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