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Revision 1.32 by root, Thu Jan 19 19:26:30 2006 UTC vs.
Revision 1.66 by root, Thu May 10 22:42:02 2012 UTC

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