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7 Q: How do I know which rxvt version I'm using?
9 A: The version number is displayed with the usage (-h).
10 For rxvt version 2.14 and later, the escape sequence `ESC[8n'
11 sets the window title to the version number.
15 Q: Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
17 A: Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since
18 killing some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse
19 report mode. I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting
20 unless it otherwise specified. A quick check is to see if
21 cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are depressed. See
26 Q: What's with this bold/blink stuff? I can never get blinking text!
28 A: It is not possible, and likely will never be, for rxvt to have
29 actual blinking text. Instead (if rxvt was compiled without
30 NO_BOLDCOLOR), bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity
31 foreground/background colors ... like what you'd see on a PC video
32 adapter. There are programs, notably John Davis' SLang-based ones
33 <ftp://space.mit.edu/pub/davis>, that use bold/blink attributes to
36 color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
37 color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
39 A side issue of this bold/blink stuff is the question of how the
40 normal default foreground/background colors are to be treated. If
41 the default foreground/background match one of the low-intensity
42 colors (color0-7), the bold/blink attribute will invoke the
43 appropriate high-intensity color (color8-15).
45 In the case that the default foreground doesn't match one of the
46 low-intensity colors, the bold attribute will use an `overstrike'
47 to simulate a bold font. But note this leaves pixel-droppings and
48 so, rather than wasting an inordinate amounts of energy to fix it,
49 its use is simply deprecated.
51 In the case that the default background doesn't match one of the
52 low-intensity colors, the blink attribute is simply ignored
53 (rather than representing it as bold as xterm does).
57 Q: I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
59 A: You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults
60 resources (or as long-options) ... see the man-page.
62 Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,
63 including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
85 Q: What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
87 A: Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
88 BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
89 question) there are two standard values that can be used for
92 Rxvt tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the value
93 of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt wasn't started
94 from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), then the
95 system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in <termios.h>,
96 will be used (which may not be the same as your stty setting).
98 For starting a new rxvt:
108 NB: generate either value with BackSpace and Ctrl/Shift-BackSpace.
109 Toggle with "ESC[36h" / "ESC[36l" as documented in "doc/refer.txt"
111 For an existing rxvt:
120 This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur,
121 but if you use Backspace = ^?, make sure that the termcap/terminfo
122 value properly reflects that.
124 The Delete key (which one would expect to emit ^?) is a another
125 casualty of the ill-defined Backspace problem. To avoid confusion
126 between the Backspace and Delete keys, the Delete key has been
127 assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for Execute (ESC[3~)
128 and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
130 Some other Backspace problems:
131 some editors use termcap/terminfo,
132 some editors (vim I'm told) expect Backspace = ^H,
133 GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
135 Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner
136 ... and maybe xterm will have Home/End values too!
140 Q: Why doesn't the Backspace key work on my Linux machine?
142 A: The XFree86 server has a notorious problem of mapping the Backspace
143 key as Delete in order to match the Linux console.
145 The correct way to fix this:
147 0 - Complain to your Linux distributer and the XFree86 team, maybe
150 1 - Use xmodmap to correct the Backspace mapping
154 ! a correctly-mapped BackSpace
155 keycode 22 = BackSpace
157 *** Make sure the keycode above matches the physical
158 Backspace key on your machine!! (use xev) ***
160 This will also fix the BackSpace problem with Motif applications,
161 such as ``why doesn't Backspace work for Netscape?''
163 You now have a Backspace key that functions as described in the
166 1a - You may also want to fix the regular xterm if it doesn't
167 generates the desired value for BackSpace
169 xterm*vt100.translations: #override \
170 <Key>BackSpace: string(\010) \n
172 xterm*vt100.translations: #override \
173 <Key>BackSpace: string(\177) \n
175 while you are at it, you may also want to have consistent
176 values to Home/End/Delete
178 xterm*vt100.translations: #override \
179 <Key>Home: string("\033[7~") \n\
180 <Key>End: string("\033[8~") \n\
181 <Key>Delete: string("\033[3~") \n
183 Finally, you can also remap the rxvt key-binding at run-time (next
184 question) but you'll lose the ability to have Ctrl/Shift-Backspace
185 work differently as well as losing the escape sequence toggling of
190 Q: I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
192 A: There are some compile-time selections available via configure.
193 Unless you have run "configure" with the "--disable-resources"
194 option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings
195 associated with keysym 0xFF00 - 0xFFFF (function, cursor keys, etc).
197 Here's an example for a tn3270 session started using
200 !# ----- special uses ------:
201 ! tn3270 login, remap function and arrow keys.
202 tn3270*font: *clean-bold-*-*--15-*
204 ! keysym - used by rxvt only
206 tn3270*keysym.0xFFFF: \004
209 tn3270*keysym.0xFF50: \001
211 tn3270*keysym.0xFF51: \002
213 tn3270*keysym.0xFF52: \020
215 tn3270*keysym.0xFF53: \006
217 tn3270*keysym.0xFF54: \016
219 tn3270*keysym.0xFF57: \005
222 tn3270*keysym.0xFFBE: \e1
223 tn3270*keysym.0xFFBF: \e2
224 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC0: \e3
225 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC1: \e4
226 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC2: \e5
227 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC3: \e6
228 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC4: \e7
229 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC5: \e8
230 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC6: \e9
231 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC7: \e0
232 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC8: \e-
233 tn3270*keysym.0xFFC9: \e=
235 ! map Prior/Next to F7/F8
236 tn3270*keysym.0xFF55: \e7
237 tn3270*keysym.0xFF56: \e8
241 Q: I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys.
242 How do I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4
243 has the following mappings that rxvt doesn't recognize.
252 A: Rather than have rxvt try to accomodate all the various possible
253 keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the
254 keys as required for your particular machine.
258 Q: How do I distinguish if I'm running rxvt or a regular xterm?
259 I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
261 A: rxvt always exports the variable "COLORTERM", so you can check and
262 see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn, Midnight
263 Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether or not
268 Q: How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
270 A: If you've compiled rxvt with DISPLAY_IS_IP then it is
271 possible to use the following shell script snippets to correctly set
272 the display. If your version of rxvt wasn't also compiled with
273 ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) then the COLORTERM
274 variable can be used to distinguish rxvt from a regular xterm.
276 Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell
279 # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
280 [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
281 if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
282 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
286 if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
287 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
288 read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell
292 csh/tcsh family of shells:
294 if ( !(${?TERM}) ) then # if term is unset, we are probably in an xterm
297 if ( ${TERM} =~ xterm ) then
298 stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not
302 if ( ""${term_id} == "^[[?1;2C" && ${?DISPLAY} == 0 ) then
303 echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we're in for the DISPLAY string
304 setenv DISPLAY "$<" # set it in our local shell
310 Q: How do I compile the manual pages for myself? Where do I obtain
313 A: You need to obtain yodl and compile it to make the manual pages
314 from source. The source code for yodl can currently be obtained
315 from http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien/yodl/index.html