locales are	941	locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
523	"en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e.	942	"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
524	"language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german")	943	"de" or "german") are also common.
525	are also common.
526		944
527	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the	945	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
528	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.	946	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
529	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to	947	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
530	rxvt-unicode.
531		948
532	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you	949	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
533	start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.	950	rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
534		951
535	Can I switch locales at runtime?	952	Can I switch locales at runtime?
536	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets	953	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
537	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".	954	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
538		955
539	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	956	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
540		957
541	See also the previous answer.	958	See also the previous answer.
542		959
543	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in	960	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
544	one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it	961	locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
545	(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which	962	UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
546	first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:	963	switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
547		964
548	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS	965	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
549	xjdic -js	966	xjdic -js
550	printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8	967	printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
551		968
552	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,	969	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
553	except for some locales where character width differs between	970	except for some locales where character width differs between program-
554	program- and rxvt-unicode-locales.	971	and rxvt-unicode-locales.
555		972
556	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?	973	I have problems getting my input method working.
557	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has	974	Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
558	the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect	975	method server.
559	immediately:
560		976
561	printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"	977	Here is a checklist:
562		978
563	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer	979	- Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
564	a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily,	980	Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
565	where japanese fonts would only be in your way.
566		981
567	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.	982	- Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
		983	XIM.
		984	For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
		985	"ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
568		986
569	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?	987	- Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
570	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For	988	- Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
571	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera	989	*starting* rxvt-unicode.
572	Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might	990	When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
573	be to enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:	991	For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
		992	running with this command:
574		993
575	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true	994	xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
576	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
577		995
		996
		997
578	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?	998	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
579	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest	999	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
580	of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":	1000	the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
581		1001
582	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP	1002	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
583		1003
584	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and	1004	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
585	still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not	1005	use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
586	be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then,	1006	Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
587	as your input method limits you.	1007	in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
588		1008
589	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.	1009	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
590	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by	1010	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
591	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory	1011	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
592	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering	1012	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
593	at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally	1013	exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
594	succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end,	1014	SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
595	however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides	1015	cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
596	cooperate.
597		1016
598	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.	1017	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
599		1018
600	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?	1019	Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
601	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for	1020	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
602	something you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure	1021	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
603	out all settings that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a	1022	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
604	resource hog by design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no	1023	unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
605	Xft font will be loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find	1024	the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
606	a font for your characters.	1025	version (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
		1026	the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
		1027	to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian
		1028	Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
607		1029
608	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger	1030	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
609	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will	1031	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
610	use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to	1032	bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
611	almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will	1033	that might encounter the same issue.
612	then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3"
613	it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
614		1034
615	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?	1035	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
616	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely,	1036	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
617	as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to	1037	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
618	disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves	1038	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
619	lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.	1039	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
		1040	should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
		1041	more in the future) depends on it.
620		1042
621	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?	1043	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources
622	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to	1044	system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
623	fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core	1045	behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
624	fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It	1046	"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
625	has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author	1047	perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
626	thinks they look best that way.
627		1048
628	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.	1049	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
		1050	with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
		1051	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
		1052	encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
629		1053
630	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.	1054	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
631	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing	1055	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
632	some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode.	1056	install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
633	I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise
634	specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
635	or Shift keys are depressed.
636		1057
637	What's with this bold/blink stuff?	1058	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
638	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using	1059	into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
639	the standard foreground colour.	1060	systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
		1061	immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
		1062	privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
		1063	things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
640		1064
641	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the	1065	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
642	text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard	1066	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
643	colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be	1067	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
644	ignored.	1068	result in very little risk.
645		1069
646	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set	1070	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
647	high-intensity foreground/background colors.	1071	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
		1072	your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
		1073	whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
		1074	wchar_t is represented as unicode.
648		1075
649	color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.	1076	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
		1077	does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
		1078	wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
650		1079
651	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.	1080	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
		1081	"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t).
652		1082
653	I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?	1083	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
654	You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults	1084	in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
655	resources (or as long-options).	1085	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
		1086	(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
		1087	implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
		1088	simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
		1089	locale encoding.
656		1090
657	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,	1091	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
658	including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:	1092	carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
		1093	them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
		1094	conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
		1095	encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
659		1096
660	URxvt.color0: #000000	1097	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
661	URxvt.color1: #A80000	1098	system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
662	URxvt.color2: #00A800	1099	complete replacements for them :)
663	URxvt.color3: #A8A800
664	URxvt.color4: #0000A8
665	URxvt.color5: #A800A8
666	URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
667	URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
668		1100
669	URxvt.color8: #000054	1101	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
670	URxvt.color9: #FF0054	1102	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
671	URxvt.color10: #00FF54	1103	X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
672	URxvt.color11: #FFFF54	1104	supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
673	URxvt.color12: #0000FF	1105	font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
674	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF	1106	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
675	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF	1107	old libW11 emulation.
676	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
677		1108
678	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described	1109	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
679	(not by me) as "pretty girly".	1110	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
		1111	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
680		1112
681	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1	1113	Character widths are not correct.
682	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1	1114	urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the
683	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e	1115	width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will
684	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1	1116	likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where
685	URxvt.color0: #000000	1117	single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and
686	URxvt.color8: #8b8f93	1118	Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1.
687	URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
688	URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
689	URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
690	URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
691	URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
692	URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
693	URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
694	URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
695	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
696	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
697	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
698	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
699		1119
700	How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?	1120	The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A
701	Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the	1121	possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like
702	listening socket and then fork.
703		1122
704	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?	1123	http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
705	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
706	BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
707	question) there are two standard values that can be used for
708	Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
709		1124
710	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the	1125	I want 256 colors
711	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only	1126	Are you sure you need 256 colors? 88 colors should be enough for most
712	only correct choice :).	1127	purposes. If you really need more, there is an unsupported patch for it
		1128	in the doc directory, but please do not ask for it to be applied.
713		1129
714	Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
715	value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
716	wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote
717	shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to
718	CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as
719	your stty setting).
720
721	For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
722
723	# use Backspace = ^H
724	$ stty erase ^H
725	$ rxvt
726
727	# use Backspace = ^?
728	$ stty erase ^?
729	$ rxvt
730
731	Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
732
733	For an existing rxvt-unicode:
734
735	# use Backspace = ^H
736	$ stty erase ^H
737	$ echo -n "^[[36h"
738
739	# use Backspace = ^?
740	$ stty erase ^?
741	$ echo -n "^[[36l"
742
743	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
744	but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo
745	value properly reflects that.
746
747	The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
748	problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys,
749	the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the
750	vt100 for Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied
751	termcap/terminfo.
752
753	Some other Backspace problems:
754
755	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told)
756	expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for
757	help.
758
759	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
760
761	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
762	There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
763	Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
764	option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
765	associated with keysyms.
766
767	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name
768	URxvt"
769
770	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
771	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
772	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
773	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
774	URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
775	URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
776	URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
777	URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
778	URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
779	URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
780	URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
781	URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
782	URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
783	URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
784	URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
785	URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
786	URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
787	URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
788	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
789	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
790
791	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
792
793	I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How
794	do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the
795	following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
796	KP_Insert == Insert
797	F22 == Print
798	F27 == Home
799	F29 == Prior
800	F33 == End
801	F35 == Next
802
803	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
804	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap
805	the keys as required for your particular machine.
806
807	How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
808	I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
809	rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you
810	can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
811	slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
812	whether or not to use color.
813
814	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
815	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
816	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
817	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of
818	rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in
819	these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to
820	distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm.
821
822	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
823	script snippets:
824
825	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
826	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
827	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
828	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
829	echo -n '^[Z'
830	read term_id
831	stty icanon echo
832	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
833	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
834	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
835	fi
836	fi
837
838	How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
839	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as
840	/usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html.
841	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
842
843	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
844	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net",
845	channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might
846	be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not
847	FAQs :).
848

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