1 RXVT-UNICODE/URXVT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 Meta, Features & Commandline Issues
3 My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
4 Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel
5 "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be
6 interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).
8 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
9 Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a
10 simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these
15 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
17 It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window
18 managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow
19 it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed
20 or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt
21 (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.
23 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
24 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
25 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When
26 using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon.
28 Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
29 Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something
30 you don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings
31 that you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by
32 design, when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be
33 loaded accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your
36 Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger
37 scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6
38 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a
39 kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if
40 full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets
41 worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
43 How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way?
44 Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create the
45 listening socket and then fork.
47 How can I start urxvtd automatically when I run urxvtc?
48 If you want to start urxvtd automatically whenever you run urxvtc and
49 the daemon isn't running yet, use this script:
58 This tries to create a new terminal, and if fails with exit status 2,
59 meaning it couldn't connect to the daemon, it will start the daemon and
60 re-run the command. Subsequent invocations of the script will re-use the
63 How do I distinguish whether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm? I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
64 The original rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable
65 "COLORTERM", so you can check and see if that is set. Note that several
66 programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
67 variable to decide whether or not to use color.
69 How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
70 If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled
71 insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script
72 snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode
73 wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets)
74 then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from
77 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script
80 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
81 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
82 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
83 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
87 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
88 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
89 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
93 How do I compile the manual pages on my own?
94 You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl,
95 one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2xhtml (from Pod::XHTML).
96 Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc".
98 Isn't rxvt-unicode supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
99 I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra
100 bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see
101 that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always
102 being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after
103 startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit
104 unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion,
105 iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
107 text data bss drs rss filename
108 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
109 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
111 When you "--enable-everything" (which *is* unfair, as this involves xft
112 and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my
113 libc), the two diverge, but not unreasonably so.
115 text data bss drs rss filename
116 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
117 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
119 The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian
120 encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else
121 and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those
122 encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++
123 compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of
124 memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds
125 a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even
128 Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
129 one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
132 Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this
133 still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
134 gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole
135 (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half
136 a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits
137 out), it fares extremely well *g*.
139 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
140 Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I
141 had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
142 fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put
143 even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
145 My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in
146 the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits
147 are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and
148 unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.
150 Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs
151 in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in
152 C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is
153 not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my
154 system with a minimal config:
156 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
157 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
158 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
159 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
161 And here is rxvt-unicode:
163 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
164 libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
165 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
166 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
167 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
169 No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically),
170 except maybe libX11 :)
172 Rendering, Font & Look and Feel Issues
173 I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
174 First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode,
175 so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you
176 may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a
177 rite of passage: ... and you failed.
179 Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option
180 descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!
182 1. Use inheritPixmap:
184 Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
185 urxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40
187 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting
188 support, or you are unable to read.
190 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you
191 to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever
192 your picture with gimp or any other tool:
194 convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm
195 urxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background
197 That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or
198 you are unable to read.
200 3. Use an ARGB visual:
202 urxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
204 This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that
205 doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't
206 there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the
207 necessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but
208 that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.
210 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:
212 xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
213 -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
215 Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000
216 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and
217 your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.
219 Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
220 Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that
221 character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal
222 use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode
223 will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too
224 wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent
227 All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes,
228 however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed
229 bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct
230 way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is
231 wrong in these cases).
233 It's not clear (to me at least), whether this is a bug in Xft, freetype,
234 or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try
235 using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't
236 work, you might be forced to use a different font.
238 All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their
239 bounding box data is correct.
241 How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
242 First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
243 ("TERM=rxvt-unicode"), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
244 make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
245 rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
250 Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
251 For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
252 colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
253 standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
254 course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
257 In the meantime, you can either edit your "rxvt-unicode" terminfo
258 definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will
259 fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
261 Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
262 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the
263 same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately:
265 printf '\33]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
267 This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a
268 japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where
269 japanese fonts would only be in your way.
271 You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.
273 Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
274 Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
275 example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
276 Mono" completely fails in its italic face. A workaround might be to
277 enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
279 URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
280 URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
282 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
283 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it
284 is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable
285 antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of
286 memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
288 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
289 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
290 fall back to its default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts,
291 because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has
292 antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they
295 If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.
297 What's with this bold/blink stuff?
298 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the
299 standard foreground colour.
301 For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text
302 blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard colours.
303 Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be ignored.
305 On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
306 foreground/background colors.
308 color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
310 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
312 I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
313 You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
314 resources (or as long-options).
316 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including
317 the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
319 URxvt.color0: #000000
320 URxvt.color1: #A80000
321 URxvt.color2: #00A800
322 URxvt.color3: #A8A800
323 URxvt.color4: #0000A8
324 URxvt.color5: #A800A8
325 URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
326 URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
328 URxvt.color8: #000054
329 URxvt.color9: #FF0054
330 URxvt.color10: #00FF54
331 URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
332 URxvt.color12: #0000FF
333 URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
334 URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
335 URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
337 And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors.
339 URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
340 URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
341 URxvt.background: #0e0e0e
342 URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1
343 URxvt.color0: #000000
344 URxvt.color8: #8b8f93
345 URxvt.color1: #dc74d1
346 URxvt.color9: #dc74d1
347 URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7
348 URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7
349 URxvt.color3: #dfe37e
350 URxvt.color11: #dfe37e
351 URxvt.color5: #9e88f0
352 URxvt.color13: #9e88f0
353 URxvt.color6: #73f7ff
354 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
355 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
356 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
358 They have been described (not by me) as "pretty girly".
360 Why do some characters look so much different than others?
363 How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
364 Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine.
365 Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your
366 system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to
369 rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font.
370 Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
371 bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
372 resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
373 intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
374 the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
376 In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
379 urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
381 When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font.
382 If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the next
383 font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
384 search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
386 The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the
387 base font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size,
388 which must be the same due to the way terminals work.
390 Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
391 This is because there is a difference between script and language --
392 rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is, as
393 it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first sees a
394 japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for display.
395 Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many chinese
396 characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
397 non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese
398 font -- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font
399 for chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
401 The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
402 list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as a
403 preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
404 first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
406 In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
407 runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
408 fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
409 has been designed yet).
411 Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see "Can
412 I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document).
414 Keyboard, Mouse & User Interaction
415 The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?
416 If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following
419 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
421 If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and
424 To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
427 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
429 Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination also
430 selects words like the old code.
432 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?
433 You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
434 perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
435 rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
437 If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
438 identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section
439 PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to
440 disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this
441 perl-ext-common resource:
443 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
445 This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
446 extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
447 scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other
448 combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:
450 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
452 The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?
455 During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
456 These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal
457 circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the
458 line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment,
459 but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in
460 some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.
462 You can permanently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline"
465 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
467 My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
468 Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
469 specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is
470 caused by the wrong "TERM" setting, although the details of whether and
471 how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a
472 compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please
473 report if that helped.
475 My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
476 The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set
477 correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your
478 input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input
479 method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not
480 support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode
481 will continue without an input method.
483 In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than
484 one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.
486 I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
487 Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on
488 international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your
489 advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for
490 other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet
491 escape character and so on.
493 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
494 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
495 editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
496 that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
497 check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are
500 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
501 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the Backspace
502 keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are
503 two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?".
505 Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the
506 debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one and only
509 Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the
510 value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode
511 wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell),
512 then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in
513 <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as your stty
516 For starting a new rxvt-unicode:
526 Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
528 For an existing rxvt-unicode:
538 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but
539 if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value
540 properly reflects that.
542 The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace
543 problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the
544 Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for
545 Execute ("ESC [ 3 ~") and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
547 Some other Backspace problems:
549 some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect
550 Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
552 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.
554 I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
555 There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless
556 you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources" option you can
557 use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with
560 Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt"
562 URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
563 URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
564 URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033<C-'>
565 URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033<C-/>
566 URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033<C-;>
567 URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033<C-`>
568 URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033<C-,>
569 URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033<C-.>
570 URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033<C-`>
571 URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033<C-Tab>
572 URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033<C-Return>
573 URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033<S-Return>
574 URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033<S-Space>
575 URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033<M-Up>
576 URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033<M-Down>
577 URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033<M-Left>
578 URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033<M-Right>
579 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
580 URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
581 URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
583 See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.
585 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
593 Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various
594 possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
595 keys as required for your particular machine.
597 Terminal Configuration
598 Can I see a typical configuration?
599 The default configuration tries to be xterm-like, which I don't like
600 that much, but it's least surprise to regular users.
602 As a rxvt or rxvt-unicode user, you are practically supposed to invest
603 time into customising your terminal. To get you started, here is the
604 author's .Xdefaults entries, with comments on what they do. It's
605 certainly not *typical*, but what's typical...
607 URxvt.cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|'
608 URxvt.print-pipe: cat >/tmp/xxx
610 These are just for testing stuff.
612 URxvt.imLocale: ja_JP.UTF-8
613 URxvt.preeditType: OnTheSpot,None
615 This tells rxvt-unicode to use a special locale when communicating with
616 the X Input Method, and also tells it to only use the OnTheSpot pre-edit
617 type, which requires the "xim-onthespot" perl extension but rewards me
618 with correct-looking fonts.
620 URxvt.perl-lib: /root/lib/urxvt
621 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,selection-autotransform,selection-pastebin,xim-onthespot,remote-clipboard
622 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ( at .*? line \\d+)
623 URxvt.selection.pattern-1: ^(/[^:]+):\
624 URxvt.selection-autotransform.0: s/^([^:[:space:]]+):(\\d+):?$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
625 URxvt.selection-autotransform.1: s/^ at (.*?) line (\\d+)$/:e \\Q$1\\E\\x0d:$2\\x0d/
627 This is my perl configuration. The first two set the perl library
628 directory and also tells urxvt to use a large number of extensions. I
629 develop for myself mostly, so I actually use most of the extensions I
632 The selection stuff mainly makes the selection perl-error-message aware
633 and tells it to convert perl error messages into vi-commands to load the
634 relevant file and go tot he error line number.
636 URxvt.scrollstyle: plain
637 URxvt.secondaryScroll: true
639 As the documentation says: plain is the preferred scrollbar for the
640 author. The "secondaryScroll" configures urxvt to scroll in full-screen
641 apps, like screen, so lines scrolled out of screen end up in urxvt's
644 URxvt.background: #000000
645 URxvt.foreground: gray90
647 URxvt.colorBD: #ffffff
648 URxvt.cursorColor: #e0e080
649 URxvt.throughColor: #8080f0
650 URxvt.highlightColor: #f0f0f0
652 Some colours. Not sure which ones are being used or even non-defaults,
653 but these are in my .Xdefaults. Most notably, they set
654 foreground/background to light gray/black, and also make sure that the
655 colour 7 matches the default foreground colour.
657 URxvt.underlineColor: yellow
659 Another colour, makes underline lines look different. Sometimes hurts,
660 but is mostly a nice effect.
662 URxvt.geometry: 154x36
663 URxvt.loginShell: false
665 URxvt.utmpInhibit: true
667 Uh, well, should be mostly self-explanatory. By specifying some defaults
668 manually, I can quickly switch them for testing.
670 URxvt.saveLines: 8192
672 A large scrollback buffer is essential. Really.
676 The only case I use it is for my IRC window, which I like to keep
677 iconified till people msg me (which beeps).
679 URxvt.visualBell: true
681 The audible bell is often annoying, especially when in a crowd.
685 Please don't hack my mutt! Ooops...
687 URxvt.pastableTabs: false
689 I once thought this is a great idea.
691 urxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
692 -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
693 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
694 [codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic, \
695 xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:autohint=true, \
696 xft:Code2000:antialias=false
697 urxvt.boldFont: -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal--14-140-72-72-c-80-iso8859-15
698 urxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
699 urxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
701 I wrote rxvt-unicode to be able to specify fonts exactly. So don't be
702 overwhelmed. A special note: the "9x15bold" mentioned above is actually
703 the version from XFree-3.3, as XFree-4 replaced it by a totally
704 different font (different glyphs for ";" and many other harmless
705 characters), while the second font is actually the "9x15bold" from
706 XFree4/XOrg. The bold version has less chars than the medium version, so
707 I use it for rare characters, too. When editing sources with vim, I use
708 italic for comments and other stuff, which looks quite good with
709 Bitstream Vera anti-aliased.
711 Terminus is a quite bad font (many very wrong glyphs), but for most of
712 my purposes, it works, and gives a different look, as my normal
713 (Non-bold) font is already bold, and I want to see a difference between
714 bold and normal fonts.
716 Please note that I used the "urxvt" instance name and not the "URxvt"
717 class name. Thats because I use different configs for different
718 purposes, for example, my IRC window is started with "-name IRC", and
722 IRC*geometry: 87x12+535+542
726 IRC*boldFont: suxuseuro
728 IRC*keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
729 IRC*keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
731 "Alt-Shift-1" and "Alt-Shift-2" switch between two different font sizes.
732 "suxuseuro" allows me to keep an eye (and actually read) stuff while
733 keeping a very small window. If somebody pastes something complicated
734 (e.g. japanese), I temporarily switch to a larger font.
736 The above is all in my ".Xdefaults" (I don't use ".Xresources" nor
737 "xrdb"). I also have some resources in a separate ".Xdefaults-hostname"
738 file for different hosts, for example, on ym main desktop, I use:
740 URxvt.keysym.C-M-q: command:\033[3;5;5t
741 URxvt.keysym.C-M-y: command:\033[3;5;606t
742 URxvt.keysym.C-M-e: command:\033[3;1605;5t
743 URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: command:\033[3;1605;606t
744 URxvt.keysym.C-M-p: perl:test
746 The first for keysym definitions allow me to quickly bring some windows
747 in the layout I like most. Ion users might start laughing but will stop
748 immediately when I tell them that I use my own Fvwm2 module for much the
749 same effect as Ion provides, and I only very rarely use the above key
752 Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
753 Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X
754 applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads
755 resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will
756 ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read
757 $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.
759 If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources
760 are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after
761 every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).
763 Also consider the form resources have to use:
765 URxvt.resource: value
767 If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of
768 specifying resources), make sure you understand whether and why it
769 works. If unsure, use the form above.
771 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
772 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available
773 as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often
776 The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this
777 can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp and works as user and
780 REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
781 infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "mkdir -p .terminfo && cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
783 ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,
785 One some systems you might need to set $TERMINFO to the full path of
786 $HOME/.terminfo for this to work.
788 If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set
789 "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of
790 problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different
791 colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
792 quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
794 If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
795 can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
800 If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace
801 the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one and use "TERM=rxvt".
803 "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
804 Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by
805 "enacs=\E[0@" and try again.
807 "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt.
810 I need a termcap file entry.
811 One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating
812 systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap
813 library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry
816 You could use rxvt's termcap entry with reasonable results in many
817 cases. You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp
820 infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
822 Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:
824 rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
825 :am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
826 :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\
827 :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\
828 :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\
829 :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\
830 :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\
831 :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\
832 :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\
833 :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\
834 :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\
835 :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
836 :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\
837 :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\
838 :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\
839 :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\
840 :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\
841 :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
842 :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
845 Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output?
846 The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to
847 decide whether a terminal has colour, but uses its own configuration
848 file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in its default file (among
849 with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:
853 to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add:
855 alias ls='ls --color=auto'
857 to your ".profile" or ".bashrc".
859 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
862 Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
865 Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
866 Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged
867 distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by
868 setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features.
869 Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux)
870 furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so
871 you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in
872 to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do
875 Encoding / Locale / Input Method Issues
876 Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
879 Unicode does not seem to work?
880 If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but
881 getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output
882 is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.
884 Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the
885 programs running in it. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale,
886 while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes
887 the locale to something else, e.g. "en_GB.UTF-8". Needless to say, this
888 is not going to work, and is the most common cause for problems.
890 The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely
891 run into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your
894 printf '\33]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" # $LANG or $LC_ALL are worth a try, too
896 If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not
897 supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which
898 displays this (also, "perl -e0" can be used to check locale settings, as
899 it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays
902 locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
904 Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.
906 If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then
907 you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't
910 How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
913 Is there an option to switch encodings?
914 Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no
915 specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know
916 about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.
918 The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for
919 selecting the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating
920 this to all applications so everybody agrees on character properties
921 such as width and code number. This mechanism is the *locale*.
922 Applications not using that info will have problems (for example,
923 "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses its own,
924 locale-independent table under all locales).
926 Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All
927 programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
928 interpretation of characters.
930 Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor
931 is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.
933 On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable
934 contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed
935 locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15",
936 "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e.
937 "de" or "german") are also common.
939 Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the
940 encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e.
941 "de_DE.UTF-8" and "ja_JP.UTF-8" are the normally same to rxvt-unicode.
943 If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
944 rxvt-unicode with the correct "LC_CTYPE" category.
946 Can I switch locales at runtime?
947 Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
948 rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE".
950 printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
952 See also the previous answer.
954 Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
955 locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g.
956 UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "xjdic", which first
957 switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
959 printf '\33]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
961 printf '\33]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
963 You can also use xterm's "luit" program, which usually works fine,
964 except for some locales where character width differs between program-
965 and rxvt-unicode-locales.
967 I have problems getting my input method working.
968 Try a search engine, as this is slightly different for every input
973 - Make sure your locale *and* the imLocale are supported on your OS.
974 Try "locale -a" or check the documentation for your OS.
976 - Make sure your locale or imLocale matches a locale supported by your
978 For example, kinput2 does not support UTF-8 locales, you should use
979 "ja_JP.EUC-JP" or equivalent.
981 - Make sure your XIM server is actually running.
982 - Make sure the "XMODIFIERS" environment variable is set correctly when
983 *starting* rxvt-unicode.
984 When you want to use e.g. kinput2, it must be set to "@im=kinput2".
985 For scim, use "@im=SCIM". You can see what input method servers are
986 running with this command:
988 xprop -root XIM_SERVERS
992 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
993 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of
994 the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
996 URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
998 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still
999 use your input method. Please note, however, that, depending on your
1000 Xlib version, you may not be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP"
1001 in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.
1003 Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
1004 Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by
1005 design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory
1006 leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at
1007 exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while
1008 SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes
1009 cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.
1011 So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.
1013 Operating Systems / Package Maintaining
1014 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
1015 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
1016 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but
1017 unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to
1018 the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine
1019 version (<http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode>) and try to reproduce
1020 the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific
1021 to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian
1022 Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug).
1024 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
1025 probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a
1026 bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users
1027 that might encounter the same issue.
1029 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?
1030 You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
1031 enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
1032 runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enabling
1033 them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter
1034 should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely
1035 more in the future) depends on it.
1037 You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" resources
1038 system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful
1039 behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty
1040 "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the
1041 perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.
1043 If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one
1044 with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
1045 "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of
1046 encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).
1048 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
1049 It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly
1050 install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.
1052 When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork
1053 into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some
1054 systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges
1055 immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep
1056 privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains
1057 things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers).
1059 This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very
1060 early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before
1061 main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should
1062 result in very little risk.
1064 On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
1065 Seems to be a known bug, read
1066 <http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html>. Some people use the
1067 following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:
1069 #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
1071 I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
1072 Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in
1073 your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it,
1074 whether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that
1075 wchar_t is represented as unicode.
1077 As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symbol nor
1078 does it support it. Instead, it uses its own internal representation of
1079 wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
1081 However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and
1082 "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.
1084 "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps
1085 in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized)
1086 representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t
1087 (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without
1088 implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There
1089 simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current
1092 Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by
1093 carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with
1094 them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple
1095 conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements
1096 encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).
1098 The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
1099 system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
1100 complete replacements for them :)
1102 I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
1103 Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst
1104 problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem.
1106 How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
1107 rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the
1108 X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer
1109 supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single
1110 font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or
1111 "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the
1112 old libW11 emulation.
1114 At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any
1115 multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are
1116 likely limited to 8-bit encodings.