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Revision 1.37 by root, Tue Jan 31 00:58:20 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.60 by root, Fri Oct 15 21:30:51 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	If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following	4	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5	setting:	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 and	15	For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo.
10	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	19	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
13	pattern:	20	Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
		21	simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
		22	should give you tabs:
14		23
15	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)	24	urxvt -pe tabbed
16		25
17	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination also
18	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 section
28	PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
29	disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
30	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 other
37	combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
38
39	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
40
41	The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how
42	do I switch this off?
43	During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor
44	outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
45	These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
46	circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
47	line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
48	but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
49	some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
50
51	You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
52	extension:
53
54	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline	26	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
55		27
56	Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?	28	It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
57	Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X	29	managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
58	applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads	30	it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
59	resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will	31	or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
60	ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read	32	(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
61	$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
62		33
63	If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources	34	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
64	are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after	35	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
65	every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).	36	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
		37	using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
66		38
67	Also consider the form resources have to use:	39	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
		40	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
		41	you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
		42	that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
		43	design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
		44	loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
		45	characters.
68		46
69	URxvt.resource: value	47	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
		48	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
		49	bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
		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.
70		53
71	If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of	54	How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
72	specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it works.	55	Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the
73	If unsure, use the form above.	56	listening socket and then fork.
74		57
75	I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?	58	How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
76	First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,	59	If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
77	so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you	60	the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
78	may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
79	rite of passage: ... and you failed.
80		61
81	Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option	62	#!/bin/sh
82	descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!	63	urxvtc "$@"
		64	if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
		65	urxvtd -q -o -f
		66	urxvtc "$@"
		67	fi
83		68
84	1. Use inheritPixmap:	69	This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
		70	meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
		71	re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
		72	existing daemon.
85		73
86	Esetroot wallpaper.jpg	74	How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular
87	rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40	75	xterm? I need this to decide about setting colours etc.
		76	The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
		77	"COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
		78	programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
		79	variable to decide whether or not to use colour.
88		80
89	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting	81	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
90	support, or you are unable to read.	82	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
		83	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
		84	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
		85	wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
		86	then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
		87	a regular xterm.
91		88
92	2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you	89	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
93	to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever	90	snippets:
94	your picture with gimp:
95		91
96	convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm	92	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
97	rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background	93	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
		94	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
		95	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
		96	echo -n '^[Z'
		97	read term_id
		98	stty icanon echo
		99	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
		100	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
		101	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
		102	fi
		103	fi
98		104
99	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or	105	How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
100	you are unable to read.	106	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
		107	one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::Xhtml).
		108	Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
101		109
102	3. Use an ARGB visual:
103
104	rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
105
106	This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
107	doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
108	there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
109	neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work,
110	but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
111
112	4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
113
114	xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
115	-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
116
117	Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
118	by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
119	your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
120
121	Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?	110	Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
122	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra	111	I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
123	bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see	112	bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
124	that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always	113	that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
125	being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after	114	being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
126	startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit	115	startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
…		…
129		118
130	text data bss drs rss filename	119	text data bss drs rss filename
131	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything	120	98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
132	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything	121	188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
133		122
134	When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft	123	When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
135	and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my	124	and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
136	libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.	125	libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
137		126
138	text data bss drs rss filename	127	text data bss drs rss filename
139	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything	128	163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
140	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything	129	1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
141		130
…		…
157	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole	146	gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
158	(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half	147	(22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
159	a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits	148	a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
160	out), it fares extremely well *g*.	149	out), it fares extremely well *g*.
161		150
162	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?	151	Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
163	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I	152	Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
164	had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a	153	had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
165	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put	154	fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
166	even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.	155	even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
167		156
…		…
183		172
184	And here is rxvt-unicode:	173	And here is rxvt-unicode:
185		174
186	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)	175	libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
187	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)	176	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
188	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)	177	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
189	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)	178	libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
190	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)	179	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
191		180
192	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),	181	No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
193	except maybe libX11 :)	182	except maybe libX11 :)
194		183
195	Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?	184	Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
196	Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a	185	I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
197	simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these	186	First of all, please address all transparency related issues to Sasha
198	should give you tabs:	187	Vasko at sasha@aftercode.net and do not bug the author about it. Also,
199		188	if you can't get it working consider it a rite of passage: ... and you
200	rxvt -pe tabbed
201
202	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
203
204	It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
205	managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
206	it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
207	or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
208	(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
209
210	How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
211	The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
212	sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
213	using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
214
215	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
216	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
217	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
218	unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
219	the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
220	version (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
221	the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
222	to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian
223	Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
224
225	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
226	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
227	bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
228	that might encounter the same issue.
229
230	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any
231	recommendation?
232	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
233	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
234	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
235	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
236	should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
237	more in the future) depends on it.
238
239	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" resources
240	system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
241	behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
242	"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
243	perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
244
245	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
246	with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
247	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
248	encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
249
250	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
251	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
252	install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
253
254	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
255	into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
256	systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
257	immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
258	privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
259	things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
260
261	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
262	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
263	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
264	result in very little risk.
265
266	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
267	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
268	as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
269	arises).
270
271	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
272	can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):
273
274	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
275	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
276
277	... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,
278
279	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
280	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
281	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
282	colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
283	quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
284
285	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
286	can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
287	resource to set it:
288
289	URxvt.termName: rxvt
290
291	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
292	the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.
293
294	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
295	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
296	"enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
297
298	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt.
299	I need a termcap file entry.
300	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
301	systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
302	library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
303	for "rxvt-unicode".
304
305	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many cases.
306	You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp program
307	like this:
308
309	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
310
311	Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:
312
313	rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
314	:am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
315	:co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
316	:AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
317	:K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
318	:RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
319	:as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
320	:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
321	:dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
322	:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
323	:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
324	:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
325	:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
326	:kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
327	:kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
328	:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
329	:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
330	:te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
331	:us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
332	:vs=\E[?25h:
333
334	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
335	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
336	decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration
337	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file (among
338	with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
339
340	TERM rxvt-unicode
341
342	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
343
344	alias ls='ls --color=auto'
345
346	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
347
348	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
349	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
350	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
351	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
352	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
353	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
354	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
355	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
356	you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
357	to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
358	this).
359
360	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
361	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
362	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
363	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of wether and
364	how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
365	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
366	report if that helped.
367
368	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
369	Unicode does not seem to work?
370	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
371	getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
372	is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
373
374	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
375	programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the
376	login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale
377	to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this is not
378	going to work.
379
380	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
381	run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
382	.profile.	189	failed.
383		190
384	printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"	191	Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
		192	descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
385		193
386	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not	194	1. Use transparent mode:
387	supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
388	displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
389	it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
390	something like:
391		195
392	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...	196	Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
		197	urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40
393		198
394	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.	199	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
		200	support, or you are unable to read.
395		201
396	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then	202	2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
397	you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't	203	to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
398	support locales :(	204	your picture with gimp or any other tool:
399		205
400	Why do some characters look so much different than others?	206	convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg
401	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?	207	urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root"
402	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
403	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
404	system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
405	display.
406		208
407	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.	209	That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack libAfterImage or
408	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks	210	GDK-PixBuf support, or you are unable to read.
409	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
410	resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
411	intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
412	the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
413		211
414	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,	212	3. Use an ARGB visual:
415	e.g.:
416		213
417	rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...	214	urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
418		215
419	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.	216	This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
420	If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next	217	doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
421	font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this	218	there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
422	search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.	219	necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
		220	that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
423		221
424	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the	222	4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
425	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
426	which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
427		223
428	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?	224	xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
429	This is because there is a difference between script and language --	225	-set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
430	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
431	it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
432	japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
433	Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
434	characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
435	non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
436	font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
437	for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
438		226
439	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font	227	Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
440	list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a	228	by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
441	preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font	229	your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
442	first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
443		230
444	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
445	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
446	fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
447	has been designed yet).
448
449	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
450	I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
451
452	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?	231	Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
453	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that	232	Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
454	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal	233	character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
455	use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode	234	use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
456	will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too	235	will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
457	wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent	236	wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
…		…
461	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed	240	however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
462	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct	241	bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
463	way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is	242	way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
464	wrong in these cases).	243	wrong in these cases).
465		244
466	It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,	245	It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
467	or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try	246	or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
468	using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't	247	using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
469	work, you might be forced to use a different font.	248	work, you might be forced to use a different font.
470		249
471	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their	250	All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
472	bounding box data is correct.	251	bounding box data is correct.
473		252
474	On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
475	Seems to be a known bug, read
476	<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
477	following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
478
479	#define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
480
481	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
482	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
483	correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
484	input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
485	method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
486	support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
487	will continue without an input method.
488
489	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
490	one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
491
492	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
493	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
494	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
495	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
496	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
497	escape character and so on.
498
499	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?	253	How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
500	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings	254	First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
501	("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then	255	("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
502	make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise	256	make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
503	rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:	257	rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
504		258
505	URxvt.colorBD: white	259	URxvt.colorBD: white
506	URxvt.colorIT: green	260	URxvt.colorIT: green
507		261
508	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?	262	Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
509	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird	263	For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
510	colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the	264	colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
511	standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of	265	standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
512	course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very	266	course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
513	good reasons.	267	good reasons.
514		268
515	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo	269	In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
516	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will	270	definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
517	fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.	271	fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
518		272
519	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
520	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
521	your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
522	wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
523	wchar_t is represented as unicode.
524
525	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl nor
526	does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal representation of
527	wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
528
529	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
530	"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
531
532	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
533	in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
534	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
535	(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
536	implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
537	simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
538	locale encoding.
539
540	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
541	carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
542	them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
543	conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
544	encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
545
546	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
547	system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
548	complete replacements for them :)
549
550	I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
551	Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
552	problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
553
554	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
555	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
556	X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
557	supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
558	font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
559	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
560	old libW11 emulation.
561
562	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
563	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
564	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
565
566	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
567	Is there an option to switch encodings?
568	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
569	specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
570	about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
571
572	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
573	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
574	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
575	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
576	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
577	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own,
578	locale-independent table under all locales).
579
580	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
581	programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
582	interpretation of characters.
583
584	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
585	is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
586
587	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
588	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
589	locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
590	"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
591	"de" or "german") are also common.
592
593	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
594	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
595	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
596
597	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
598	rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
599
600	Can I switch locales at runtime?
601	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
602	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
603
604	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
605
606	See also the previous answer.
607
608	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
609	locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
610	UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
611	switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
612
613	printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
614	xjdic -js
615	printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
616
617	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
618	except for some locales where character width differs between program-
619	and rxvt-unicode-locales.
620
621	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?	273	Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
622	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the	274	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
623	same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:	275	same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
624		276
625	printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"	277	printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
626		278
627	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a	279	This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
628	japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where	280	japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
629	japanese fonts would only be in your way.	281	japanese fonts would only be in your way.
630		282
631	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.	283	You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
632		284
633	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?	285	Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
634	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For	286	Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
635	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans	287	example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
636	Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to	288	Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
637	enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:	289	enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
638		290
639	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true	291	URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
640	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true	292	URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
641		293
642	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
643	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
644	the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
645
646	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
647
648	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
649	use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able
650	to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, as your input
651	method limits you.
652
653	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
654	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
655	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
656	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
657	exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
658	SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
659	cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
660
661	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
662
663	Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
664	Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
665	you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
666	that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
667	design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
668	loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
669	characters.
670
671	Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
672	scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
673	bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
674	kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
675	full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
676	worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
677
678	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?	294	Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
679	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it	295	Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
680	is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable	296	is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
681	antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of	297	antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
682	memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.	298	memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
683		299
684	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?	300	Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
685	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to	301	Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
686	fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core	302	fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
687	fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has	303	because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
688	antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they	304	antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
689	look best that way.	305	look best that way.
690		306
691	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.	307	If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
692		308
693	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
694	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
695	editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
696	that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
697	check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
698	depressed.
699
700	What's with this bold/blink stuff?	309	What's with this bold/blink stuff?
701	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the	310	If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
702	standard foreground colour.	311	standard foreground colour.
703		312
704	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text	313	For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
705	blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard colours.	314	blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without
706	Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be ignored.	315	"--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored.
707		316
708	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity	317	On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
709	foreground/background colors.	318	foreground/background colours.
710		319
711	color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.	320	color0-7 are the low-intensity colours.
712		321
713	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.	322	color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colours.
714		323
715	I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?	324	I don't like the screen colours. How do I change them?
716	You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults	325	You can change the screen colours at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
717	resources (or as long-options).	326	resources (or as long-options).
718		327
719	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including	328	Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
720	the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:	329	the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
721		330
…		…
735	URxvt.color12: #0000FF	344	URxvt.color12: #0000FF
736	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF	345	URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
737	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF	346	URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
738	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF	347	URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
739		348
740	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described (not by	349	And here is a more complete set of non-standard colours.
741	me) as "pretty girly".
742		350
743	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1	351	URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
744	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1	352	URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
745	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e	353	URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
746	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1	354	URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
…		…
757	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff	365	URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
758	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff	366	URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
759	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd	367	URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
760	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd	368	URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
761		369
762	How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?	370	They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
763	Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the
764	listening socket and then fork.
765		371
		372	Why do some characters look so much different than others?
		373	See next entry.
		374
		375	How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
		376	Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
		377	Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
		378	system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
		379	display.
		380
		381	rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
		382	Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
		383	bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
		384	resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
		385	intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
		386	the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
		387
		388	In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
		389	e.g.:
		390
		391	urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
		392
		393	When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
		394	If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
		395	font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
		396	search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
		397
		398	The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
		399	base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
		400	which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
		401
		402	Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
		403	This is because there is a difference between script and language --
		404	rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
		405	it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
		406	japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
		407	Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
		408	characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
		409	non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
		410	font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
		411	for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
		412
		413	The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
		414	list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
		415	preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
		416	first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
		417
		418	In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
		419	runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
		420	fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
		421	has been designed yet).
		422
		423	Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
		424	I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
		425
		426	How can I make mplayer display video correctly?
		427	We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something
		428	like:
		429
		430	urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...'
		431
		432	Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
		433	The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
		434	If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
		435	setting:
		436
		437	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
		438
		439	If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
		440	more.
		441
		442	To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
		443	pattern:
		444
		445	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
		446
		447	Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also
		448	selects words like the old code.
		449
		450	I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
		451	You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
		452	perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
		453	rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
		454
		455	If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
		456	identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
		457	PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
		458	disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
		459	perl-ext-common resource:
		460
		461	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
		462
		463	This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
		464	extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
		465	scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
		466	combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
		467
		468	URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
		469
		470	The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
		471	See next entry.
		472
		473	During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
		474	These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
		475	circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
		476	line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
		477	but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
		478	some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
		479
		480	You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
		481	extension:
		482
		483	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
		484
		485	My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
		486	Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
		487	specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
		488	caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
		489	how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
		490	compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
		491	report if that helped.
		492
		493	My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
		494	The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
		495	correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
		496	input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
		497	method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
		498	support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
		499	will continue without an input method.
		500
		501	In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
		502	one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
		503
		504	If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support
		505	compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you
		506	don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS".
		507
		508	I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
		509	Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
		510	international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
		511	advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
		512	other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
		513	escape character and so on.
		514
		515	Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
		516	Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
		517	editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
		518	that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
		519	check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
		520	depressed.
		521
766	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?	522	What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
767	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace	523	Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
768	keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are	524	keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
769	two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".	525	two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
770		526
771	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the	527	Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
772	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only only	528	debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
773	correct choice :).	529	correct choice :).
774		530
775	Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the	531	It is possible to toggle between "^H" and "^?" with the DECBKM private
776	value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode	532	mode:
777	wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell),
778	then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in
779	<termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as your stty
780	setting).
781
782	For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
783		533
784	# use Backspace = ^H	534	# use Backspace = ^H
785	$ stty erase ^H	535	$ stty erase ^H
786	$ rxvt	536	$ echo -n "^[[?67h"
787		537
788	# use Backspace = ^?	538	# use Backspace = ^?
789	$ stty erase ^?	539	$ stty erase ^?
790	$ rxvt
791
792	Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
793
794	For an existing rxvt-unicode:
795
796	# use Backspace = ^H
797	$ stty erase ^H
798	$ echo -n "^[[36h"
799
800	# use Backspace = ^?
801	$ stty erase ^?
802	$ echo -n "^[[36l"	540	$ echo -n "^[[?67l"
803		541
804	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but	542	This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
805	if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value	543	if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
806	properly reflects that.	544	properly reflects that.
807		545
…		…
815	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect	553	some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
816	Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.	554	Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
817		555
818	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.	556	Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
819		557
820	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?	558	I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
821	There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless	559	There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
822	you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can	560	you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
823	use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with	561	use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
824	keysyms.	562	keysyms.
825		563
826	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name URxvt"	564	Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
827		565
828	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~	566	URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
829	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~	567	URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
830	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>	568	URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
831	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>	569	URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
…		…
846	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >	584	URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
847	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007	585	URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
848		586
849	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.	587	See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
850		588
851	I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys.	589	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
852	How do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4
853	has the following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
854	KP_Insert == Insert	590	KP_Insert == Insert
855	F22 == Print	591	F22 == Print
856	F27 == Home	592	F27 == Home
857	F29 == Prior	593	F29 == Prior
858	F33 == End	594	F33 == End
…		…
860		596
861	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various	597	Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
862	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the	598	possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
863	keys as required for your particular machine.	599	keys as required for your particular machine.
864		600
865	How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?	601	Terminal Configuration
866	I need this to decide about setting colors etc.	602	Can I see a typical configuration?
867	rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you can	603	The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
868	check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn,	604	that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
869	Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether
870	or not to use color.
871		605
872	How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?	606	As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
873	If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled	607	time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
874	insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script	608	author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
875	snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode	609	certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
876	wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
877	then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
878	a regular xterm.
879		610
880	Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script	611	URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
881	snippets:	612	URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/tmp/xxx
882		613
883	# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:	614	These are just for testing stuff.
884	[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
885	if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
886	stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
887	echo -n '^[Z'
888	read term_id
889	stty icanon echo
890	if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
891	echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
892	read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
893	fi
894	fi
895		615
896	How do I compile the manual pages for myself?	616	URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
897	You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,	617	URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
898	one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. Then go to the doc
899	subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
900		618
901	My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?	619	This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
902	Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel	620	the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
903	"#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be	621	type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
904	interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).	622	with correct-looking fonts.
905		623
		624	URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
		625	URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
		626	URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
		627	URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
		628	URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		629	URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
		630
		631	This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
		632	directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
		633	develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
		634	write.
		635
		636	The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
		637	and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
		638	relevant file and go to the error line number.
		639
		640	URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
		641	URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
		642
		643	As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
		644	author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
		645	apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
		646	scrollback buffer.
		647
		648	URxvt.background: #000000
		649	URxvt.foreground: gray90
		650	URxvt.color7: gray90
		651	URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
		652	URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
		653	URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
		654	URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
		655
		656	Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
		657	but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
		658	foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
		659	colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
		660
		661	URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
		662
		663	Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
		664	but is mostly a nice effect.
		665
		666	URxvt.geometry: 154x36
		667	URxvt.loginShell: false
		668	URxvt.meta: ignore
		669	URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
		670
		671	Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
		672	manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
		673
		674	URxvt.saveLines: 8192
		675
		676	A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
		677
		678	URxvt.mapAlert: true
		679
		680	The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
		681	iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
		682
		683	URxvt.visualBell: true
		684
		685	The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
		686
		687	URxvt.insecure: true
		688
		689	Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
		690
		691	URxvt.pastableTabs: false
		692
		693	I once thought this is a great idea.
		694
		695	urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
		696	-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
		697	-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
		698	[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
		699	xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
		700	xft:Code2000:antialias=false
		701	urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
		702	urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
		703	urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
		704
		705	I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
		706	overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
		707	the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
		708	different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
		709	characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
		710	XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
		711	I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
		712	italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
		713	Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
		714
		715	Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
		716	my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
		717	(Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
		718	bold and normal fonts.
		719
		720	Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
		721	class name. That is because I use different configs for different
		722	purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
		723	uses these defaults:
		724
		725	IRC*title: IRC
		726	IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
		727	IRC*saveLines: 0
		728	IRC*mapAlert: true
		729	IRC*font: suxuseuro
		730	IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
		731	IRC*colorBD: white
		732	IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
		733	IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
		734
		735	"Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes.
		736	"suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
		737	keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
		738	(e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
		739
		740	The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
		741	"xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
		742	file for different hosts, for example, on my main desktop, I use:
		743
		744	URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
		745	URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
		746	URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
		747	URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
		748	URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
		749
		750	The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
		751	in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
		752	immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
		753	same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
		754	combinations :->
		755
		756	Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
		757	Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
		758	applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
		759	resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
		760	ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
		761	$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
		762
		763	If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
		764	are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
		765	every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
		766
		767	Also consider the form resources have to use:
		768
		769	URxvt.resource: value
		770
		771	If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
		772	specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
		773	works. If unsure, use the form above.
		774
		775	When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
		776	The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
		777	as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
		778	arises).
		779
		780	The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
		781	can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as
		782	well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install
		783	the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as
		784	user and root):
		785
		786	REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
		787	infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
		788
		789	One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
		790	$HOME/.terminfo for this to work.
		791
		792	If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
		793	"TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
		794	problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
		795	colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
		796	quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
		797
		798	If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
		799	can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
		800	resource to set it:
		801
		802	URxvt.termName: rxvt
		803
		804	If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
		805	the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
		806
		807	nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode"
		808	This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by
		809	nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with
		810	your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution.
		811
		812	"tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
		813	Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
		814	"enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
		815
		816	"bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
		817	See next entry.
		818
		819	I need a termcap file entry.
		820	One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
		821	systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
		822	library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
		823	for "rxvt-unicode".
		824
		825	You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
		826	cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
		827	program like this:
		828
		829	infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
		830
		831	Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap,
		832	generated by the command above.
		833
		834	Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
		835	The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
		836	decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
		837	file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
		838	with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
		839
		840	TERM rxvt-unicode
		841
		842	to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
		843
		844	alias ls='ls --color=auto'
		845
		846	to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
		847
		848	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
		849	See next entry.
		850
		851	Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
		852	See next entry.
		853
		854	Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
		855	Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
		856	distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
		857	setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
		858	Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
		859	furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
		860	you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
		861	to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
		862	this).
		863
		864	Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
		865	Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
		866	See next entry.
		867
		868	Unicode does not seem to work?
		869	If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
		870	getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
		871	is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
		872
		873	Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
		874	programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
		875	while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
		876	the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
		877	is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
		878
		879	The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
		880	run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
		881	.profile.
		882
		883	printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
		884
		885	If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
		886	supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
		887	displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
		888	it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
		889	something like:
		890
		891	locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
		892
		893	Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
		894
		895	If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
		896	you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
		897	support locales :(
		898
		899	How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
		900	See next entry.
		901
		902	Is there an option to switch encodings?
		903	Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
		904	specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
		905	about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
		906
		907	The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
		908	selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
		909	this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
		910	such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
		911	Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
		912	"xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
		913	locale-independent table under all locales).
		914
		915	Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
		916	programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
		917	interpretation of characters.
		918
		919	Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
		920	is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
		921
		922	On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
		923	contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
		924	locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
		925	"ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
		926	"de" or "german") are also common.
		927
		928	Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
		929	encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
		930	"de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
		931
		932	If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
		933	rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
		934
		935	Can I switch locales at runtime?
		936	Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
		937	rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
		938
		939	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
		940
		941	See also the previous answer.
		942
		943	Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
		944	locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
		945	UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
		946	switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
		947
		948	printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
		949	xjdic -js
		950	printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
		951
		952	You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
		953	except for some locales where character width differs between program-
		954	and rxvt-unicode-locales.
		955
		956	I have problems getting my input method working.
		957	Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
		958	method server.
		959
		960	Here is a checklist:
		961
		962	- Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
		963	Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
		964
		965	- Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
		966	XIM.
		967	For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
		968	"ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
		969
		970	- Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
		971	- Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
		972	*starting* rxvt-unicode.
		973	When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
		974	For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
		975	running with this command:
		976
		977	xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
		978
		979
		980
		981	My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
		982	You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
		983	the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
		984
		985	URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
		986
		987	Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
		988	use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
		989	Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
		990	in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
		991
		992	Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
		993	Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
		994	design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
		995	leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
		996	exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
		997	SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
		998	cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
		999
		1000	So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
		1001
		1002	Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
		1003	I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
		1004	The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
		1005	patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
		1006	unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
		1007	the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
		1008	version (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
		1009	the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
		1010	to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian
		1011	Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
		1012
		1013	For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
		1014	probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
		1015	bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
		1016	that might encounter the same issue.
		1017
		1018	I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
		1019	You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
		1020	enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
		1021	runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
		1022	them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
		1023	should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
		1024	more in the future) depends on it.
		1025
		1026	You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources
		1027	system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
		1028	behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
		1029	"perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
		1030	perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
		1031
		1032	If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
		1033	with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
		1034	"--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
		1035	encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
		1036
		1037	I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
		1038	It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
		1039	install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
		1040
		1041	When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
		1042	into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
		1043	systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
		1044	immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
		1045	privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
		1046	things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
		1047
		1048	This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
		1049	early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
		1050	main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
		1051	result in very little risk.
		1052
		1053	I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
		1054	Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
		1055	your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
		1056	whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
		1057	wchar_t is represented as unicode.
		1058
		1059	As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
		1060	does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
		1061	wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
		1062
		1063	However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
		1064	"UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t).
		1065
		1066	"__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
		1067	in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
		1068	representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
		1069	(as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
		1070	implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
		1071	simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
		1072	locale encoding.
		1073
		1074	Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
		1075	carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
		1076	them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
		1077	conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
		1078	encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
		1079
		1080	The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
		1081	system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
		1082	complete replacements for them :)
		1083
		1084	How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
		1085	rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
		1086	X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
		1087	supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
		1088	font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
		1089	"-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
		1090	old libW11 emulation.
		1091
		1092	At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
		1093	multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
		1094	likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
		1095
		1096	Character widths are not correct.
		1097	urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the
		1098	width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will
		1099	likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where
		1100	single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and
		1101	Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1.
		1102
		1103	The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A
		1104	possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like
		1105
		1106	http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
		1107

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