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1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
3 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
4 Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5 "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
6 interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
7
8 I use Gentoo, and I have a problem...
9 There are two big problems with Gentoo Linux: first, most if not all
10 Gentoo systems are completely broken (missing or mismatched header
11 files, broken compiler etc. are just the tip of the iceberg); secondly,
12 it should be called Gentoo GNU/Linux.
13
14 For these reasons, it is impossible to support rxvt-unicode on Gentoo.
15 Problems appearing on Gentoo systems will usually simply be ignored
16 unless they can be reproduced on non-Gentoo systems.
17
18 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
19 Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
20 simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
21 should give you tabs:
22
23 urxvt -pe tabbed
24
25 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
26
27 It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
28 managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
29 it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
30 or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
31 (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
32
2 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? 33 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
3 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape 34 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
4 sequence "ESC[8n" sets the window title to the version number. 35 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
36 using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
5 37
38 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
39 Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
40 you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
41 that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
42 design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
43 loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
44 characters.
45
46 Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
47 scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
48 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
49 kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
50 full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
51 worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
52
53 How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
54 Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the
55 listening socket and then fork.
56
57 How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
58 If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
59 the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
60
61 #!/bin/sh
62 urxvtc "$@"
63 if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
64 urxvtd -q -o -f
65 urxvtc "$@"
66 fi
67
68 This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
69 meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
70 re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
71 existing daemon.
72
73 Another option is to use systemd socket-based activation (see
74 systemd.socket(5)). Here is an example of a service unit file and of a
75 socket unit file for the default socket path:
76
77 urxvtd.service
78 [Unit]
79 Description=urxvt terminal daemon
80 Requires=urxvtd.socket
81
82 [Service]
83 ExecStart=/usr/bin/urxvtd -o
84
85 urxvtd.socket
86 [Unit]
87 Description=urxvt terminal daemon socket
88
89 [Socket]
90 ListenStream=%h/.urxvt/urxvtd-%H
91
92 [Install]
93 WantedBy=sockets.target
94
95 How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular
96xterm? I need this to decide about setting colours etc.
97 The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
98 "COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
99 programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
100 variable to decide whether or not to use colour.
101
102 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
103 If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
104 insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
105 snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
106 wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
107 then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
108 a regular xterm.
109
110 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
111 snippets:
112
113 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
114 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
115 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
116 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
117 printf "\eZ"
118 read term_id
119 stty icanon echo
120 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
121 printf '\e[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
122 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
123 fi
124 fi
125
126 How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
127 You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
128 one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::Xhtml).
129 Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
130
131 Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
132 I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
133 bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
134 that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
135 being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
136 startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
137 unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
138 iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
139
140 text data bss drs rss filename
141 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
142 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
143
144 When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
145 and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
146 libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
147
148 text data bss drs rss filename
149 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
150 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
151
152 The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
153 encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
154 and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
155 encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
156 compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
157 memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
158 a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
159 when not used.
160
161 Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
162 one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
163 more memory.
164
165 Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
166 still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
167 gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
168 (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
169 a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
170 out), it fares extremely well *g*.
171
172 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
173 Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
174 had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
175 fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
176 even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
177
178 My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
179 the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
180 are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
181 unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
182
183 Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
184 in C that use gobs of memory, and certainly possible to write programs
185 in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this
186 is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on
187 my system with a minimal config:
188
189 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
190 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
191 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
192 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
193
194 And here is rxvt-unicode:
195
196 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
197 libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
198 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
199 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
200 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
201
202 No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
203 except maybe libX11 :)
204
205 Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
206 I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
207 First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,
208 so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you
209 may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
210 rite of passage: ... and you failed.
211
212 Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
213 descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
214
215 1. Use transparent mode:
216
217 Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
218 urxvt -tr -tint red -sh 40
219
220 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
221 support, or you are unable to read. This method requires that the
222 background-setting program sets the _XROOTPMAP_ID or ESETROOT_PMAP_ID
223 property. Compatible programs are Esetroot, hsetroot and feh.
224
225 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
226 to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
227 your picture with gimp or any other tool:
228
229 convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.jpg
230 urxvt -pixmap "background.jpg;:root"
231
232 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack GDK-PixBuf support, or you
233 are unable to read.
234
235 3. Use an ARGB visual:
236
237 urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
238
239 This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
240 doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
241 there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
242 necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
243 that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
244
245 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
246
247 xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
248 -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
249
250 Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
251 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
252 your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
253
254 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
255 Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
256 character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
257 use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
258 will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
259 wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
260 characters.
261
262 All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
263 however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
264 bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
265 way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
266 wrong in these cases).
267
268 It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
269 or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
270 using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
271 work, you might be forced to use a different font.
272
273 All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
274 bounding box data is correct.
275
276 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
277 First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
278 ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
279 make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
280 rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
281
282 URxvt.colorBD: white
283 URxvt.colorIT: green
284
285 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
286 For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
287 colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
288 standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
289 course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
290 good reasons.
291
292 In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
293 definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
294 fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
295
296 Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
297 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
298 same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
299
300 printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
301
302 This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
303 japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
304 japanese fonts would only be in your way.
305
306 You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
307
308 Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
309 Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
310 example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
311 Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
312 enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
313
314 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
315 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
316
317 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
318 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
319 is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
320 antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
321 memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
322
323 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
324 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
325 fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
326 because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
327 antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
328 look best that way.
329
330 If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
331
332 What's with this bold/blink stuff?
333 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
334 standard foreground colour.
335
336 For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
337 blink when compiled with "--enable-text-blink". Without
338 "--enable-text-blink", the blink attribute will be ignored.
339
340 On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
341 foreground/background colours.
342
343 color0-7 are the low-intensity colours.
344
345 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colours.
346
347 I don't like the screen colours. How do I change them?
348 You can change the screen colours at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
349 resources (or as long-options).
350
351 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
352 the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
353
354 URxvt.color0: #000000
355 URxvt.color1: #A80000
356 URxvt.color2: #00A800
357 URxvt.color3: #A8A800
358 URxvt.color4: #0000A8
359 URxvt.color5: #A800A8
360 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
361 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
362
363 URxvt.color8: #000054
364 URxvt.color9: #FF0054
365 URxvt.color10: #00FF54
366 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
367 URxvt.color12: #0000FF
368 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
369 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
370 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
371
372 And here is a more complete set of non-standard colours.
373
374 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
375 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
376 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
377 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
378 URxvt.color0: #000000
379 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
380 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
381 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
382 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
383 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
384 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
385 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
386 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
387 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
388 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
389 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
390 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
391 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
392
393 They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
394
395 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
396 See next entry.
397
398 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
399 Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
400 Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
401 system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
402 display.
403
404 rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
405 Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
406 bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
407 resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
408 intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
409 the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
410
411 In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
412 e.g.:
413
414 urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
415
416 When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
417 If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
418 font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
419 search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
420
421 The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
422 base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
423 which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
424
425 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
426 This is because there is a difference between script and language --
427 rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
428 it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
429 japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
430 Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
431 characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
432 non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
433 font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
434 for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
435
436 The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
437 list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
438 preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
439 first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
440
441 In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
442 runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
443 fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
444 has been designed yet).
445
446 Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
447 I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
448
449 How can I make mplayer display video correctly?
450 We are working on it, in the meantime, as a workaround, use something
451 like:
452
453 urxvt -b 600 -geometry 20x1 -e sh -c 'mplayer -wid $WINDOWID file...'
454
455 Why is the cursor now blinking in emacs/vi/...?
456 This is likely caused by your editor/program's use of the "cvvis"
457 terminfo capability. Emacs uses it by default, as well as some versions
458 of vi and possibly other programs.
459
460 In emacs, you can switch that off by adding this to your ".emacs" file:
461
462 (setq visible-cursor nil)
463
464 For other programs, if they do not have an option, your have to remove
465 the "cvvis" capability from the terminfo description.
466
467 When urxvt first added the blinking cursor option, it didn't add a
468 "cvvis" capability, which served no purpose before. Version 9.21
469 introduced "cvvis" (and the ability to control blinking independent of
470 cursor shape) for compatibility with other terminals, which
471 traditionally use a blinking cursor for "cvvis". This also reflects the
472 intent of programs such as emacs, who expect "cvvis" to enable a
473 blinking cursor.
474
475 Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
476 The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
477 If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
478 setting:
479
480 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
481
482 If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
483 more.
484
485 To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
486 pattern:
487
488 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
489
490 Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClick* combination also
491 selects words like the old code.
492
493 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
494 You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
495 perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
496 rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
497
498 If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
499 identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
500 PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
501 disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
502 perl-ext-common resource:
503
504 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
505
506 This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
507 extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
508 scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
509 combination by adding a keysym resource that binds the desired
510 combination to the "start" action of "searchable-scrollback" and another
511 one that binds M-s to the "builtin:" action:
512
513 URxvt.keysym.CM-s: searchable-scrollback:start
514 URxvt.keysym.M-s: builtin:
515
516 The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
517 See next entry.
518
519 During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
520 These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
521 circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
522 line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
523 but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
524 some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
525
526 You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
527 extension:
528
529 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
530
531 My numeric keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
532 Some Debian GNU/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
533 specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
534 caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
535 how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
536 compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
537 report if that helped.
538
539 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
540 The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
541 correctly, or you specified a preeditType that is not supported by your
542 input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
543 method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
544 support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
545 will continue without an input method.
546
547 In this case either do not specify a preeditType or specify more than
548 one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
549
550 If it still doesn't work, then maybe your input method doesn't support
551 compose sequences - to fall back to the built-in one, make sure you
552 don't specify an input method via "-im" or "XMODIFIERS".
553
554 I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
555 Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
556 international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
557 advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
558 other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
559 escape character and so on.
560
561 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
562 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
563 editors prematurely may leave it active. I've heard that tcsh may use
564 mouse reporting unless it is otherwise specified. A quick check is to
565 see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are pressed.
566
567 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
568 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
569 keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
570 two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
571
572 Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
573 debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
574 correct choice :).
575
576 It is possible to toggle between "^H" and "^?" with the DECBKM private
577 mode:
578
579 # use Backspace = ^H
580 $ stty erase ^H
581 $ printf "\e[?67h"
582
583 # use Backspace = ^?
584 $ stty erase ^?
585 $ printf "\e[?67l"
586
587 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
588 if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
589 properly reflects that.
590
591 The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
592 problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
593 Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
594 Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
595
596 Some other Backspace problems:
597
598 some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
599 Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
600
601 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
602
603 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
604 There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
605 you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
606 use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
607 keysyms.
608
609 Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
610
611 URxvt.keysym.Prior: \033[5~
612 URxvt.keysym.Next: \033[6~
613 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[7~
614 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[8~
615 URxvt.keysym.Up: \033[A
616 URxvt.keysym.Down: \033[B
617 URxvt.keysym.Right: \033[C
618 URxvt.keysym.Left: \033[D
619
620 See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
621
622 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
623 KP_Insert == Insert
624 F22 == Print
625 F27 == Home
626 F29 == Prior
627 F33 == End
628 F35 == Next
629
630 Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
631 possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
632 keys as required for your particular machine.
633
634 Terminal Configuration
635 Can I see a typical configuration?
636 The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
637 that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
638
639 As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
640 time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
641 author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
642 certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
643
644 URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
645 URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/some/path
646
647 These are just for testing stuff.
648
649 URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
650 URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
651
652 This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
653 the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
654 type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
655 with correct-looking fonts.
656
657 URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
658 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
659 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
660 URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
661 URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
662 URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
663
664 This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
665 directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
666 develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
667 write.
668
669 The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
670 and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
671 relevant file and go to the error line number.
672
673 URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
674 URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
675
676 As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
677 author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
678 apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
679 scrollback buffer.
680
681 URxvt.background: #000000
682 URxvt.foreground: gray90
683 URxvt.color7: gray90
684 URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
685 URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
686 URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
687 URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
688
689 Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
690 but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
691 foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
692 colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
693
694 URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
695
696 Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
697 but is mostly a nice effect.
698
699 URxvt.geometry: 154x36
700 URxvt.loginShell: false
701 URxvt.meta: ignore
702 URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
703
704 Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
705 manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
706
707 URxvt.saveLines: 8192
708
709 A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
710
711 URxvt.mapAlert: true
712
713 The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
714 iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
715
716 URxvt.visualBell: true
717
718 The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
719
720 URxvt.insecure: true
721
722 Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
723
724 URxvt.pastableTabs: false
725
726 I once thought this is a great idea.
727
728 urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
729 -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
730 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
731 [codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
732 xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
733 xft:Code2000:antialias=false
734 urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
735 urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
736 urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
737
738 I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
739 overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
740 the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
741 different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
742 characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
743 XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
744 I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
745 italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
746 Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
747
748 Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
749 my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
750 (Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
751 bold and normal fonts.
752
753 Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
754 class name. That is because I use different configs for different
755 purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
756 uses these defaults:
757
758 IRC*title: IRC
759 IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
760 IRC*saveLines: 0
761 IRC*mapAlert: true
762 IRC*font: suxuseuro
763 IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
764 IRC*colorBD: white
765 IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
766 IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
767
768 "Alt-Ctrl-1" and "Alt-Ctrl-2" switch between two different font sizes.
769 "suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
770 keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
771 (e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
772
773 The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
774 "xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
775 file for different hosts, for example, on my main desktop, I use:
776
777 URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
778 URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
779 URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
780 URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
781 URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
782
783 The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
784 in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
785 immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
786 same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
787 combinations :->
788
789 Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
790 Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
791 applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
792 resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
793 ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
794 $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
795
796 If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
797 are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
798 every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
799
800 Also consider the form resources have to use:
801
802 URxvt.resource: value
803
804 If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
805 specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
806 works. If unsure, use the form above.
807
6 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 808 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
7 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely 809 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
8 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same 810 as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
9 problem often arises). 811 arises).
10 812
11 The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, 813 The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
12 this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): 814 can be done by simply installing rxvt-unicode on the remote system as
815 well (in case you have a nice package manager ready), or you can install
816 the terminfo database manually like this (with ncurses infocmp. works as
817 user and root):
13 818
14 REMOTE=remotesystem.domain 819 REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
15 infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" 820 infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
16 821
17 ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, 822 One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
823 $HOME/.terminfo for this to work.
18 824
19 If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set 825 If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
20 "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of 826 "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
21 problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and 827 problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
22 different colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen 828 colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
23 applications. It's a nice quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, 829 quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
24 though.
25 830
26 If you always want to do this you can either recompile rxvt-unicode 831 If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
27 with the desired TERM value or use a resource to set it: 832 can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
833 resource to set it:
28 834
29 URxvt.termName: rxvt 835 URxvt.termName: rxvt
30 836
31 If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also 837 If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
32 replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. 838 the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
33 839
840 nano fails with "Error opening terminal: rxvt-unicode"
841 This exceptionally confusing and useless error message is printed by
842 nano when it can't find the terminfo database. Nothing is wrong with
843 your terminal, read the previous answer for a solution.
844
845 "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
846 Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
847 "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
848
849 "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
850 See next entry.
851
34 I need a termcap file entry. 852 I need a termcap file entry.
853 One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
854 systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
855 library (Fedora's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry for
856 "rxvt-unicode".
857
35 You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many 858 You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
36 cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's 859 cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
37 infocmp program like this: 860 program like this:
38 861
39 infocmp -C rxvt-unicode 862 infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
40 863
41 OR you could this termcap entry: 864 Or you could use the termcap entry in doc/etc/rxvt-unicode.termcap,
865 generated by the command above.
42 866
43 rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
44 :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
45 :co#80:it#8:li#24:\
46 :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
47 :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
48 :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=^O:al=\E[L:\
49 :as=^N:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:\
50 :cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:dl=\E[M:do=^J:\
51 :ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:\
52 :im=\E[4h:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
53 :k0=\E[21~:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:\
54 :k5=\E[15~:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:\
55 :kD=\E[3~:kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:\
56 :ke=\E[?1l\E>:kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:\
57 :ku=\EOA:le=^H:mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:\
58 :nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:\
59 :st=\EH:ta=^I:te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:\
60 :up=\E[A:us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
61 :vs=\E[?25h:
62
63 Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? 867 Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
64 The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to 868 The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
65 decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration 869 decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
66 file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file 870 file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
67 (among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: 871 with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
68 872
69 TERM rxvt-unicode 873 TERM rxvt-unicode
70 874
71 to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: 875 to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
72 876
73 alias ls='ls --color=auto' 877 alias ls='ls --color=auto'
74 878
75 to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". 879 to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
76 880
77 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? 881 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
882 See next entry.
883
78 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? 884 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
885 See next entry.
886
79 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? 887 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
80 Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged 888 Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
81 distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by 889 distributions break rxvt-unicode by setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which
82 setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. 890 doesn't have these extra features. Unfortunately, some of these
83 Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
84 furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, 891 furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
85 so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I 892 you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
86 log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on 893 to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
87 how to do this). 894 this).
88 895
896 Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
89 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? 897 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
898 See next entry.
899
90 Unicode does not seem to work? 900 Unicode does not seem to work?
91 If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character 901 If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
92 but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program 902 getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
93 output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale 903 is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
94 settings.
95 904
96 Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the 905 Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
97 programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the 906 programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
98 login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the 907 while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
99 locale to sth. else, e.h. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this is 908 the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
100 not going to work. 909 is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
101 910
102 The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will 911 The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
103 likely run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in 912 run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
104 your .profile. 913 .profile.
105 914
106 printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" 915 printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
107 916
108 If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification 917 If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
109 not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command 918 supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
110 which displays this. If it displays sth. like: 919 displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
920 it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
921 something like:
111 922
112 locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ... 923 locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
113 924
114 Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. 925 Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
115 926
116 If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly 927 If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
117 then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs 928 you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
118 just don't support locales :( 929 support locales :(
119 930
120 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
121 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
122 Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
123 Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
124 your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you
125 want to display.
126
127 rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
128 Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks bad.
129 Many fonts have totally strange characters that don't resemble the
130 correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
131 intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to
132 believe the font that the characters it contains indeed look
133 correct.
134
135 In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font
136 list, e.g.:
137
138 rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
139
140 When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
141 font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to
142 the next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed
143 up this search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the
144 X-server.
145
146 The only limitation is that all the fonts must not be larger than
147 the base font, as the base font defines the principal cell size,
148 which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
149
150 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
151 This is because there is a difference between script and language --
152 rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
153 is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
154 first sees a japanese character, it might choose a japanese font for
155 it. Subsequent japanese characters will take that font. Now, many
156 chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the
157 first non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a
158 chinese font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the
159 japanese font for japanese characters that are also chinese.
160
161 The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your
162 font list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font
163 list as a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a
164 japanese font first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font
165 first.
166
167 In the future it might be possible to switch preferences at runtime
168 (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
169 fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for
170 this has been designed yet).
171
172 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
173 Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
174 character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for
175 terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide.
176 Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are
177 just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used
178 that redraws adjacent characters.
179
180 All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
181 however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
182 bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the
183 correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which
184 unfortunately is wrong in these cases).
185
186 It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft,
187 freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you
188 might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If
189 that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.
190
191 All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
192 bounding box data is correct.
193
194 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
195 The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not
196 set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported
197 by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and
198 your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose
199 keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual),
200 then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
201
202 In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more
203 than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
204
205 I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO
206 14755
207 Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
208 international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
209 advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
210 other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default
211 telnet escape character and so on.
212
213 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
214 First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminfo
215 ("urxvt"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then make
216 sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
217 rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
218
219 URxvt*colorBD: white
220 URxvt*colorIT: green
221
222 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how
223 can I fix that?
224 For some unexplainable reason, some programs (i.e. irssi) assume a
225 very weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more
226 than the standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right
227 fix is, of course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO
228 colours without very good reasons.
229
230 In the meantime, you can either edit your "urxvt" terminfo
231 definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which
232 will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode
233 features.
234
235 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
236 Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined
237 in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements
238 it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__"
239 requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode.
240
241 As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl
242 nor does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal
243 representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely legal.
244
245 However, "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support
246 multi-language apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and
247 non-standardized) representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to
248 convert between wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and
249 any other encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for
250 each and every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t
251 into anything except the current locale encoding.
252
253 Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this
254 by carrying their own replacement functions for character set
255 handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or
256 doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the
257 OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal
258 emulator).
259
260 The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in
261 the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app
262 to carry complete replacements.
263
264 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? 931 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
932 See next entry.
933
265 Is there an option to switch encodings? 934 Is there an option to switch encodings?
266 Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, 935 Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
267 and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't 936 specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
268 even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to 937 about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
269 terminal I/O.
270 938
271 The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for 939 The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
272 selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating 940 selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
273 this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties 941 this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
274 such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*. 942 such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
943 Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
944 "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
945 locale-independent table under all locales).
275 946
276 Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. 947 Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
277 All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree 948 programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
278 in the interpretation of characters. 949 interpretation of characters.
279 950
280 Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, 951 Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
281 nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. 952 is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
282 953
283 On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable 954 On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
284 contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an 955 contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
285 already-installed locale. Common names for locales are 956 locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
286 "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. 957 "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
287 "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german") 958 "de" or "german") are also common.
288 are also common.
289 959
290 Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the 960 Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
291 encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. 961 encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
292 "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the same for rxvt-unicode. 962 "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
293 963
294 If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you 964 If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
295 start rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category. 965 rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
296 966
297 Can I switch locales at runtime? 967 Can I switch locales at runtime?
298 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try sth. like this, which sets 968 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
299 rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". 969 rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
300 970
301 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS 971 printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
302 972
303 See also the previous question. 973 See also the previous answer.
304 974
305 Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in 975 Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
306 one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support 976 locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
307 UTF-8. For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first 977 UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
308 switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later: 978 switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
309 979
310 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS 980 printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
311 xjdic -js 981 xjdic -js
312 printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8 982 printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
313 983
314 Can I switch the fonts at runtime? 984 You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
315 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try sth. like this, which has the 985 except for some locales where character width differs between program-
316 same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately: 986 and rxvt-unicode-locales.
317 987
318 printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" 988 I have problems getting my input method working.
989 Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
990 method server.
319 991
320 This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer 992 Here is a checklist:
321 a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily,
322 where japanese fonts would only be in your way.
323 993
324 You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. 994 - Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
995 Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
325 996
326 Why do italic characters look as if clipped? 997 - Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
327 Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For 998 XIM.
328 example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera 999 For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
329 Sans Mono" completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround is to 1000 "ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
330 enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
331 1001
332 URxvt*italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true 1002 - Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
333 URxvt*boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true 1003 - Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
1004 *starting* rxvt-unicode.
1005 When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
1006 For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
1007 running with this command:
334 1008
1009 xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
1010
335 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do? 1011 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
336 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest 1012 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
337 of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": 1013 the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
338 1014
339 URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP 1015 URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
340 1016
341 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and 1017 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
342 still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not 1018 use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
343 be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, 1019 Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
344 as your input method limits you. 1020 in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
345 1021
346 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? 1022 Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
347 Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for sth. you 1023 Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
348 don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings 1024 design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
349 that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by 1025 leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
350 design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be 1026 exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
351 loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your 1027 SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
352 characters. 1028 cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
353 1029
354 Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger 1030 So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
355 scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will
356 use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to
357 almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will
358 then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3"
359 it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
360 1031
361 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? 1032 Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
362 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, 1033 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
363 as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to 1034 You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
364 disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialiasing=false"), which 1035 enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
365 saves lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. 1036 runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
1037 them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
1038 should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
1039 more in the future) depends on it.
366 1040
367 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? 1041 You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" and "perl-ext" resources
368 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to 1042 system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
369 fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core 1043 behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
370 fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It 1044 "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
371 has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author 1045 perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
372 thinks they look best that way.
373 1046
374 If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. 1047 If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
1048 with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
1049 "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
1050 encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
375 1051
376 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. 1052 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
377 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing 1053 It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
378 some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. 1054 install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
379 I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise
380 specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
381 or Shift keys are depressed. See rxvt(7)
382 1055
383 What's with this bold/blink stuff? 1056 When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
384 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using 1057 into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
385 the standard foreground colour. 1058 systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
1059 immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
1060 privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
1061 things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
386 1062
387 For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the 1063 This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
388 text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard 1064 early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
389 colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be 1065 main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
390 ignored. 1066 result in very little risk.
391 1067
392 On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set 1068 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
393 high-intensity foreground/background colors. 1069 Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
1070 your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
1071 whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
1072 wchar_t is represented as unicode.
394 1073
395 color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. 1074 As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
1075 does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
1076 wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
396 1077
397 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. 1078 However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
1079 "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t).
398 1080
399 I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? 1081 "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
400 You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults 1082 in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
401 resources (or as long-options). 1083 representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
1084 (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
1085 implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
1086 simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
1087 locale encoding.
402 1088
403 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, 1089 Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
404 including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow: 1090 carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
1091 them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
1092 conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
1093 encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
405 1094
406 URxvt*color0: #000000 1095 The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
407 URxvt*color1: #A80000 1096 system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
408 URxvt*color2: #00A800 1097 complete replacements for them :)
409 URxvt*color3: #A8A800
410 URxvt*color4: #0000A8
411 URxvt*color5: #A800A8
412 URxvt*color6: #00A8A8
413 URxvt*color7: #A8A8A8
414 1098
415 URxvt*color8: #000054 1099 How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
416 URxvt*color9: #FF0054 1100 rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
417 URxvt*color10: #00FF54 1101 X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
418 URxvt*color11: #FFFF54 1102 supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
419 URxvt*color12: #0000FF 1103 font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
420 URxvt*color13: #FF00FF 1104 "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
421 URxvt*color14: #00FFFF 1105 old libW11 emulation.
422 URxvt*color15: #FFFFFF
423 1106
424 And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described as 1107 At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
425 "pretty girly": 1108 multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
1109 likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
426 1110
427 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 1111 Character widths are not correct.
428 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 1112 urxvt uses the system wcwidth function to know the information about the
429 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e 1113 width of characters, so on systems with incorrect locale data you will
430 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 1114 likely get bad results. Two notorious examples are Solaris 9, where
431 URxvt.color0: #000000 1115 single-width characters like U+2514 are reported as double-width, and
432 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 1116 Darwin 8, where combining chars are reported having width 1.
433 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
434 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
435 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
436 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
437 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
438 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
439 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
440 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
441 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
442 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
443 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
444 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
445 1117
446 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? 1118 The solution is to upgrade your system or switch to a better one. A
447 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the 1119 possibly working workaround is to use a wcwidth implementation like
448 BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
449 question) there are two standard values that can be used for
450 Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
451 1120
452 Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the 1121 http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/wcwidth.c
453 debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only
454 only correct choice :).
455 1122
456 Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
457 value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
458 wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote
459 shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to
460 CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as
461 your stty setting).
462
463 For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
464
465 # use Backspace = ^H
466 $ stty erase ^H
467 $ rxvt
468
469 # use Backspace = ^?
470 $ stty erase ^?
471 $ rxvt
472
473 Toggle with "ESC[36h" / "ESC[36l" as documented in rxvt(7).
474
475 For an existing rxvt-unicode:
476
477 # use Backspace = ^H
478 $ stty erase ^H
479 $ echo -n "^[[36h"
480
481 # use Backspace = ^?
482 $ stty erase ^?
483 $ echo -n "^[[36l"
484
485 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
486 but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo
487 value properly reflects that.
488
489 The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
490 problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys,
491 the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the
492 vt100 for Execute (ESC[3~) and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
493
494 Some other Backspace problems:
495
496 some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told)
497 expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for
498 help.
499
500 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
501
502 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
503 There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
504 Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
505 option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
506 associated with keysym 0xFF00 - 0xFFFF (function, cursor keys, etc).
507
508 Here's an example for a tn3270 session started using `rxvt -name
509 tn3270'
510
511 !# ----- special uses ------:
512 ! tn3270 login, remap function and arrow keys.
513 tn3270*font: *clean-bold-*-*--15-*
514
515 ! keysym - used by rxvt only
516 ! Delete - ^D
517 tn3270*keysym.0xFFFF: \004
518
519 ! Home - ^A
520 tn3270*keysym.0xFF50: \001
521 ! Left - ^B
522 tn3270*keysym.0xFF51: \002
523 ! Up - ^P
524 tn3270*keysym.0xFF52: \020
525 ! Right - ^F
526 tn3270*keysym.0xFF53: \006
527 ! Down - ^N
528 tn3270*keysym.0xFF54: \016
529 ! End - ^E
530 tn3270*keysym.0xFF57: \005
531
532 ! F1 - F12
533 tn3270*keysym.0xFFBE: \e1
534 tn3270*keysym.0xFFBF: \e2
535 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC0: \e3
536 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC1: \e4
537 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC2: \e5
538 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC3: \e6
539 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC4: \e7
540 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC5: \e8
541 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC6: \e9
542 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC7: \e0
543 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC8: \e-
544 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC9: \e=
545
546 ! map Prior/Next to F7/F8
547 tn3270*keysym.0xFF55: \e7
548 tn3270*keysym.0xFF56: \e8
549
550 I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How
551 do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the
552 following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
553 KP_Insert == Insert
554 F22 == Print
555 F27 == Home
556 F29 == Prior
557 F33 == End
558 F35 == Next
559
560 Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
561 possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap
562 the keys as required for your particular machine.
563
564 How do I distinguish if I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? I
565 need this to decide about setting colors etc.
566 rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you
567 can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
568 slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
569 whether or not to use color.
570
571 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
572 If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
573 insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
574 snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of
575 rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in
576 these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to
577 distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm.
578
579 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
580 script snippets:
581
582 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
583 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
584 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
585 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
586 echo -n '^[Z'
587 read term_id
588 stty icanon echo
589 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
590 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
591 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
592 fi
593 fi
594
595 How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
596 You need to have a recent version of perl installed as
597 /usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html.
598 Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
599
600 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
601 Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net",
602 channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might
603 be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not
604 FAQs :).
605

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