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Rxvt is a heavily modified version of xvt, many modifications were made by |
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Rob Nation <nation@rocket.sanders.lockheed.com> to make it a little more |
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compact and to add a few simple features. |
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|
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This is the README that came with xvt-2.0. It is included mainly to give |
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the original author credit for his work. |
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|
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README file for xvt 2.0 |
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----------------------- |
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|
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Xvt is an X terminal-emulator that is designed to be more or less |
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compatible with xterm while using much less swap space. It is mainly |
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intended for use at sites which use large numbers of X terminals but |
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may also be useful on single workstations that are short of memory. On |
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a SPARCstation running SunOS4, an initially invoked xvt uses about 1/3 |
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megabyte of swap while xterm uses about 1.3 megabytes (obtained by |
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running pstat rather than ps which seems to give unreliable size |
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figures on SPARCs). The main way that xvt achieves its small size is |
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by avoiding the use of the X toolkit. |
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|
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The current version of xvt is our default X terminal emulator and has |
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been used for eight months by students, computing support staff and |
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service users and so is fairly well tested. |
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|
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Supported architectures |
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----------------------- |
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|
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One of the major changes between xvt-1.0 and 2.0 is that xvt-2.0 is |
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much more portable. The released version should build and run on all |
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the architectures I have access to, namely: SunOS4, SunOS5, HP-UX 8.0, |
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HP-UX 9.0, DEC OSF/1 V1.2 and ULTRIX 3.?. In addition, the teletype |
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initialisation code has been completely restructured to make it more |
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portable. Almost all the system dependent code is in the single source |
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file, ttyinit.c. |
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|
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Xterm features not supported |
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---------------------------- |
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|
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- Tektronix 4014 emulation |
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|
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- Session logging |
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|
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- Pop-up menus. The only one of xterm's popup menu commands that is |
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provided in xvt is displaying and hiding of the scrollbar and this |
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is done simply by pressing any mouse key in the window with the |
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CONTROL key held down. |
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|
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- Toolkit style configurability. In particular, xvt does not allow |
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the user to remap the mouse or keyboard keys. |
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|
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Major xterm features that are supported |
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--------------------------------------- |
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|
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- VT100 emulation. Most of the main escape sequences are supported - |
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certainly all those used by the standard screen based UNIX |
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applications. |
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|
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- Lines that scroll off the top of the window are saved can be |
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scrolled back with a scrollbar. |
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|
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- Text selection and insertion including double and triple click for |
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words and lines. |
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|
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Differences between xvt2.0 and xvt1.0 |
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------------------------------------- |
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|
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- xvt2.0 is eight bit clean and will generate and display eight bit |
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characters. The META key can be used to generate characters with |
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the eighth bit set (in eight bit mode) or prefix by escape (in seven |
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bit mode). |
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|
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- The teletype setup code has been rewritten to make it much more |
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portable. See the comments at the head of ttyinit.c. |
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|
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- Exposure handling has been made much more efficient so that xvt should |
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now be useable with window managers that provide opaque window movement. |
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|
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- VT100 graphics characters are supported for fonts that include them. |
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|
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- There is now a -ls option to enable the use of a login shell. |
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|
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- Colored text cursors are now supported. |
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|
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- There is support for the -C (console window) option but only on |
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SunOS 4. |
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|
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- Bold characters are generated by overstriking if no bold font is |
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specified. |
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|
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- Function keys generate escape sequences as in xterm. |
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|
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- A number of bugs have been fixed: |
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|
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- Setting the title without a terminating ^G no longer locks up. |
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|
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- Paste followed by a keystroke will always insert in the correct |
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order. |
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|
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- Pasting an uninitialised string will not cause a crash. |
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|
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Other differences between xvt and xterm |
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--------------------------------------- |
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|
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- Xvt has a couple of additional enquiry escape sequences: |
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|
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ESC[7n - causes xvt to respond with the name of its X display in a |
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form that can be used to initialise the DISPLAY environment |
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variable. If this is done in a user's .cshrc file it |
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provides a way to automatically update DISPLAY after an |
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rlogin. Something like the following should work if the |
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initial ^[ in the echo command is an ESC character: |
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|
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if(!($?DISPLAY)) then |
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if($?term) then |
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if($term =~ xterm*) then |
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stty -echo >/dev/tty |
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echo -n '^[[7n' >/dev/tty |
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setenv DISPLAY `line </dev/tty` |
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stty echo >/dev/tty |
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endif |
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endif |
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endif |
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|
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ESC[8n - causes xvt to respond with a hex encoded copy of the server's |
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magic cookie which can be used to update a user's .Xauthority |
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file. We have a program to do this which could be made available |
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if anyone is interested. |
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|
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Known Bugs |
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---------- |
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|
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- xvt does not know about transferring selections in installments and so |
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making large selections or trying to insert large selections will |
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fail. The maximum selection size supported is server dependent but |
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seems to be a little under 64k on all our servers. |
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|
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- xvt does not look in all the approved places for its X resources. |
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It does, however, work correctly with resources that have been |
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loaded into the server using xrdb |
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|
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Building and installing xvt |
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--------------------------- |
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|
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Xvt does not use imake but does come with a simple Makefile |
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configuration scheme that provides some help with getting the Makefile |
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right. If you want to build xvt on one of the supported architectures |
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then you should uncomment the appropriate definition at the start of |
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the Makefile and then run `make config', which will modify other |
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Makefile comments to bring them into line with the chosen |
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architecture. |
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|
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To install xvt, you should edit the MANDIR and BIN pathnames in the |
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Makefile and then type 'make install' as root. When installed for |
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general use, xvt needs to belong to root and have the setuid flag set |
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so that it can make entries in the /etc/utmp file. |
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|
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Thanks to all the people who have mailed bug reports, patches and |
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local improvements. Some requested additions have gone into V2.0, |
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others perhaps should have, but were left out due to lack of time. |
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|
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Please send bug reports and WIBNIs to: |
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|
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John Bovey |
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Computing Laboratory |
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University of Kent at Canterbury |
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Canterbury |
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Kent |
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UK |
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|
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email: jdb@ukc.ac.uk |
