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16=head1 DESCRIPTION 16=head1 DESCRIPTION
17 17
18This document contains the FAQ, the RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE documenting 18This document contains the FAQ, the RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE documenting
19all escape sequences, and other background information. 19all escape sequences, and other background information.
20 20
21The newest version of this document is 21The newest version of this document is also available on the World Wide Web at
22also available on the World Wide Web at
23L<http://cvs.schmorp.de/browse/*checkout*/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.html>. 22L<http://cvs.schmorp.de/browse/*checkout*/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.html>.
24 23
25=head1 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 24=head1 RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
26 25
27=over 4
28 26
29=item I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I 27=head2 Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
30change/disable it?
31 28
32You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the 29=head3 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
33B<perl-ext-common> resource to the empty string, which also keeps
34rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
35 30
36If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to 31Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: C<irc.freenode.net>,
37identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section 32channel C<#rxvt-unicode> has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
38B<PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS> in the @@RXVT_NAME@@perl(3) manpage. For 33interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
39example, to disable the B<selection-popup> and B<option-popup>, specify
40this B<perl-ext-common> resource:
41 34
42 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup 35=head3 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
43 36
44This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup 37Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
45extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, 38simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these should
46scrollback search mode is triggered by B<M-s>. You can move it to any 39give you tabs:
47other combination either by setting the B<searchable-scrollback> resource:
48 40
49 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s 41 @@URXVT_NAME@@ -pe tabbed
50 42
43 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
44
45It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window managers
46or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be
47embedded into other programs, as witnessed by F<doc/rxvt-tabbed> or
48the upcoming C<Gtk2::URxvt> perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
49(murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
50
51=head3 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
52
53The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
54sequence C<ESC [ 8 n> sets the window title to the version number. When
55using the @@URXVT_NAME@@c client, the version displayed is that of the
56daemon.
57
58=head3 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
59
60Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something you
61don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings that
62you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by design,
63when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be loaded
64accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your characters.
65
66Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
67scrollback buffers: Without C<--enable-unicode3>, rxvt-unicode will use
686 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
69kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if full)
70use 10 Megabytes of memory. With C<--enable-unicode3> it gets worse, as
71rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
72
73=head3 How can I start @@URXVT_NAME@@d in a race-free way?
74
75Try C<@@URXVT_NAME@@d -f -o>, which tells @@URXVT_NAME@@d to open the
76display, create the listening socket and then fork.
77
78=head3 How can I start @@URXVT_NAME@@d automatically when I run URXVT_NAME@@c?
79
80If you want to start @@URXVT_NAME@@d automatically whenever you run
81@@URXVT_NAME@@c and the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
82
83 #!/bin/sh
84 @@URXVT_NAME@@c "$@"
85 if [ $? -eq 2 ]; then
86 @@URXVT_NAME@@d -q -o -f
87 @@URXVT_NAME@@c "$@"
88 fi
89
90This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
91meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
92re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
93existing daemon.
94
95=head3 How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
96
97The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM",
98so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED,
99slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide
100whether or not to use color.
101
102=head3 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
103
104If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
105insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
106snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
107wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) then
108the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from a
109regular xterm.
110
111Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
112snippets:
113
114 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
115 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
116 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
117 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
118 echo -n '^[Z'
119 read term_id
120 stty icanon echo
121 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
122 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
123 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
124 fi
125 fi
126
127=head3 How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
128
129You need to have a recent version of perl installed as F</usr/bin/perl>,
130one that comes with F<pod2man>, F<pod2text> and F<pod2html>. Then go to
131the doc subdirectory and enter C<make alldoc>.
132
51=item Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? 133=head3 Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
52 134
53I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra 135I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
54bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see 136bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
55that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always being 137that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always being
56compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after startup. Even 138compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after startup. Even
60 142
61 text data bss drs rss filename 143 text data bss drs rss filename
62 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything 144 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
63 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything 145 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
64 146
65When you C<--enable-everything> (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft 147When you C<--enable-everything> (which I<is> unfair, as this involves xft
66and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my 148and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
67libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. 149libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
68 150
69 text data bss drs rss filename 151 text data bss drs rss filename
70 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything 152 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
88(21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole (22200k + extra 170(21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole (22200k + extra
8943180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half a minute of 17143180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half a minute of
90startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits out), it fares 172startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits out), it fares
91extremely well *g*. 173extremely well *g*.
92 174
93=item Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? 175=head3 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
94 176
95Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I had 177Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I had
96to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a fraction 178to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a fraction
97of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put even 179of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put even
98shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. 180shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
122 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) 204 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
123 205
124No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically), 206No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
125except maybe libX11 :) 207except maybe libX11 :)
126 208
127=item Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
128 209
129rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with 210=head2 Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
130tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing programs,
131and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into other programs,
132as witnessed by F<doc/rxvt-tabbed> or the upcoming C<Gtk2::URxvt> perl
133module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) terminal as an example
134embedding application.
135 211
136=item How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? 212=head3 I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
137 213
138The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape 214First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, so
139sequence C<ESC [ 8 n> sets the window title to the version number. When 215you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you may
140using the @@RXVT_NAME@@c client, the version displayed is that of the 216bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a rite
141daemon. 217of passage: ... and you failed.
142 218
143=item I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... 219Here are four ways to get transparency. B<Do> read the manpage and option
220descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
144 221
145The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large 2221. Use inheritPixmap:
146patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. Before
147reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and
148install the genuine version (L<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>)
149and try to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the
150problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be
151reported via the Debian Bug Tracking System (use C<reportbug> to report
152the bug).
153 223
154For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and 224 Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
155probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a 225 @@URXVT_NAME@@ -ip -tint red -sh 40
156bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users that
157might encounter the same issue.
158 226
159=item I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation? 227That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
228support, or you are unable to read.
160 229
161You should build one binary with the default options. F<configure> 2302. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
162now enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them 231to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
163runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling them, 232your picture with gimp or any other tool:
164except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter should
165be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely more in
166the future) depends on it.
167 233
168You should not overwrite the C<perl-ext-common> snd C<perl-ext> resources 234 convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm
169system-wide (except maybe with C<defaults>). This will result in useful 235 @@URXVT_NAME@@ -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background
170behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
171C<perl-ext-common> resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
172perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
173 236
174If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal 237That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or you
175one with C<--disable-everything> (very useful) and a maximal one with 238are unable to read.
176C<--enable-everything> (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
177encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
178 239
179=item I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe? 2403. Use an ARGB visual:
180 241
181Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably not 242 @@URXVT_NAME@@ -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
182bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of freetype
183+ fontconfig + xft + xlib + perl + ... + rxvt-unicode itself to all be
184secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options when it detects that it
185runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice. Besides, with the embedded perl
186interpreter the possibility for security problems easily multiplies.
187 243
188Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on some 244This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
189systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra privileges for 245doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
190ptys, but some need it for utmp support). It is planned to mvoe this into 246there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the neccessary
191a forked handler process, but this is not yet done. 247bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but that
248doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
192 249
193So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on your 2504. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
194typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always remember that
195its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked for security issues
196regularly.
197 251
252 xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
253 -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
254
255Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace C<0xc0000000>
256by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
257your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
258
259=head3 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
260
261Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that character
262size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal use might
263contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode will avoid
264these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too wide a special
265"careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent characters.
266
267All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
268however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed bounding
269box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct way is to
270ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is wrong in these
271cases).
272
273It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
274or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try using
275the C<-lsp> option to give the font more height. If that doesn't work, you
276might be forced to use a different font.
277
278All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their bounding
279box data is correct.
280
281=head3 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
282
283First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
284(C<TERM=rxvt-unicode>), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
285make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
286rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
287
288 URxvt.colorBD: white
289 URxvt.colorIT: green
290
291=head3 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
292
293For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
294colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the standard
2958 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of course, to fix
296these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very good reasons.
297
298In the meantime, you can either edit your C<rxvt-unicode> terminfo
299definition to only claim 8 colour support or use C<TERM=rxvt>, which will
300fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
301
302=head3 Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
303
304Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the same
305effect as using the C<-fn> switch, and takes effect immediately:
306
307 printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
308
309This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
310japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
311japanese fonts would only be in your way.
312
313You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
314
315=head3 Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
316
317Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
318example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font C<xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
319Mono> completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to
320enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
321
322 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
323 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
324
325=head3 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
326
327Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as
328it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
329antialiasing (by appending C<:antialias=false>), which saves lots of
330memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
331
332=head3 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
333
334Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
335fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core
336fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
337antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
338look best that way.
339
340If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
341
342=head3 What's with this bold/blink stuff?
343
344If no bold colour is set via C<colorBD:>, bold will invert text using the
345standard foreground colour.
346
347For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the
348text blink when compiled with C<--enable-blinking>. with standard
349colours. Without C<--enable-blinking>, the blink attribute will be
350ignored.
351
352On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
353foreground/background colors.
354
355color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
356
357color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
358
359=head3 I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
360
361You can change the screen colors at run-time using F<~/.Xdefaults>
362resources (or as long-options).
363
364Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,
365including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
366
367 URxvt.color0: #000000
368 URxvt.color1: #A80000
369 URxvt.color2: #00A800
370 URxvt.color3: #A8A800
371 URxvt.color4: #0000A8
372 URxvt.color5: #A800A8
373 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
374 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
375
376 URxvt.color8: #000054
377 URxvt.color9: #FF0054
378 URxvt.color10: #00FF54
379 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
380 URxvt.color12: #0000FF
381 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
382 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
383 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
384
385And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors.
386
387 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
388 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
389 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
390 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
391 URxvt.color0: #000000
392 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
393 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
394 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
395 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
396 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
397 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
398 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
399 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
400 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
401 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
402 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
403 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
404 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
405
406They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
407
408=head3 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
409
410See next entry.
411
412=head3 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
413
414Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is
415fine. Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
416your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want
417to display.
418
419B<rxvt-unicode> makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement
420font. Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
421bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
422resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
423intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
424the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
425
426In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
427e.g.:
428
429 @@URXVT_NAME@@ -fn basefont,font2,font3...
430
431When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base
432font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the
433next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
434search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
435
436The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the base
437font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size, which
438must be the same due to the way terminals work.
439
440=head3 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
441
442This is because there is a difference between script and language --
443rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is,
444as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first
445sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for
446display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many
447chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
448non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese font
449-- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font for
450chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
451
452The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
453list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as
454a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
455first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
456
457In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
458runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
459fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
460has been designed yet).
461
462Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see L<Can
463I switch the fonts at runtime?> later in this document).
464
465=head2 Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
466
467=head3 The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
468
469If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
470setting:
471
472 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
473
474If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended
475more and more.
476
477To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this pattern:
478
479 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
480
481Please also note that the I<LeftClick Shift-LeftClik> combination also
482selects words like the old code.
483
484=head3 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
485
486You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
487B<perl-ext-common> resource to the empty string, which also keeps
488rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
489
490If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
491identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
492B<PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS> in the @@URXVT_NAME@@perl(3) manpage. For
493example, to disable the B<selection-popup> and B<option-popup>, specify
494this B<perl-ext-common> resource:
495
496 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
497
498This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
499extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
500scrollback search mode is triggered by B<M-s>. You can move it to any
501other combination either by setting the B<searchable-scrollback> resource:
502
503 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
504
505=head3 The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
506
507See next entry.
508
509=head3 During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
510
511These are caused by the C<readline> perl extension. Under normal
512circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
513line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
514but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in some
515cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
516
517You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the C<readline>
518extension:
519
520 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
521
522=head3 My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
523
524Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
525specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is caused
526by the wrong C<TERM> setting, although the details of wether and how
527this can happen are unknown, as C<TERM=rxvt> should offer a compatible
528keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please report if that
529helped.
530
531=head3 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
532
533The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
534correctly, or you specified a B<preeditStyle> that is not supported by
535your input method. For example, if you specified B<OverTheSpot> and
536your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys)
537does not support this (for instance because it is not visual), then
538rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
539
540In this case either do not specify a B<preeditStyle> or specify more than
541one pre-edit style, such as B<OverTheSpot,Root,None>.
542
543=head3 I cannot type C<Ctrl-Shift-2> to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
544
545Either try C<Ctrl-2> alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
546international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
547advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for other
548codes, too, such as C<Ctrl-Shift-1-d> to type the default telnet escape
549character and so on.
550
551=head3 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
552
553Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing
554some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've
555heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A
556quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
557depressed.
558
559=head3 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
560
561Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
562BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
563question) there are two standard values that can be used for
564Backspace: C<^H> and C<^?>.
565
566Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the debian
567policy of using C<^?> when unsure, because it's the one only only correct
568choice :).
569
570Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the value
571of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode wasn't
572started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), then the
573system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in <termios.h>, will
574be used (which may not be the same as your stty setting).
575
576For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
577
578 # use Backspace = ^H
579 $ stty erase ^H
580 $ @@URXVT_NAME@@
581
582 # use Backspace = ^?
583 $ stty erase ^?
584 $ @@URXVT_NAME@@
585
586Toggle with C<ESC [ 36 h> / C<ESC [ 36 l>.
587
588For an existing rxvt-unicode:
589
590 # use Backspace = ^H
591 $ stty erase ^H
592 $ echo -n "^[[36h"
593
594 # use Backspace = ^?
595 $ stty erase ^?
596 $ echo -n "^[[36l"
597
598This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
599if you use Backspace = C<^H>, make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
600properly reflects that.
601
602The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace problem.
603To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the Delete
604key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for Execute
605(C<ESC [ 3 ~>) and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
606
607Some other Backspace problems:
608
609some editors use termcap/terminfo,
610some editors (vim I'm told) expect Backspace = ^H,
611GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
612
613Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
614
615=head3 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
616
617There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
618you have run "configure" with the C<--disable-resources> option you can
619use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms.
620
621Here's an example for a URxvt session started using C<@@URXVT_NAME@@ -name URxvt>
622
623 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
624 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
625 URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
626 URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
627 URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
628 URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
629 URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
630 URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
631 URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
632 URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
633 URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
634 URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
635 URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
636 URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
637 URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
638 URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
639 URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
640 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
641 URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
642 URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
643
644See some more examples in the documentation for the B<keysym> resource.
645
646=head3 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
647
648 KP_Insert == Insert
649 F22 == Print
650 F27 == Home
651 F29 == Prior
652 F33 == End
653 F35 == Next
654
655Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various possible
656keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the keys as
657required for your particular machine.
658
659
660
661=head2 Terminal Configuration
662
663=head3 Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
664
665Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
666applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
667resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
668ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
669F<$HOME/.Xdefaults> when no resources are attached to the display.
670
671If you have or use an F<$HOME/.Xresources> file, chances are that
672resources are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to
673re-login after every change (or run F<xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources>).
674
675Also consider the form resources have to use:
676
677 URxvt.resource: value
678
679If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
680specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it
681works. If unsure, use the form above.
682
198=item When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 683=head3 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
199 684
200The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available 685The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
201as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises). 686as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises).
202 687
203The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this can 688The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this can
219resource to set it: 704resource to set it:
220 705
221 URxvt.termName: rxvt 706 URxvt.termName: rxvt
222 707
223If you don't plan to use B<rxvt> (quite common...) you could also replace 708If you don't plan to use B<rxvt> (quite common...) you could also replace
224the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. 709the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use C<TERM=rxvt>.
225 710
226=item C<tic> outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. 711=head3 C<tic> outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
227 712
228Most likely it's the empty definition for C<enacs=>. Just replace it by 713Most likely it's the empty definition for C<enacs=>. Just replace it by
229C<enacs=\E[0@> and try again. 714C<enacs=\E[0@> and try again.
230 715
231=item C<bash>'s readline does not work correctly under @@RXVT_NAME@@. 716=head3 C<bash>'s readline does not work correctly under @@URXVT_NAME@@.
232 717
718See next entry.
719
233=item I need a termcap file entry. 720=head3 I need a termcap file entry.
234 721
235One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating 722One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
236systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap 723systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
237library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry 724library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
238for C<rxvt-unicode>. 725for C<rxvt-unicode>.
264 :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ 751 :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
265 :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ 752 :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
266 :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ 753 :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
267 :vs=\E[?25h: 754 :vs=\E[?25h:
268 755
269=item Why does C<ls> no longer have coloured output? 756=head3 Why does C<ls> no longer have coloured output?
270 757
271The C<ls> in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to 758The C<ls> in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
272decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration 759decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration
273file. Needless to say, C<rxvt-unicode> is not in it's default file (among 760file. Needless to say, C<rxvt-unicode> is not in it's default file (among
274with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: 761with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
279 766
280 alias ls='ls --color=auto' 767 alias ls='ls --color=auto'
281 768
282to your C<.profile> or C<.bashrc>. 769to your C<.profile> or C<.bashrc>.
283 770
284=item Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? 771=head3 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
285 772
773See next entry.
774
286=item Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? 775=head3 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
287 776
777See next entry.
778
288=item Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? 779=head3 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
289 780
290Make sure you are using C<TERM=rxvt-unicode>. Some pre-packaged 781Make sure you are using C<TERM=rxvt-unicode>. Some pre-packaged
291distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode 782distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode
292by setting C<TERM> to C<rxvt>, which doesn't have these extra 783by setting C<TERM> to C<rxvt>, which doesn't have these extra
293features. Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian 784features. Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian
294GNU/Linux) furthermore fail to even install the C<rxvt-unicode> terminfo 785GNU/Linux) furthermore fail to even install the C<rxvt-unicode> terminfo
295file, so you will need to install it on your own (See the question B<When 786file, so you will need to install it on your own (See the question B<When
296I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?> on 787I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?> on
297how to do this). 788how to do this).
298 789
299=item My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
300 790
301Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no 791=head2 Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
302specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is caused
303by the wrong C<TERM> setting, although the details of wether and how
304this can happen are unknown, as C<TERM=rxvt> should offer a compatible
305keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please report if that
306helped.
307 792
308=item Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? 793=head3 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
309 794
795See next entry.
796
310=item Unicode does not seem to work? 797=head3 Unicode does not seem to work?
311 798
312If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but 799If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
313getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output is 800getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output is
314subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings. 801subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
315 802
335 822
336If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then 823If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
337you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't 824you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
338support locales :( 825support locales :(
339 826
340=item Why do some characters look so much different than others? 827=head3 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
341 828
342=item How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? 829See next entry.
343 830
344Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is 831=head3 Is there an option to switch encodings?
345fine. Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of
346your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want
347to display.
348 832
349B<rxvt-unicode> makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement 833Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
350font. Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks 834specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know about
351bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't 835UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
352resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
353intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
354the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
355 836
356In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list, 837The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for selecting
357e.g.: 838the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating this to all
358 839applications so everybody agrees on character properties such as width
359 @@RXVT_NAME@@ -fn basefont,font2,font3... 840and code number. This mechanism is the I<locale>. Applications not using
360 841that info will have problems (for example, C<xterm> gets the width of
361When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base 842characters wrong as it uses it's own, locale-independent table under all
362font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the
363next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
364search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
365
366The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the base
367font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size, which
368must be the same due to the way terminals work.
369
370=item Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
371
372This is because there is a difference between script and language --
373rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is,
374as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first
375sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for
376display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many
377chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
378non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese font
379-- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font for
380chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
381
382The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
383list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as
384a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
385first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
386
387In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
388runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
389fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
390has been designed yet).
391
392Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see L<Can
393I switch the fonts at runtime?> later in this document).
394
395=item Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
396
397Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that character
398size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal use might
399contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode will avoid
400these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too wide a special
401"careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent characters.
402
403All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
404however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed bounding
405box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct way is to
406ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is wrong in these
407cases). 843locales).
408 844
409It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype, 845Rxvt-unicode uses the C<LC_CTYPE> locale category to select encoding. All
410or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try using 846programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
411the C<-lsp> option to give the font more height. If that doesn't work, you 847interpretation of characters.
412might be forced to use a different font.
413 848
414All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their bounding 849Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
415box data is correct. 850is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
416 851
852On most systems, the content of the C<LC_CTYPE> environment variable
853contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
854locale. Common names for locales are C<en_US.UTF-8>, C<de_DE.ISO-8859-15>,
855C<ja_JP.EUC-JP>, i.e. C<language_country.encoding>, but other forms
856(i.e. C<de> or C<german>) are also common.
857
858Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for
859the encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings,
860i.e. C<de_DE.UTF-8> and C<ja_JP.UTF-8> are the normally same to
861rxvt-unicode.
862
863If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
864rxvt-unicode with the correct C<LC_CTYPE> category.
865
866=head3 Can I switch locales at runtime?
867
868Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
869rxvt-unicode's idea of C<LC_CTYPE>.
870
871 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
872
873See also the previous answer.
874
875Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in
876one locale (e.g. C<de_DE.UTF-8>) but some programs don't support it
877(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start C<xjdic>, which
878first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
879
880 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
881 xjdic -js
882 printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
883
884You can also use xterm's C<luit> program, which usually works fine, except
885for some locales where character width differs between program- and
886rxvt-unicode-locales.
887
888=head3 I have problems getting my input method working.
889
890Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input method server.
891
892Here is a checklist:
893
894=over 4
895
896=item - Make sure your locale I<and> the imLocale are supported on your OS.
897
898Try C<locale -a> or check the documentation for your OS.
899
900=item - Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your XIM.
901
902For example, B<kinput2> does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
903C<ja_JP.EUC-JP> or equivalent.
904
905=item - Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
906
907=item - Make sure the C<XMODIFIERS> environment variable is set correctly when I<starting> rxvt-unicode.
908
909When you want to use e.g. B<kinput2>, it must be set to
910C<@im=kinput2>. For B<scim>, use C<@im=SCIM>. Youc an see what input
911method servers are running with this command:
912
913 xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
914
915=item
916
917=back
918
919=head3 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
920
921You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of the
922terminal, using the resource C<imlocale>:
923
924 URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
925
926Now you can start your terminal with C<LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8> and still
927use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your Xlib
928version, you may not be able to input characters outside C<EUC-JP> in a
929normal way then, as your input method limits you.
930
931=head3 Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
932
933Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
934design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
935leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
936exit time. B<kinput2> (and derived input methods) generally succeeds,
937while B<SCIM> (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however,
938crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
939
940So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
941
942
943=head2 Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
944
945=head3 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
946
947The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
948patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
949unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
950the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
951version (L<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
952the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific to
953Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian Bug
954Tracking System (use C<reportbug> to report the bug).
955
956For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
957probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
958bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users that
959might encounter the same issue.
960
961=head3 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
962
963You should build one binary with the default options. F<configure>
964now enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
965runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling them,
966except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter should
967be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely more in
968the future) depends on it.
969
970You should not overwrite the C<perl-ext-common> snd C<perl-ext> resources
971system-wide (except maybe with C<defaults>). This will result in useful
972behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
973C<perl-ext-common> resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
974perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
975
976If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal
977one with C<--disable-everything> (very useful) and a maximal one with
978C<--enable-everything> (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
979encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
980
981=head3 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
982
983It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
984install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
985
986When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
987into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
988systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
989immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
990privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
991things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
992
993This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very early
994and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before main(), or
995things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should result in very
996little risk.
997
417=item On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. 998=head3 On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
418 999
419Seems to be a known bug, read 1000Seems to be a known bug, read
420L<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the 1001L<http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
421following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: 1002following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
422 1003
423 #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) 1004 #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
424 1005
425=item My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
426
427The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
428correctly, or you specified a B<preeditStyle> that is not supported by
429your input method. For example, if you specified B<OverTheSpot> and
430your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys)
431does not support this (for instance because it is not visual), then
432rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.
433
434In this case either do not specify a B<preeditStyle> or specify more than
435one pre-edit style, such as B<OverTheSpot,Root,None>.
436
437=item I cannot type C<Ctrl-Shift-2> to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
438
439Either try C<Ctrl-2> alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
440international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
441advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for other
442codes, too, such as C<Ctrl-Shift-1-d> to type the default telnet escape
443character and so on.
444
445=item How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
446
447First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
448(C<TERM=rxvt-unicode>), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
449make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
450rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
451
452 URxvt.colorBD: white
453 URxvt.colorIT: green
454
455=item Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
456
457For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
458colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the standard
4598 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of course, to fix
460these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very good reasons.
461
462In the meantime, you can either edit your C<rxvt-unicode> terminfo
463definition to only claim 8 colour support or use C<TERM=rxvt>, which will
464fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
465
466=item I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. 1006=head3 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
467 1007
468Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol C<__STDC_ISO_10646__> to be defined 1008Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol C<__STDC_ISO_10646__> to be defined
469in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it, 1009in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
470wether it defines the symbol or not. C<__STDC_ISO_10646__> requires that 1010wether it defines the symbol or not. C<__STDC_ISO_10646__> requires that
471B<wchar_t> is represented as unicode. 1011B<wchar_t> is represented as unicode.
493 1033
494The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the 1034The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
495system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry 1035system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
496complete replacements for them :) 1036complete replacements for them :)
497 1037
498=item I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. 1038=head3 I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
499 1039
500Try the diff in F<doc/solaris9.patch> as a base. It fixes the worst 1040Try the diff in F<doc/solaris9.patch> as a base. It fixes the worst
501problems with C<wcwidth> and a compile problem. 1041problems with C<wcwidth> and a compile problem.
502 1042
503=item How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? 1043=head3 How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
504 1044
505rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using 1045rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
506the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no 1046the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
507longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a 1047longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
508single font). I recommend starting the X-server in C<-multiwindow> or 1048single font). I recommend starting the X-server in C<-multiwindow> or
511 1051
512At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any multi-byte 1052At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any multi-byte
513encodings (you might try C<LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8>), so you are likely limited 1053encodings (you might try C<LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8>), so you are likely limited
514to 8-bit encodings. 1054to 8-bit encodings.
515 1055
516=item How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
517
518=item Is there an option to switch encodings?
519
520Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
521specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know about
522UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
523
524The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for selecting
525the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating this to all
526applications so everybody agrees on character properties such as width
527and code number. This mechanism is the I<locale>. Applications not using
528that info will have problems (for example, C<xterm> gets the width of
529characters wrong as it uses it's own, locale-independent table under all
530locales).
531
532Rxvt-unicode uses the C<LC_CTYPE> locale category to select encoding. All
533programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
534interpretation of characters.
535
536Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
537is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
538
539On most systems, the content of the C<LC_CTYPE> environment variable
540contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
541locale. Common names for locales are C<en_US.UTF-8>, C<de_DE.ISO-8859-15>,
542C<ja_JP.EUC-JP>, i.e. C<language_country.encoding>, but other forms
543(i.e. C<de> or C<german>) are also common.
544
545Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for
546the encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings,
547i.e. C<de_DE.UTF-8> and C<ja_JP.UTF-8> are the normally same to
548rxvt-unicode.
549
550If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
551rxvt-unicode with the correct C<LC_CTYPE> category.
552
553=item Can I switch locales at runtime?
554
555Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
556rxvt-unicode's idea of C<LC_CTYPE>.
557
558 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
559
560See also the previous answer.
561
562Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in
563one locale (e.g. C<de_DE.UTF-8>) but some programs don't support it
564(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start C<xjdic>, which
565first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
566
567 printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
568 xjdic -js
569 printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
570
571You can also use xterm's C<luit> program, which usually works fine, except
572for some locales where character width differs between program- and
573rxvt-unicode-locales.
574
575=item Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
576
577Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the same
578effect as using the C<-fn> switch, and takes effect immediately:
579
580 printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
581
582This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
583japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
584japanese fonts would only be in your way.
585
586You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
587
588=item Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
589
590Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
591example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font C<xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
592Mono> completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to
593enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
594
595 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
596 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
597
598=item My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
599
600You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of the
601terminal, using the resource C<imlocale>:
602
603 URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
604
605Now you can start your terminal with C<LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8> and still
606use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able to
607input characters outside C<EUC-JP> in a normal way then, as your input
608method limits you.
609
610=item Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
611
612Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
613design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
614leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
615exit time. B<kinput2> (and derived input methods) generally succeeds,
616while B<SCIM> (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however,
617crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
618
619So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
620
621=item Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
622
623Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something you
624don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings that
625you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by design,
626when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be loaded
627accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your characters.
628
629Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
630scrollback buffers: Without C<--enable-unicode3>, rxvt-unicode will use
6316 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
632kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if full)
633use 10 Megabytes of memory. With C<--enable-unicode3> it gets worse, as
634rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
635
636=item Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
637
638Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as
639it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
640antialiasing (by appending C<:antialias=false>), which saves lots of
641memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
642
643=item Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
644
645Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
646fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core
647fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
648antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
649look best that way.
650
651If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
652
653=item Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
654
655Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing
656some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've
657heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A
658quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
659depressed. See @@RXVT_NAME@@(7)
660
661=item What's with this bold/blink stuff?
662
663If no bold colour is set via C<colorBD:>, bold will invert text using the
664standard foreground colour.
665
666For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the
667text blink when compiled with C<--enable-blinking>. with standard
668colours. Without C<--enable-blinking>, the blink attribute will be
669ignored.
670
671On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
672foreground/background colors.
673
674color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
675
676color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
677
678=item I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
679
680You can change the screen colors at run-time using F<~/.Xdefaults>
681resources (or as long-options).
682
683Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,
684including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
685
686 URxvt.color0: #000000
687 URxvt.color1: #A80000
688 URxvt.color2: #00A800
689 URxvt.color3: #A8A800
690 URxvt.color4: #0000A8
691 URxvt.color5: #A800A8
692 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
693 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
694
695 URxvt.color8: #000054
696 URxvt.color9: #FF0054
697 URxvt.color10: #00FF54
698 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
699 URxvt.color12: #0000FF
700 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
701 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
702 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
703
704And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described (not by
705me) as "pretty girly".
706
707 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
708 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
709 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
710 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
711 URxvt.color0: #000000
712 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
713 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
714 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
715 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
716 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
717 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
718 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
719 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
720 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
721 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
722 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
723 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
724 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
725
726=item How can I start @@RXVT_NAME@@d in a race-free way?
727
728Try C<@@RXVT_NAME@@d -f -o>, which tells @@RXVT_NAME@@d to open the
729display, create the listening socket and then fork.
730
731=item What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
732
733Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
734BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
735question) there are two standard values that can be used for
736Backspace: C<^H> and C<^?>.
737
738Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the debian
739policy of using C<^?> when unsure, because it's the one only only correct
740choice :).
741
742Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the value
743of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode wasn't
744started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), then the
745system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in <termios.h>, will
746be used (which may not be the same as your stty setting).
747
748For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
749
750 # use Backspace = ^H
751 $ stty erase ^H
752 $ @@RXVT_NAME@@
753
754 # use Backspace = ^?
755 $ stty erase ^?
756 $ @@RXVT_NAME@@
757
758Toggle with C<ESC [ 36 h> / C<ESC [ 36 l> as documented in @@RXVT_NAME@@(7).
759
760For an existing rxvt-unicode:
761
762 # use Backspace = ^H
763 $ stty erase ^H
764 $ echo -n "^[[36h"
765
766 # use Backspace = ^?
767 $ stty erase ^?
768 $ echo -n "^[[36l"
769
770This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
771if you use Backspace = C<^H>, make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
772properly reflects that.
773
774The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace problem.
775To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the Delete
776key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for Execute
777(C<ESC [ 3 ~>) and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
778
779Some other Backspace problems:
780
781some editors use termcap/terminfo,
782some editors (vim I'm told) expect Backspace = ^H,
783GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
784
785Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
786
787=item I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
788
789There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
790you have run "configure" with the C<--disable-resources> option you can
791use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms.
792
793Here's an example for a URxvt session started using C<@@RXVT_NAME@@ -name URxvt>
794
795 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
796 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
797 URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
798 URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
799 URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
800 URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
801 URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
802 URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
803 URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
804 URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
805 URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
806 URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
807 URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
808 URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
809 URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
810 URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
811 URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
812 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
813 URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
814 URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
815
816See some more examples in the documentation for the B<keysym> resource.
817
818=item I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys.
819How do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4
820has the following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
821
822 KP_Insert == Insert
823 F22 == Print
824 F27 == Home
825 F29 == Prior
826 F33 == End
827 F35 == Next
828
829Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various possible
830keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the keys as
831required for your particular machine.
832
833=item How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
834I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
835
836rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you can
837check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn,
838Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether or
839not to use color.
840
841=item How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
842
843If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
844insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
845snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
846wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) then
847the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from a
848regular xterm.
849
850Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
851snippets:
852
853 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
854 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
855 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
856 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
857 echo -n '^[Z'
858 read term_id
859 stty icanon echo
860 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
861 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
862 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
863 fi
864 fi
865
866=item How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
867
868You need to have a recent version of perl installed as F</usr/bin/perl>,
869one that comes with F<pod2man>, F<pod2text> and F<pod2html>. Then go to
870the doc subdirectory and enter C<make alldoc>.
871
872=item My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
873
874Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: C<irc.freenode.net>,
875channel C<#rxvt-unicode> has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
876interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
877
878=back
879
880=head1 RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE 1056=head1 RXVT-UNICODE TECHNICAL REFERENCE
881
882=head1 DESCRIPTION
883 1057
884The rest of this document describes various technical aspects of 1058The rest of this document describes various technical aspects of
885B<rxvt-unicode>. First the description of supported command sequences, 1059B<rxvt-unicode>. First the description of supported command sequences,
886followed by menu and pixmap support and last by a description of all 1060followed by pixmap support and last by a description of all features
887features selectable at C<configure> time. 1061selectable at C<configure> time.
888 1062
889=head1 Definitions 1063=head2 Definitions
890 1064
891=over 4 1065=over 4
892 1066
893=item B<< C<c> >> 1067=item B<< C<c> >>
894 1068
912 1086
913A text parameter composed of printable characters. 1087A text parameter composed of printable characters.
914 1088
915=back 1089=back
916 1090
917=head1 Values 1091=head2 Values
918 1092
919=over 4 1093=over 4
920 1094
921=item B<< C<ENQ> >> 1095=item B<< C<ENQ> >>
922 1096
965 1139
966Space Character 1140Space Character
967 1141
968=back 1142=back
969 1143
970=head1 Escape Sequences 1144=head2 Escape Sequences
971 1145
972=over 4 1146=over 4
973 1147
974=item B<< C<ESC # 8> >> 1148=item B<< C<ESC # 8> >>
975 1149
1073 1247
1074=back 1248=back
1075 1249
1076X<CSI> 1250X<CSI>
1077 1251
1078=head1 CSI (Command Sequence Introducer) Sequences 1252=head2 CSI (Command Sequence Introducer) Sequences
1079 1253
1080=over 4 1254=over 4
1081 1255
1082=item B<< C<ESC [ Ps @> >> 1256=item B<< C<ESC [ Ps @> >>
1083 1257
1353 1527
1354=back 1528=back
1355 1529
1356X<PrivateModes> 1530X<PrivateModes>
1357 1531
1358=head1 DEC Private Modes 1532=head2 DEC Private Modes
1359 1533
1360=over 4 1534=over 4
1361 1535
1362=item B<< C<ESC [ ? Pm h> >> 1536=item B<< C<ESC [ ? Pm h> >>
1363 1537
1460 B<< C<h> >> Send Mouse X & Y on button press. 1634 B<< C<h> >> Send Mouse X & Y on button press.
1461 B<< C<l> >> No mouse reporting. 1635 B<< C<l> >> No mouse reporting.
1462 1636
1463=end table 1637=end table
1464 1638
1465=item B<< C<Ps = 10> >> (B<rxvt>)
1466
1467=begin table
1468
1469 B<< C<h> >> menuBar visible
1470 B<< C<l> >> menuBar invisible
1471
1472=end table
1473
1474=item B<< C<Ps = 25> >> 1639=item B<< C<Ps = 25> >>
1475 1640
1476=begin table 1641=begin table
1477 1642
1478 B<< C<h> >> Visible cursor {cnorm/cvvis} 1643 B<< C<h> >> Visible cursor {cnorm/cvvis}
1636 1801
1637=back 1802=back
1638 1803
1639X<XTerm> 1804X<XTerm>
1640 1805
1641=head1 XTerm Operating System Commands 1806=head2 XTerm Operating System Commands
1642 1807
1643=over 4 1808=over 4
1644 1809
1645=item B<< C<ESC ] Ps;Pt ST> >> 1810=item B<< C<ESC ] Ps;Pt ST> >>
1646 1811
1660 B<< C<Ps = 12> >> Change colour of text cursor foreground to B<< C<Pt> >> 1825 B<< C<Ps = 12> >> Change colour of text cursor foreground to B<< C<Pt> >>
1661 B<< C<Ps = 13> >> Change colour of mouse foreground to B<< C<Pt> >> 1826 B<< C<Ps = 13> >> Change colour of mouse foreground to B<< C<Pt> >>
1662 B<< C<Ps = 17> >> Change colour of highlight characters to B<< C<Pt> >> 1827 B<< C<Ps = 17> >> Change colour of highlight characters to B<< C<Pt> >>
1663 B<< C<Ps = 18> >> Change colour of bold characters to B<< C<Pt> >> [deprecated, see 706] 1828 B<< C<Ps = 18> >> Change colour of bold characters to B<< C<Pt> >> [deprecated, see 706]
1664 B<< C<Ps = 19> >> Change colour of underlined characters to B<< C<Pt> >> [deprecated, see 707] 1829 B<< C<Ps = 19> >> Change colour of underlined characters to B<< C<Pt> >> [deprecated, see 707]
1665 B<< C<Ps = 20> >> Change default background to B<< C<Pt> >> 1830 B<< C<Ps = 20> >> Change background pixmap parameters (see section XPM) (Compile XPM).
1666 B<< C<Ps = 39> >> Change default foreground colour to B<< C<Pt> >>. 1831 B<< C<Ps = 39> >> Change default foreground colour to B<< C<Pt> >>.
1667 B<< C<Ps = 46> >> Change Log File to B<< C<Pt> >> I<unimplemented> 1832 B<< C<Ps = 46> >> Change Log File to B<< C<Pt> >> I<unimplemented>
1668 B<< C<Ps = 49> >> Change default background colour to B<< C<Pt> >>. 1833 B<< C<Ps = 49> >> Change default background colour to B<< C<Pt> >>.
1669 B<< C<Ps = 50> >> Set fontset to B<< C<Pt> >>, with the following special values of B<< C<Pt> >> (B<rxvt>) B<< C<#+n> >> change up B<< C<n> >> B<< C<#-n> >> change down B<< C<n> >> if B<< C<n> >> is missing of 0, a value of 1 is used I<empty> change to font0 B<< C<n> >> change to font B<< C<n> >> 1834 B<< C<Ps = 50> >> Set fontset to B<< C<Pt> >>, with the following special values of B<< C<Pt> >> (B<rxvt>) B<< C<#+n> >> change up B<< C<n> >> B<< C<#-n> >> change down B<< C<n> >> if B<< C<n> >> is missing of 0, a value of 1 is used I<empty> change to font0 B<< C<n> >> change to font B<< C<n> >>
1670 B<< C<Ps = 55> >> Log all scrollback buffer and all of screen to B<< C<Pt> >> 1835 B<< C<Ps = 55> >> Log all scrollback buffer and all of screen to B<< C<Pt> >>
1671 B<< C<Ps = 701> >> Change current locale to B<< C<Pt> >>, or, if B<< C<Pt> >> is B<< C<?> >>, return the current locale (Compile frills). 1836 B<< C<Ps = 701> >> Change current locale to B<< C<Pt> >>, or, if B<< C<Pt> >> is B<< C<?> >>, return the current locale (Compile frills).
1672 B<< C<Ps = 703> >> Menubar command B<< C<Pt> >> (Compile menubar). 1837 B<< C<Ps = 702> >> Request version if B<< C<Pt> >> is B<< C<?> >>, returning C<rxvt-unicode>, the resource name, the major and minor version numbers, e.g. C<ESC ] 702 ; rxvt-unicode ; urxvt ; 7 ; 4 ST>.
1673 B<< C<Ps = 704> >> Change colour of italic characters to B<< C<Pt> >> 1838 B<< C<Ps = 704> >> Change colour of italic characters to B<< C<Pt> >>
1674 B<< C<Ps = 705> >> Change background pixmap tint colour to B<< C<Pt> >> (Compile transparency). 1839 B<< C<Ps = 705> >> Change background pixmap tint colour to B<< C<Pt> >> (Compile transparency).
1675 B<< C<Ps = 706> >> Change colour of bold characters to B<< C<Pt> >> 1840 B<< C<Ps = 706> >> Change colour of bold characters to B<< C<Pt> >>
1676 B<< C<Ps = 707> >> Change colour of underlined characters to B<< C<Pt> >> 1841 B<< C<Ps = 707> >> Change colour of underlined characters to B<< C<Pt> >>
1677 B<< C<Ps = 710> >> Set normal fontset to B<< C<Pt> >>. Same as C<Ps = 50>. 1842 B<< C<Ps = 710> >> Set normal fontset to B<< C<Pt> >>. Same as C<Ps = 50>.
1684 1849
1685=end table 1850=end table
1686 1851
1687=back 1852=back
1688 1853
1689X<menuBar>
1690
1691=head1 menuBar
1692
1693B<< The exact syntax used is I<almost> solidified. >>
1694In the menus, B<DON'T> try to use menuBar commands that add or remove a
1695menuBar.
1696
1697Note that in all of the commands, the B<< I</path/> >> I<cannot> be
1698omitted: use B<./> to specify a menu relative to the current menu.
1699
1700=head2 Overview of menuBar operation
1701
1702For the menuBar XTerm escape sequence C<ESC ] 703 ; Pt ST>, the syntax
1703of C<Pt> can be used for a variety of tasks:
1704
1705At the top level is the current menuBar which is a member of a circular
1706linked-list of other such menuBars.
1707
1708The menuBar acts as a parent for the various drop-down menus, which in
1709turn, may have labels, separator lines, menuItems and subMenus.
1710
1711The menuItems are the useful bits: you can use them to mimic keyboard
1712input or even to send text or escape sequences back to rxvt.
1713
1714The menuBar syntax is intended to provide a simple yet robust method of
1715constructing and manipulating menus and navigating through the
1716menuBars.
1717
1718The first step is to use the tag B<< [menu:I<name>] >> which creates
1719the menuBar called I<name> and allows access. You may now or menus,
1720subMenus, and menuItems. Finally, use the tag B<[done]> to set the
1721menuBar access as B<readonly> to prevent accidental corruption of the
1722menus. To re-access the current menuBar for alterations, use the tag
1723B<[menu]>, make the alterations and then use B<[done]>
1724
1725X<menuBarCommands>
1726
1727=head2 Commands
1728
1729=over 4
1730
1731=item B<< [menu:+I<name>] >>
1732
1733access the named menuBar for creation or alteration. If a new menuBar
1734is created, it is called I<name> (max of 15 chars) and the current
1735menuBar is pushed onto the stack
1736
1737=item B<[menu]>
1738
1739access the current menuBar for alteration
1740
1741=item B<< [title:+I<string>] >>
1742
1743set the current menuBar's title to I<string>, which may contain the
1744following format specifiers:
1745
1746 B<%n> rxvt name (as per the B<-name> command-line option)
1747 B<%v> rxvt version
1748 B<%%> literal B<%> character
1749
1750=item B<[done]>
1751
1752set menuBar access as B<readonly>.
1753End-of-file tag for B<< [read:+I<file>] >> operations.
1754
1755=item B<< [read:+I<file>] >>
1756
1757read menu commands directly from I<file> (extension ".menu" will be
1758appended if required.) Start reading at a line with B<[menu]> or B<<
1759[menu:+I<name> >> and continuing until B<[done]> is encountered.
1760
1761Blank and comment lines (starting with B<#>) are ignored. Actually,
1762since any invalid menu commands are also ignored, almost anything could
1763be construed as a comment line, but this may be tightened up in the
1764future ... so don't count on it!.
1765
1766=item B<< [read:+I<file>;+I<name>] >>
1767
1768The same as B<< [read:+I<file>] >>, but start reading at a line with
1769B<< [menu:+I<name>] >> and continuing until B<< [done:+I<name>] >> or
1770B<[done]> is encountered.
1771
1772=item B<[dump]>
1773
1774dump all menuBars to the file B</tmp/rxvt-PID> in a format suitable for
1775later rereading.
1776
1777=item B<[rm:name]>
1778
1779remove the named menuBar
1780
1781=item B<[rm] [rm:]>
1782
1783remove the current menuBar
1784
1785=item B<[rm*] [rm:*]>
1786
1787remove all menuBars
1788
1789=item B<[swap]>
1790
1791swap the top two menuBars
1792
1793=item B<[prev]>
1794
1795access the previous menuBar
1796
1797=item B<[next]>
1798
1799access the next menuBar
1800
1801=item B<[show]>
1802
1803Enable display of the menuBar
1804
1805=item B<[hide]>
1806
1807Disable display of the menuBar
1808
1809=item B<< [pixmap:+I<name>] >>
1810
1811=item B<< [pixmap:+I<name>;I<scaling>] >>
1812
1813(set the background pixmap globally
1814
1815B<< A Future implementation I<may> make this local to the menubar >>)
1816
1817=item B<< [:+I<command>:] >>
1818
1819ignore the menu readonly status and issue a I<command> to or a menu or
1820menuitem or change the ; a useful shortcut for setting the quick arrows
1821from a menuBar.
1822
1823=back
1824
1825X<menuBarAdd>
1826
1827=head2 Adding and accessing menus
1828
1829The following commands may also be B<+> prefixed.
1830
1831=over 4
1832
1833=item B</+>
1834
1835access menuBar top level
1836
1837=item B<./+>
1838
1839access current menu level
1840
1841=item B<../+>
1842
1843access parent menu (1 level up)
1844
1845=item B<../../>
1846
1847access parent menu (multiple levels up)
1848
1849=item B<< I</path/>menu >>
1850
1851add/access menu
1852
1853=item B<< I</path/>menu/* >>
1854
1855add/access menu and clear it if it exists
1856
1857=item B<< I</path/>{-} >>
1858
1859add separator
1860
1861=item B<< I</path/>{item} >>
1862
1863add B<item> as a label
1864
1865=item B<< I</path/>{item} action >>
1866
1867add/alter I<menuitem> with an associated I<action>
1868
1869=item B<< I</path/>{item}{right-text} >>
1870
1871add/alter I<menuitem> with B<right-text> as the right-justified text
1872and as the associated I<action>
1873
1874=item B<< I</path/>{item}{rtext} action >>
1875
1876add/alter I<menuitem> with an associated I<action> and with B<rtext> as
1877the right-justified text.
1878
1879=back
1880
1881=over 4
1882
1883=item Special characters in I<action> must be backslash-escaped:
1884
1885B<\a \b \E \e \n \r \t \octal>
1886
1887=item or in control-character notation:
1888
1889B<^@, ^A .. ^Z .. ^_, ^?>
1890
1891=back
1892
1893To send a string starting with a B<NUL> (B<^@>) character to the
1894program, start I<action> with a pair of B<NUL> characters (B<^@^@>),
1895the first of which will be stripped off and the balance directed to the
1896program. Otherwise if I<action> begins with B<NUL> followed by
1897non-+B<NUL> characters, the leading B<NUL> is stripped off and the
1898balance is sent back to rxvt.
1899
1900As a convenience for the many Emacs-type editors, I<action> may start
1901with B<M-> (eg, B<M-$> is equivalent to B<\E$>) and a B<CR> will be
1902appended if missed from B<M-x> commands.
1903
1904As a convenience for issuing XTerm B<ESC ]> sequences from a menubar (or
1905quick arrow), a B<BEL> (B<^G>) will be appended if needed.
1906
1907=over 4
1908
1909=item For example,
1910
1911B<M-xapropos> is equivalent to B<\Exapropos\r>
1912
1913=item and
1914
1915B<\E]703;mona;100> is equivalent to B<\E]703;mona;100\a>
1916
1917=back
1918
1919The option B<< {I<right-rtext>} >> will be right-justified. In the
1920absence of a specified action, this text will be used as the I<action>
1921as well.
1922
1923=over 4
1924
1925=item For example,
1926
1927B</File/{Open}{^X^F}> is equivalent to B</File/{Open}{^X^F} ^X^F>
1928
1929=back
1930
1931The left label I<is> necessary, since it's used for matching, but
1932implicitly hiding the left label (by using same name for both left and
1933right labels), or explicitly hiding the left label (by preceeding it
1934with a dot), makes it possible to have right-justified text only.
1935
1936=over 4
1937
1938=item For example,
1939
1940B</File/{Open}{Open} Open-File-Action>
1941
1942=item or hiding it
1943
1944B</File/{.anylabel}{Open} Open-File-Action>
1945
1946=back
1947
1948X<menuBarRemove>
1949
1950=head2 Removing menus
1951
1952=over 4
1953
1954=item B<< -/*+ >>
1955
1956remove all menus from the menuBar, the same as B<[clear]>
1957
1958=item B<< -+I</path>menu+ >>
1959
1960remove menu
1961
1962=item B<< -+I</path>{item}+ >>
1963
1964remove item
1965
1966=item B<< -+I</path>{-} >>
1967
1968remove separator)
1969
1970=item B<-/path/menu/*>
1971
1972remove all items, separators and submenus from menu
1973
1974=back
1975
1976X<menuBarArrows>
1977
1978=head2 Quick Arrows
1979
1980The menus also provide a hook for I<quick arrows> to provide easier
1981user access. If nothing has been explicitly set, the default is to
1982emulate the curror keys. The syntax permits each arrow to be altered
1983individually or all four at once without re-entering their common
1984beginning/end text. For example, to explicitly associate cursor actions
1985with the arrows, any of the following forms could be used:
1986
1987=over 4
1988
1989=item B<< <r>+I<Right> >>
1990
1991=item B<< <l>+I<Left> >>
1992
1993=item B<< <u>+I<Up> >>
1994
1995=item B<< <d>+I<Down> >>
1996
1997Define actions for the respective arrow buttons
1998
1999=item B<< <b>+I<Begin> >>
2000
2001=item B<< <e>+I<End> >>
2002
2003Define common beginning/end parts for I<quick arrows> which used in
2004conjunction with the above <r> <l> <u> <d> constructs
2005
2006=back
2007
2008=over 4
2009
2010=item For example, define arrows individually,
2011
2012 <u>\E[A
2013
2014 <d>\E[B
2015
2016 <r>\E[C
2017
2018 <l>\E[D
2019
2020=item or all at once
2021
2022 <u>\E[AZ<><d>\E[BZ<><r>\E[CZ<><l>\E[D
2023
2024=item or more compactly (factoring out common parts)
2025
2026 <b>\E[<u>AZ<><d>BZ<><r>CZ<><l>D
2027
2028=back
2029
2030X<menuBarSummary>
2031
2032=head2 Command Summary
2033
2034A short summary of the most I<common> commands:
2035
2036=over 4
2037
2038=item [menu:name]
2039
2040use an existing named menuBar or start a new one
2041
2042=item [menu]
2043
2044use the current menuBar
2045
2046=item [title:string]
2047
2048set menuBar title
2049
2050=item [done]
2051
2052set menu access to readonly and, if reading from a file, signal EOF
2053
2054=item [done:name]
2055
2056if reading from a file using [read:file;name] signal EOF
2057
2058=item [rm:name]
2059
2060remove named menuBar(s)
2061
2062=item [rm] [rm:]
2063
2064remove current menuBar
2065
2066=item [rm*] [rm:*]
2067
2068remove all menuBar(s)
2069
2070=item [swap]
2071
2072swap top two menuBars
2073
2074=item [prev]
2075
2076access the previous menuBar
2077
2078=item [next]
2079
2080access the next menuBar
2081
2082=item [show]
2083
2084map menuBar
2085
2086=item [hide]
2087
2088unmap menuBar
2089
2090=item [pixmap;file]
2091
2092=item [pixmap;file;scaling]
2093
2094set a background pixmap
2095
2096=item [read:file]
2097
2098=item [read:file;name]
2099
2100read in a menu from a file
2101
2102=item [dump]
2103
2104dump out all menuBars to /tmp/rxvt-PID
2105
2106=item /
2107
2108access menuBar top level
2109
2110=item ./
2111
2112=item ../
2113
2114=item ../../
2115
2116access current or parent menu level
2117
2118=item /path/menu
2119
2120add/access menu
2121
2122=item /path/{-}
2123
2124add separator
2125
2126=item /path/{item}{rtext} action
2127
2128add/alter menu item
2129
2130=item -/*
2131
2132remove all menus from the menuBar
2133
2134=item -/path/menu
2135
2136remove menu items, separators and submenus from menu
2137
2138=item -/path/menu
2139
2140remove menu
2141
2142=item -/path/{item}
2143
2144remove item
2145
2146=item -/path/{-}
2147
2148remove separator
2149
2150=item <b>Begin<r>Right<l>Left<u>Up<d>Down<e>End
2151
2152menu quick arrows
2153
2154=back
2155X<XPM>
2156
2157=head1 XPM 1854=head1 XPM
2158 1855
2159For the XPM XTerm escape sequence B<< C<ESC ] 20 ; Pt ST> >> then value 1856For the XPM XTerm escape sequence B<< C<ESC ] 20 ; Pt ST> >> then value
2160of B<< C<Pt> >> can be the name of the background pixmap followed by a 1857of B<< C<Pt> >> can be the name of the background pixmap followed by a
2161sequence of scaling/positioning commands separated by semi-colons. The 1858sequence of scaling/positioning commands separated by semi-colons. The
2258=begin table 1955=begin table
2259 1956
2260 4 Shift 1957 4 Shift
2261 8 Meta 1958 8 Meta
2262 16 Control 1959 16 Control
2263 32 Double Click I<(Rxvt extension)> 1960 32 Double Click I<(rxvt extension)>
2264 1961
2265=end table 1962=end table
2266 1963
2267Col = B<< C<< <x> - SPACE >> >> 1964Col = B<< C<< <x> - SPACE >> >>
2268 1965
2406alternative input methods (e.g. kinput2) and will also correctly 2103alternative input methods (e.g. kinput2) and will also correctly
2407set up the input for people using dead keys or compose keys. 2104set up the input for people using dead keys or compose keys.
2408 2105
2409=item --enable-unicode3 (default: off) 2106=item --enable-unicode3 (default: off)
2410 2107
2108Recommended to stay off unless you really need non-BMP characters.
2109
2411Enable direct support for displaying unicode codepoints above 2110Enable direct support for displaying unicode codepoints above
241265535 (the basic multilingual page). This increases storage 211165535 (the basic multilingual page). This increases storage
2413requirements per character from 2 to 4 bytes. X11 fonts do not yet 2112requirements per character from 2 to 4 bytes. X11 fonts do not yet
2414support these extra characters, but Xft does. 2113support these extra characters, but Xft does.
2415 2114
2425composite characters. This is required for proper viewing of text 2124composite characters. This is required for proper viewing of text
2426where accents are encoded as seperate unicode characters. This is 2125where accents are encoded as seperate unicode characters. This is
2427done by using precomposited characters when available or creating 2126done by using precomposited characters when available or creating
2428new pseudo-characters when no precomposed form exists. 2127new pseudo-characters when no precomposed form exists.
2429 2128
2430Without --enable-unicode3, the number of additional precomposed characters 2129Without --enable-unicode3, the number of additional precomposed
2431is rather limited (2048, if this is full, rxvt-unicode will use the 2130characters is somewhat limited (the 6400 private use characters will be
2432private use area, extending the number of combinations to 8448). With
2433--enable-unicode3, no practical limit exists. 2131(ab-)used). With --enable-unicode3, no practical limit exists.
2434 2132
2435This option will also enable storage (but not display) of characters 2133This option will also enable storage (but not display) of characters
2436beyond plane 0 (>65535) when --enable-unicode3 was not specified. 2134beyond plane 0 (>65535) when --enable-unicode3 was not specified.
2437 2135
2438The combining table also contains entries for arabic presentation forms, 2136The combining table also contains entries for arabic presentation forms,
2439but these are not currently used. Bug me if you want these to be used (and 2137but these are not currently used. Bug me if you want these to be used (and
2440tell me how these are to be used...). 2138tell me how these are to be used...).
2441 2139
2442=item --enable-fallback(=CLASS) (default: Rxvt) 2140=item --enable-fallback(=CLASS) (default: Rxvt)
2443 2141
2444When reading resource settings, also read settings for class CLASS. To disable resource fallback use --disable-fallback. 2142When reading resource settings, also read settings for class CLASS. To
2143disable resource fallback use --disable-fallback.
2445 2144
2446=item --with-res-name=NAME (default: urxvt) 2145=item --with-res-name=NAME (default: urxvt)
2447 2146
2448Use the given name as default application name when 2147Use the given name as default application name when
2449reading resources. Specify --with-res-name=rxvt to replace rxvt. 2148reading resources. Specify --with-res-name=rxvt to replace rxvt.
2486 2185
2487=item --enable-tinting (default: on) 2186=item --enable-tinting (default: on)
2488 2187
2489Add support for tinting of transparent backgrounds (requires C<--enable-transparency>). 2188Add support for tinting of transparent backgrounds (requires C<--enable-transparency>).
2490 2189
2491=item --enable-menubar (default: off) [DEPRECATED]
2492
2493Add support for our menu bar system (this interacts badly with dynamic
2494locale switching currently). This option is DEPRECATED and will be removed
2495in the future.
2496
2497=item --enable-rxvt-scroll (default: on) 2190=item --enable-rxvt-scroll (default: on)
2498 2191
2499Add support for the original rxvt scrollbar. 2192Add support for the original rxvt scrollbar.
2500 2193
2501=item --enable-next-scroll (default: on) 2194=item --enable-next-scroll (default: on)
2510 2203
2511Add support for a very unobtrusive, plain-looking scrollbar that 2204Add support for a very unobtrusive, plain-looking scrollbar that
2512is the favourite of the rxvt-unicode author, having used it for 2205is the favourite of the rxvt-unicode author, having used it for
2513many years. 2206many years.
2514 2207
2515=item --enable-half-shadow (default: off)
2516
2517Make shadows on the scrollbar only half the normal width & height.
2518only applicable to rxvt scrollbars.
2519
2520=item --enable-ttygid (default: off) 2208=item --enable-ttygid (default: off)
2521 2209
2522Change tty device setting to group "tty" - only use this if 2210Change tty device setting to group "tty" - only use this if
2523your system uses this type of security. 2211your system uses this type of security.
2524 2212
2532do it. 2220do it.
2533 2221
2534=item --disable-resources 2222=item --disable-resources
2535 2223
2536Removes any support for resource checking. 2224Removes any support for resource checking.
2537
2538=item --enable-strings (default: off)
2539
2540Add support for our possibly faster memset() function and other
2541various routines, overriding your system's versions which may
2542have been hand-crafted in assembly or may require extra libraries
2543to link in. (this breaks ANSI-C rules and has problems on many
2544GNU/Linux systems).
2545 2225
2546=item --disable-swapscreen 2226=item --disable-swapscreen
2547 2227
2548Remove support for secondary/swap screen. 2228Remove support for secondary/swap screen.
2549 2229
2558 2238
2559 MWM-hints 2239 MWM-hints
2560 EWMH-hints (pid, utf8 names) and protocols (ping) 2240 EWMH-hints (pid, utf8 names) and protocols (ping)
2561 seperate underline colour (-underlineColor) 2241 seperate underline colour (-underlineColor)
2562 settable border widths and borderless switch (-w, -b, -bl) 2242 settable border widths and borderless switch (-w, -b, -bl)
2243 visual depth selection (-depth)
2563 settable extra linespacing /-lsp) 2244 settable extra linespacing /-lsp)
2564 iso-14755-2 and -3, and visual feedback 2245 iso-14755-2 and -3, and visual feedback
2565 backindex and forwardindex escape sequence
2566 window op and some xterm/OSC escape sequences
2567 tripleclickwords (-tcw) 2246 tripleclickwords (-tcw)
2568 settable insecure mode (-insecure) 2247 settable insecure mode (-insecure)
2569 keysym remapping support 2248 keysym remapping support
2570 cursor blinking and underline cursor (-cb, -uc) 2249 cursor blinking and underline cursor (-cb, -uc)
2571 XEmbed support (-embed) 2250 XEmbed support (-embed)
2572 user-pty (-pty-fd) 2251 user-pty (-pty-fd)
2573 hold on exit (-hold) 2252 hold on exit (-hold)
2574 skip builtin block graphics (-sbg) 2253 skip builtin block graphics (-sbg)
2254
2255It also enabled some non-essential features otherwise disabled, such as:
2256
2257 some round-trip time optimisations
2258 nearest color allocation on pseudocolor screens
2259 UTF8_STRING supporr for selection
2575 sgr modes 90..97 and 100..107 2260 sgr modes 90..97 and 100..107
2261 backindex and forwardindex escape sequences
2262 view change/zero scorllback esacpe sequences
2263 locale switching escape sequence
2264 window op and some xterm/OSC escape sequences
2265 rectangular selections
2266 trailing space removal for selections
2267 verbose X error handling
2576 2268
2577=item --enable-iso14755 (default: on) 2269=item --enable-iso14755 (default: on)
2578 2270
2579Enable extended ISO 14755 support (see @@RXVT_NAME@@(1), or 2271Enable extended ISO 14755 support (see @@RXVT_NAME@@(1), or
2580F<doc/rxvt.1.txt>). Basic support (section 5.1) is enabled by 2272F<doc/rxvt.1.txt>). Basic support (section 5.1) is enabled by
2601Remove support for mouse selection style like that of xterm. 2293Remove support for mouse selection style like that of xterm.
2602 2294
2603=item --enable-dmalloc (default: off) 2295=item --enable-dmalloc (default: off)
2604 2296
2605Use Gray Watson's malloc - which is good for debugging See 2297Use Gray Watson's malloc - which is good for debugging See
2606http://www.letters.com/dmalloc/ for details If you use either this or the 2298L<http://www.letters.com/dmalloc/> for details If you use either this or the
2607next option, you may need to edit src/Makefile after compiling to point 2299next option, you may need to edit src/Makefile after compiling to point
2608DINCLUDE and DLIB to the right places. 2300DINCLUDE and DLIB to the right places.
2609 2301
2610You can only use either this option and the following (should 2302You can only use either this option and the following (should
2611you use either) . 2303you use either) .
2623 2315
2624=item --enable-pointer-blank (default: on) 2316=item --enable-pointer-blank (default: on)
2625 2317
2626Add support to have the pointer disappear when typing or inactive. 2318Add support to have the pointer disappear when typing or inactive.
2627 2319
2628=item --enable-perl (default: off) 2320=item --enable-perl (default: on)
2629 2321
2630Enable an embedded perl interpreter. See the B<@@RXVT_NAME@@perl(3)> 2322Enable an embedded perl interpreter. See the B<@@RXVT_NAME@@perl(3)>
2631manpage (F<doc/rxvtperl.txt>) for more info on this feature, or the files 2323manpage (F<doc/rxvtperl.txt>) for more info on this feature, or the files
2632in F<src/perl-ext/> for the extensions that are installed by default. The 2324in F<src/perl-ext/> for the extensions that are installed by default. The
2633perl interpreter that is used can be specified via the C<PERL> environment 2325perl interpreter that is used can be specified via the C<PERL> environment

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