RXVT REFERENCE - FAQ, command sequences and other background information
+=head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+ # set a new font set
+ printf '\33]50;%s\007' 9x15,xft:Kochi" Mincho"
+
+ # change the locale and tell rxvt-unicode about it
+ export LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.EUC-JP; printf "\33]701;$LC_CTYPE\007"
+
+ # set window title
+ printf '\33]2;%s\007' "new window title"
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+This document contains the FAQ, the RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE documenting
+all escape sequences, and other background information.
+
+The newest version of this document is
+also available on the World Wide Web at
+L<http://cvs.schmorp.de/browse/*checkout*/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.html>.
+
=head1 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
=over 4
=item How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
-sequence C<ESC[8n> sets the window title to the version number.
+sequence C<ESC [ 8 n> sets the window title to the version number.
+
+=item I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
+
+The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode contains large patches that
+considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. Before reporting a
+bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the
+genuine version (L<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 C<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.
=item When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
colours and some refresh errors in fullscreen applications. It's a nice
quick-and-dirty workaround for rare cases, though.
-If you always want to do this you can either recompile rxvt-unicode with
-the desired TERM value or use a resource to set it:
+If you always want to do this (and are fine with the consequences) you
+can either recompile rxvt-unicode with the desired TERM value or use a
+resource to set it:
URxvt.termName: rxvt
If you don't plan to use B<rxvt> (quite common...) you could also replace
the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.
+=item C<bash>'s readline does not work correctly under @@RXVT_NAME@@.
+
=item 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 long-obsoleted termcap
+(Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry for
+C<rxvt-unicode>.
+
You could use rxvt's termcap entry with resonable results in many cases.
You can also create a termcap entry by using terminfo's infocmp program
like this:
infocmp -C rxvt-unicode
-OR you could this termcap entry:
+Or you could use this termcap entry, generated by the command above:
rxvt-unicode|rxvt-unicode terminal (X Window System):\
:am:bw:eo:km:mi:ms:xn:xo:\
I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?> on
how to do this).
+=item My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
+
+Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no
+specific details were reported so far. It is possible that this is caused
+by the wrong C<TERM> setting, although the details of wether and how
+this can happen are unknown, as C<TERM=rxvt> should offer a compatible
+keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please report if that
+helped.
+
=item Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
=item Unicode does not seem to work?
Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same C<LC_CTYPE> setting as the
programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the C<C> locale, while the
login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale to
-sth. else, e.h. C<en_GB.UTF-8>. Needless to say, this is not going to work.
+something else, e.g. C<en_GB.UTF-8>. Needless to say, this is not going to work.
The best thing is to fix your startup environment, as you will likely run
into other problems. If nothing works you can try this in your .profile.
If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a C<LC_CTYPE> specification not
supported on your systems. Some systems have a C<locale> command which
-displays this. If it displays sth. like:
+displays this (also, C<perl -e0> can be used to check locale settings, as
+it will complain loudly if it cannot set the locale). If it displays something
+like:
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: ...
B<rxvt-unicode> makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement
font. Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks
-bad. Many fonts have totally strange characters that don't resemble the
-correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial intelligence
-to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe the font that
-the characters it contains indeed look correct.
+bad/ugly/wrong. Some fonts have totally strange characters that don't
+resemble the correct glyph at all, and rxvt-unicode lacks the artificial
+intelligence to detect that a specific glyph is wrong: it has to believe
+the font that the characters it claims to contain indeed look correct.
In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list,
e.g.:
next font, and so on. Specifying your own fonts will also speed up this
search and use less resources within rxvt-unicode and the X-server.
-The only limitation is that all the fonts must not be larger than the base
-font, as the base font defines the principal cell size, which must be the
-same due to the way terminals work.
+The only limitation is that none of the fonts may be larger than the base
+font, as the base font defines the terminal character cell size, which
+must be the same due to the way terminals work.
=item Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
This is because there is a difference between script and language --
-rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output
-is, as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode
-first sees a japanese character, it might choose a japanese font for
-it. Subsequent japanese characters will take that font. Now, many chinese
-characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
+rxvt-unicode does not know which language the text that is output is,
+as it only knows the unicode character codes. If rxvt-unicode first
+sees a japanese/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for
+display. Subsequent japanese characters will use that font. Now, many
+chinese characters aren't represented in japanese fonts, so when the first
non-japanese character comes up, rxvt-unicode will look for a chinese font
-- unfortunately at this point, it will still use the japanese font for
-japanese characters that are also chinese.
+chinese characters that are also in the japanese font.
The workaround is easy: just tag a chinese font at the end of your font
list (see the previous question). The key is to view the font list as
a preference list: If you expect more japanese, list a japanese font
first. If you expect more chinese, put a chinese font first.
-In the future it might be possible to switch preferences at runtime (the
-internal data structure has no problem with using different fonts for
-the same character at the same time, but no interface for this has been
-designed yet).
+In the future it might be possible to switch language preferences at
+runtime (the internal data structure has no problem with using different
+fonts for the same character at the same time, but no interface for this
+has been designed yet).
+
+Until then, you might get away with switching fonts at runtime (see L<Can
+I switch the fonts at runtime?> later in this document).
=item Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
=item How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
-First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminfo
-(C<urxvt>), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then make sure
-you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise rxvt-unicode
-might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
+First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings
+(C<TERM=rxvt-unicode>), which will get rid of most of these effects. Then
+make sure you have specified colours for italic and bold, as otherwise
+rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:
- URxvt*colorBD: white
- URxvt*colorIT: green
+ URxvt.colorBD: white
+ URxvt.colorIT: green
=item Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
-For some unexplainable reason, some programs (i.e. irssi) assume a very
-weird colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the
-standard 8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of
-course, to fix these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very
-good reasons.
+For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird
+colour palette when confronted with a terminal with more than the standard
+8 colours (rxvt-unicode supports 88). The right fix is, of course, to fix
+these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very good reasons.
-In the meantime, you can either edit your C<urxvt> terminfo definition to
-only claim 8 colour support or use C<TERM=rxvt>, which will fix colours
-but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
+In the meantime, you can either edit your C<rxvt-unicode> terminfo
+definition to only claim 8 colour support or use C<TERM=rxvt>, which will
+fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.
=item I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
As you might have guessed, FreeBSD does neither define this symobl nor
does it support it. Instead, it uses it's own internal representation of
-B<wchar_t>. This is, of course, completely legal.
+B<wchar_t>. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.
However, C<__STDC_ISO_10646__> is the only sane way to support
multi-language apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and
The rxvt-unicode author insists that the right way to fix this is in the
system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry
-complete replacements.
+complete replacements for them :)
=item How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
The reasons is that there exists a perfectly fine mechanism for selecting
the encoding, doing I/O and (most important) communicating this to all
-applications so everybody agrees on character properties such as width and
-code number. This mechanism is the I<locale>.
+applications so everybody agrees on character properties such as width
+and code number. This mechanism is the I<locale>. Applications not using
+that info will have problems (for example, C<xterm> gets the width of
+characters wrong as it uses it's own, locale-independent table under all
+locales).
Rxvt-unicode uses the C<LC_CTYPE> locale category to select encoding. All
programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the
Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for
the encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings,
-i.e. C<de_DE.UTF-8> and C<ja_JP.UTF-8> are the same for rxvt-unicode.
+i.e. C<de_DE.UTF-8> and C<ja_JP.UTF-8> are the normally same to
+rxvt-unicode.
If you want to use a specific encoding you have to make sure you start
rxvt-unicode with the correct C<LC_CTYPE> category.
=item Can I switch locales at runtime?
-Yes, using an escape sequence. Try sth. like this, which sets
+Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets
rxvt-unicode's idea of C<LC_CTYPE>.
printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
-See also the previous question.
+See also the previous answer.
-Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one
-locale (e.g. C<de_DE.UTF-8>) but some programs don't support UTF-8. For
-example, I use this script to start C<xjdic>, which first switches to a
-locale supported by xjdic and back later:
+Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in
+one locale (e.g. C<de_DE.UTF-8>) but some programs don't support it
+(e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start C<xjdic>, which
+first switches to a locale supported by xjdic and back later:
printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
xjdic -js
printf '\e]701;%s\007' de_DE.UTF-8
+You can also use xterm's C<luit> program, which usually works fine, except
+for some locales where character width differs between program- and
+rxvt-unicode-locales.
+
=item Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
-Yes, using an escape sequence. Try sth. like this, which has the same
+Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the same
effect as using the C<-fn> switch, and takes effect immediately:
printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For
example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font C<xft:Bitstream Vera Sans
-Mono> completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround is to enable
-freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
+Mono> completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to
+enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this:
- URxvt*italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
- URxvt*boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
+ URxvt.italicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:italic:autohint=true
+ URxvt.boldItalicFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:bold:italic:autohint=true
=item My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
=item Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
-Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for sth. you
+Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something you
don't use. One thing you should try is to configure out all settings that
you don't need, for example, Xft support is a resource hog by design,
when used. Compiling it out ensures that no Xft font will be loaded
Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen,
including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
- URxvt*color0: #000000
- URxvt*color1: #A80000
- URxvt*color2: #00A800
- URxvt*color3: #A8A800
- URxvt*color4: #0000A8
- URxvt*color5: #A800A8
- URxvt*color6: #00A8A8
- URxvt*color7: #A8A8A8
-
- URxvt*color8: #000054
- URxvt*color9: #FF0054
- URxvt*color10: #00FF54
- URxvt*color11: #FFFF54
- URxvt*color12: #0000FF
- URxvt*color13: #FF00FF
- URxvt*color14: #00FFFF
- URxvt*color15: #FFFFFF
-
-And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described as
-"pretty girly":
+ URxvt.color0: #000000
+ URxvt.color1: #A80000
+ URxvt.color2: #00A800
+ URxvt.color3: #A8A800
+ URxvt.color4: #0000A8
+ URxvt.color5: #A800A8
+ URxvt.color6: #00A8A8
+ URxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
+
+ URxvt.color8: #000054
+ URxvt.color9: #FF0054
+ URxvt.color10: #00FF54
+ URxvt.color11: #FFFF54
+ URxvt.color12: #0000FF
+ URxvt.color13: #FF00FF
+ URxvt.color14: #00FFFF
+ URxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
+
+And here is a more complete set of non-standard colors described (not by
+me) as "pretty girly".
URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1
URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1
URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
+=item How can I start @@RXVT_NAME@@d in a race-free way?
+
+Despite it's name, @@RXVT_NAME@@d is not a real daemon, but more like a
+server that answers @@RXVT_NAME@@c's requests, so it doesn't background
+itself.
+
+To ensure @@RXVT_NAME@@d is listening on it's socket, you can use the
+following method to wait for the startup message before continuing:
+
+ { @@RXVT_NAME@@d & } | read
+
=item What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
$ stty erase ^?
$ @@RXVT_NAME@@
-Toggle with "ESC[36h" / "ESC[36l" as documented in @@RXVT_NAME@@(7).
+Toggle with C<ESC [ 36 h> / C<ESC [ 36 l> as documented in @@RXVT_NAME@@(7).
For an existing rxvt-unicode:
The Delete key is a another casualty of the ill-defined Backspace problem.
To avoid confusion between the Backspace and Delete keys, the Delete
key has been assigned an escape sequence to match the vt100 for Execute
-(ESC[3~) and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
+(C<ESC [ 3 ~>) and is in the supplied termcap/terminfo.
Some other Backspace problems:
you have run "configure" with the C<--disable-resources> option you can
use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms.
-Here's an example for a URxvt session started using `@@RXVT_NAME@@ -name URxvt'
+Here's an example for a URxvt session started using C<@@RXVT_NAME@@ -name URxvt>
URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~
URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~
keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the keys as
required for your particular machine.
-=item How do I distinguish if I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
+=item How do I distinguish wether I'm running rxvt-unicode or a regular xterm?
I need this to decide about setting colors etc.
rxvt and rxvt-unicode always export the variable "COLORTERM", so you can
=back
-=head1 SYNOPSIS
-
- # set a new font set
- printf '\33]50;%s\007' 9x15,xft:Kochi" Mincho"
-
- # change the locale and tell rxvt-unicode about it
- export LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.EUC-JP; printf "\33]701;$LC_CTYPE\007"
-
- # set window title
- printf '\33]2;%s\007' "new window title"
+=head1 RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE
=head1 DESCRIPTION
followed by menu and pixmap support and last by a description of all
features selectable at C<configure> time.
-=head1 RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE
-
=head1 Definitions
=over 4
=item B<< C<ESC Z> >>
-Obsolete form of returns: B<< C<ESC[?1;2C> >> I<rxvt-unicode compile-time option>
+Obsolete form of returns: B<< C<ESC [ ? 1 ; 2 C> >> I<rxvt-unicode compile-time option>
=item B<< C<ESC c> >>
Invoke the G3 Character Set (LS3)
-=item B<< C<ESC> ( C> >>
+=item B<< C<ESC ( C> >>
Designate G0 Character Set (ISO 2022), see below for values of C<C>.
-=item B<< C<ESC> ) C> >>
+=item B<< C<ESC ) C> >>
Designate G1 Character Set (ISO 2022), see below for values of C<C>.
Send Device Attributes (DA)
B<< C<Ps = 0> >> (or omitted): request attributes from terminal
-returns: B<< C<ESC[?1;2c> >> (``I am a VT100 with Advanced Video
+returns: B<< C<ESC [ ? 1 ; 2 c> >> (``I am a VT100 with Advanced Video
Option'')
=item B<< C<ESC [ Ps d> >>
B<< C<Ps = 6> >> Lower window
B<< C<Ps = 7> >> Refresh screen once
B<< C<Ps = 8> >> B<< C<ESC [ 8 ; R ; C t> >> Resize to R rows and C columns
- B<< C<Ps = 11> >> Report window state (responds with C<Ps = 1> or C<Ps = 2>
+ B<< C<Ps = 11> >> Report window state (responds with C<Ps = 1> or C<Ps = 2>)
B<< C<Ps = 13> >> Report window position (responds with C<Ps = 3>)
B<< C<Ps = 14> >> Report window pixel size (responds with C<Ps = 4>)
B<< C<Ps = 18> >> Report window text size (responds with C<Ps = 7>)
with B<M-> (eg, B<M-$> is equivalent to B<\E$>) and a B<CR> will be
appended if missed from B<M-x> commands.
-As a convenience for issuing XTerm B<ESC]> sequences from a menubar (or
+As a convenience for issuing XTerm B<ESC ]> sequences from a menubar (or
quick arrow), a B<BEL> (B<^G>) will be appended if needed.
=over 4
=item --enable-xgetdefault
Make resources checking via XGetDefault() instead of our small
-version which only checks ~/.Xdefaults, or if that doesn't exist
-then ~/.Xresources.
+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.
=item --enable-strings
window op and locale change escape sequences
tripleclickwords
settable insecure mode
+ keysym remapping support
=item --enable-iso14755