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Revision 1.26 by root, Thu Jan 12 23:11:23 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.63 by root, Mon Dec 13 16:47:27 2010 UTC

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