[ViewVC] Diff of: cvs/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.txt

Comparing rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.txt (file contents):
Revision 1.20 by root, Thu Jun 30 14:00:49 2005 UTC vs.
Revision 1.36 by root, Tue Jan 10 04:26:54 2006 UTC

     The newest version of this document is also available on the World Wide
     Web at
     <http://cvs.schmorp.de/browse/*checkout*/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.html>.
 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
+    Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
+        I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause
+        extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you
+        can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables
+        always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS)
+        after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is
+        a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding
+        conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
+            text    data     bss     drs     rss filename
+           98398    1664      24   15695    1824 rxvt --disable-everything
+          188985    9048   66616   18222    1788 urxvt --disable-everything
+        When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves
+        xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11
+        and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
+            text    data     bss     drs     rss filename
+          163431    2152      24   20123    2060 rxvt --enable-everything
+         1035683   49680   66648   29096    3680 urxvt --enable-everything
+        The very large size of the text section is explained by the
+        east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but
+        nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core
+        fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k
+        emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course
+        doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font
+        instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft
+        indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.
+        Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
+        one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
+        more memory.
+        Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k),
+        this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
+        gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or
+        konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after
+        exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of
+        warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.
+    Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
+        Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is:
+        I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
+        fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me).
+        Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
+        My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but
+        in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability
+        limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale
+        support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than
+        C++ itself.
+        Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write
+        programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to
+        write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large
+        libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is
+        what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:
+           libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
+           libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
+           libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
+           /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
+        And here is rxvt-unicode:
+           libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
+           libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
+           libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
+           libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
+           /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
+        No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in
+        statically), except maybe libX11 :)
+    Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
+        rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with
+        tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing
+        programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into
+        other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming
+        "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)
+        terminal as an example embedding application.
     How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
         The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
         sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number.
+        When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the
+        daemon.
     I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
-        The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode contains large patches
+        The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
-        that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. Before
+        patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.
-        reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download
+        Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please
-        and install the genuine version
+        download and install the genuine version
         (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce the
         problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
         to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the
         Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
         For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
         probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's
         also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for
         other users that might encounter the same issue.
+    I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any
+    recommendation?
+        You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
+        enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
+        runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
+        them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl
+        interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus,
+        selection, likely more in the future) depends on it.
+        You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"
+        resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will
+        result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,
+        add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.
+        This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables
+        it.
+        If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal
+        one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
+        "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot
+        of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely
+        used).
+    I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this
+    safe?
+        Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably
+        not bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of
+        freetype + fontconfig + xft + xlib + ... + rxvt-unicode itself to
+        all be secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options when it
+        detects that it runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice.
+        Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on
+        some systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra
+        privileges for ptys, but some need it for utmp support). If
+        rxvt-unicode doesn't support the library/setuid helper that your OS
+        needs I'll be happy to assist you in implementing support for it.
+        So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on
+        your typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always
+        remember that its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked
+        for security issues regularly.
     When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
         The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely
         available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same
         problem often arises).
            URxvt.termName: rxvt
         If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also
         replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.
+    "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
+        Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it
+        by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
     "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt.
     I need a termcap file entry.
         One reason you might want this is that some distributions or
         operating systems still compile some programs using the
     I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
         Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
         problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
+    How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
+        rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using
+        the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no
+        longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a
+        single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
+        "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as
+        the old libW11 emulation.
+        At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
+        multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
+        likely limited to 8-bit encodings.
     How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
     Is there an option to switch encodings?
         Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch,
         and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't
         even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to
         it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
     Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
         Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely,
         as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to
-        disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialiasing=false"), which
+        disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves
-        saves lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
+        lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
     Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
         Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
         fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core
         fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It
            URxvt.color14:      #73f7ff
            URxvt.color7:       #e1dddd
            URxvt.color15:      #e1dddd
     How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?
-        Despite it's name, rxvtd is not a real daemon, but more like a
+        Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the
-        server that answers rxvtc's requests, so it doesn't background
+        listening socket and then fork.
-        itself.
-        To ensure rxvtd is listening on it's socket, you can use the
-        following method to wait for the startup message before continuing:
-          { rxvtd & } | read
     What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
         Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
         BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
         question) there are two standard values that can be used for
                l               Scroll to bottom on TTY output
         "Ps = 1011" (rxvt)
                h               Scroll to bottom when a key is pressed
                l               Don't scroll to bottom when a key is pressed
+        "Ps = 1021" (rxvt)
+               h               Bold/italic implies high intensity (see option -is)
+               l               Font styles have no effect on intensity (Compile styles)
         "Ps = 1047"
                h               Use Alternate Screen Buffer
                l               Use Normal Screen Buffer - clear Alternate Screen Buffer if returning from it
            Ps = 711        Set bold fontset to Pt. Similar to Ps = 50 (Compile styles).
            Ps = 712        Set italic fontset to Pt. Similar to Ps = 50 (Compile styles).
            Ps = 713        Set bold-italic fontset to Pt. Similar to Ps = 50 (Compile styles).
            Ps = 720        Move viewing window up by Pt lines, or clear scrollback buffer if Pt = 0 (Compile frills).
            Ps = 721        Move viewing window down by Pt lines, or clear scrollback buffer if Pt = 0 (Compile frills).
+           Ps = 777        Call the perl extension with the given string, which should be of the form extension:parameters (Compile perl).
 menuBar
     The exact syntax used is *almost* solidified. In the menus, DON'T try to
        XK_KP_8         8                                               ESC O x
        XK_KP_9         9                                               ESC O y
 CONFIGURE OPTIONS
     General hint: if you get compile errors, then likely your configuration
-    hasn't been tested well. Either try with --enable-everything or use the
+    hasn't been tested well. Either try with "--enable-everything" or use
-    ./reconf script as a base for experiments. ./reconf is used by myself,
+    the ./reconf script as a base for experiments. ./reconf is used by
-    so it should generally be a working config. Of course, you should always
+    myself, so it should generally be a working config. Of course, you
-    report when a combination doesn't work, so it can be fixed. Marc Lehmann
+    should always report when a combination doesn't work, so it can be
-    <rxvt@schmorp.de>.
+    fixed. Marc Lehmann <rxvt@schmorp.de>.
+    All
     --enable-everything
-        Add support for all non-multichoice options listed in "./configure
+        Add (or remove) support for all non-multichoice options listed in
-        --help". Note that unlike other enable options this is order
+        "./configure --help".
-        dependant. You can specify this and then disable options which this
-        enables by *following* this with the appropriate commands.
-    --enable-xft
+        You can specify this and then disable options you do not like by
+        *following* this with the appropriate "--disable-..." arguments, or
+        you can start with a minimal configuration by specifying
+        "--disable-everything" and than adding just the "--enable-..."
+        arguments you want.
+    --enable-xft (default: enabled)
         Add support for Xft (anti-aliases, among others) fonts. Xft fonts
         are slower and require lots of memory, but as long as you don't use
         them, you don't pay for them.
-    --enable-font-styles
+    --enable-font-styles (default: on)
         Add support for bold, *italic* and *bold italic* font styles. The
         fonts can be set manually or automatically.
-    --with-codesets=NAME,...
+    --with-codesets=NAME,... (default: all)
         Compile in support for additional codeset (encoding) groups ("eu",
         "vn" are always compiled in, which includes most 8-bit character
         sets). These codeset tables are used for driving X11 core fonts,
         they are not required for Xft fonts, although having them compiled
         in lets rxvt-unicode choose replacement fonts more intelligently.
            zh_ext          rarely used but very big chinese encodigs
            jp              common japanese encodings
            jp_ext          rarely used but big japanese encodings
            kr              korean encodings
-    --enable-xim
+    --enable-xim (default: on)
         Add support for XIM (X Input Method) protocol. This allows using
         alternative input methods (e.g. kinput2) and will also correctly set
         up the input for people using dead keys or compose keys.
-    --enable-unicode3
+    --enable-unicode3 (default: off)
         Enable direct support for displaying unicode codepoints above 65535
         (the basic multilingual page). This increases storage requirements
         per character from 2 to 4 bytes. X11 fonts do not yet support these
         extra characters, but Xft does.
         even without this flag, but the number of such characters is limited
         to a view thousand (shared with combining characters, see next
         switch), and right now rxvt-unicode cannot display them
         (input/output and cut&paste still work, though).
-    --enable-combining
+    --enable-combining (default: on)
         Enable automatic composition of combining characters into composite
         characters. This is required for proper viewing of text where
         accents are encoded as seperate unicode characters. This is done by
         using precomposited characters when available or creating new
         pseudo-characters when no precomposed form exists.
         The combining table also contains entries for arabic presentation
         forms, but these are not currently used. Bug me if you want these to
         be used (and tell me how these are to be used...).
-    --enable-fallback(=CLASS)
+    --enable-fallback(=CLASS) (default: Rxvt)
-        When reading resource settings, also read settings for class CLASS
+        When reading resource settings, also read settings for class CLASS.
-        (default: Rxvt). To disable resource fallback use
+        To disable resource fallback use --disable-fallback.
-        --disable-fallback.
-    --with-res-name=NAME
+    --with-res-name=NAME (default: urxvt)
-        Use the given name (default: urxvt) as default application name when
+        Use the given name as default application name when reading
-        reading resources. Specify --with-res-name=rxvt to replace rxvt.
+        resources. Specify --with-res-name=rxvt to replace rxvt.
-    --with-res-class=CLASS
+    --with-res-class=CLASS /default: URxvt)
-        Use the given class (default: URxvt) as default application class
+        Use the given class as default application class when reading
-        when reading resources. Specify --with-res-class=Rxvt to replace
+        resources. Specify --with-res-class=Rxvt to replace rxvt.
-        rxvt.
-    --enable-utmp
+    --enable-utmp (default: on)
         Write user and tty to utmp file (used by programs like w) at start
         of rxvt execution and delete information when rxvt exits.
-    --enable-wtmp
+    --enable-wtmp (default: on)
         Write user and tty to wtmp file (used by programs like last) at
         start of rxvt execution and write logout when rxvt exits. This
         option requires --enable-utmp to also be specified.
-    --enable-lastlog
+    --enable-lastlog (default: on)
         Write user and tty to lastlog file (used by programs like lastlogin)
         at start of rxvt execution. This option requires --enable-utmp to
         also be specified.
-    --enable-xpm-background
+    --enable-xpm-background (default: on)
         Add support for XPM background pixmaps.
-    --enable-transparency
+    --enable-transparency (default: on)
         Add support for inheriting parent backgrounds thus giving a fake
         transparency to the term.
-    --enable-fading
+    --enable-fading (default: on)
-        Add support for fading the text when focus is lost.
+        Add support for fading the text when focus is lost (requires
+        "--enable-transparency").
-    --enable-tinting
+    --enable-tinting (default: on)
-        Add support for tinting of transparent backgrounds.
+        Add support for tinting of transparent backgrounds (requires
+        "--enable-transparency").
-    --enable-menubar
+    --enable-menubar (default: off) [DEPRECATED]
         Add support for our menu bar system (this interacts badly with
-        dynamic locale switching currently).
+        dynamic locale switching currently). This option is DEPRECATED and
+        will be removed in the future.
-    --enable-rxvt-scroll
+    --enable-rxvt-scroll (default: on)
         Add support for the original rxvt scrollbar.
-    --enable-next-scroll
+    --enable-next-scroll (default: on)
         Add support for a NeXT-like scrollbar.
-    --enable-xterm-scroll
+    --enable-xterm-scroll (default: on)
         Add support for an Xterm-like scrollbar.
-    --enable-plain-scroll
+    --enable-plain-scroll (default: on)
         Add support for a very unobtrusive, plain-looking scrollbar that is
         the favourite of the rxvt-unicode author, having used it for many
         years.
-    --enable-half-shadow
+    --enable-half-shadow (default: off)
         Make shadows on the scrollbar only half the normal width & height.
         only applicable to rxvt scrollbars.
-    --enable-ttygid
+    --enable-ttygid (default: off)
         Change tty device setting to group "tty" - only use this if your
         system uses this type of security.
     --disable-backspace-key
-        Disable any handling of the backspace key by us - let the X server
+        Removes any handling of the backspace key by us - let the X server
         do it.
     --disable-delete-key
-        Disable any handling of the delete key by us - let the X server do
+        Removes any handling of the delete key by us - let the X server do
         it.
     --disable-resources
-        Remove all resources checking.
+        Removes any support for resource checking.
     --enable-xgetdefault
         Make resources checking via XGetDefault() instead of our small
         version which only checks ~/.Xdefaults, or if that doesn't exist
         then ~/.Xresources.
         Please note that nowadays, things like XIM will automatically pull
         in and use the full X resource manager, so the overhead of using it
         might be very small, if nonexistant.
-    --enable-strings
+    --enable-strings (default: off)
         Add support for our possibly faster memset() function and other
         various routines, overriding your system's versions which may have
         been hand-crafted in assembly or may require extra libraries to link
         in. (this breaks ANSI-C rules and has problems on many GNU/Linux
         systems).
     --disable-swapscreen
-        Remove support for swap screen.
+        Remove support for secondary/swap screen.
-    --enable-frills
+    --enable-frills (default: on)
         Add support for many small features that are not essential but nice
         to have. Normally you want this, but for very small binaries you may
         want to disable this.
         A non-exhaustive list of features enabled by "--enable-frills"
         (possibly in combination with other switches) is:
           MWM-hints
           EWMH-hints (pid, utf8 names) and protocols (ping)
-          seperate underline colour
+          seperate underline colour (-underlineColor)
-          settable border widths and borderless switch
+          settable border widths and borderless switch (-w, -b, -bl)
-          settable extra linespacing
+          settable extra linespacing /-lsp)
           iso-14755-2 and -3, and visual feedback
           backindex and forwardindex escape sequence
           window op and some xterm/OSC escape sequences
-          tripleclickwords
+          tripleclickwords (-tcw)
-          settable insecure mode
+          settable insecure mode (-insecure)
           keysym remapping support
-          cursor blinking and underline cursor
+          cursor blinking and underline cursor (-cb, -uc)
-          -embed and -pty-fd options
+          XEmbed support (-embed)
+          user-pty (-pty-fd)
+          hold on exit (-hold)
+          skip builtin block graphics (-sbg)
+          sgr modes 90..97 and 100..107
-    --enable-iso14755
+    --enable-iso14755 (default: on)
         Enable extended ISO 14755 support (see rxvt(1), or doc/rxvt.1.txt).
         Basic support (section 5.1) is enabled by "--enable-frills", while
         support for 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 is enabled with this switch.
-    --enable-keepscrolling
+    --enable-keepscrolling (default: on)
         Add support for continual scrolling of the display when you hold the
         mouse button down on a scrollbar arrow.
-    --enable-mousewheel
+    --enable-mousewheel (default: on)
         Add support for scrolling via mouse wheel or buttons 4 & 5.
-    --enable-slipwheeling
+    --enable-slipwheeling (default: on)
         Add support for continual scrolling (using the mouse wheel as an
         accelerator) while the control key is held down. This option
         requires --enable-mousewheel to also be specified.
     --disable-new-selection
         Remove support for mouse selection style like that of xterm.
-    --enable-dmalloc
+    --enable-dmalloc (default: off)
         Use Gray Watson's malloc - which is good for debugging See
         http://www.letters.com/dmalloc/ for details If you use either this
         or the next option, you may need to edit src/Makefile after
         compiling to point DINCLUDE and DLIB to the right places.
         You can only use either this option and the following (should you
         use either) .
-    --enable-dlmalloc
+    --enable-dlmalloc (default: off)
         Use Doug Lea's malloc - which is good for a production version See
         <http://g.oswego.edu/dl/html/malloc.html> for details.
-    --enable-smart-resize
+    --enable-smart-resize (default: on)
-        Add smart growth/shrink behaviour when changing font size via from
+        Add smart growth/shrink behaviour when changing font size via hot
-        hot keys. This should keep in a fixed position the rxvt corner which
+        keys. This should keep the window corner which is closest to a
-        is closest to a corner of the screen.
+        corner of the screen in a fixed position.
-    --enable-pointer-blank
+    --enable-pointer-blank (default: on)
         Add support to have the pointer disappear when typing or inactive.
-    --with-name=NAME
+    --enable-perl (default: off)
+        Enable an embedded perl interpreter. See the rxvtperl(3) manpage
+        (doc/rxvtperl.txt) for more info on this feature, or the files in
+        src/perl-ext/ for the extensions that are installed by default. The
+        perl interpreter that is used can be specified via the "PERL"
+        environment variable when running configure.
+    --with-name=NAME (default: urxvt)
-        Set the basename for the installed binaries (default: "urxvt",
+        Set the basename for the installed binaries, resulting in "urxvt",
-        resulting in "urxvt", "urxvtd" etc.). Specify "--with-name=rxvt" to
+        "urxvtd" etc.). Specify "--with-name=rxvt" to replace with "rxvt".
-        replace with "rxvt".
-    --with-term=NAME
+    --with-term=NAME (default: rxvt-unicode)
-        Change the environmental variable for the terminal to NAME (default
+        Change the environmental variable for the terminal to NAME.
-        "rxvt-unicode")
     --with-terminfo=PATH
         Change the environmental variable for the path to the terminfo tree
         to PATH.

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Comparing rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.txt (file contents): Revision 1.20 by root, Thu Jun 30 14:00:49 2005 UTC vs. Revision 1.36 by root, Tue Jan 10 04:26:54 2006 UTC

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Comparing rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.txt (file contents):
Revision 1.20 by root, Thu Jun 30 14:00:49 2005 UTC vs.
Revision 1.36 by root, Tue Jan 10 04:26:54 2006 UTC