From fa79a1e12a3875b810640c93c65ab5049fa921ae Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: root Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:58:20 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] *** empty log message *** --- README.FAQ | 1816 +++++++++++++++++++++++------------------------ doc/rxvt.7.html | 968 +++++++++---------------- 2 files changed, 1221 insertions(+), 1563 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.FAQ b/README.FAQ index 0d72d83e..497bd5b1 100644 --- a/README.FAQ +++ b/README.FAQ @@ -1,941 +1,905 @@ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select - single words? - Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can - use the following resource: + The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select +single words? + If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following + setting: - URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+) - If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more - and more. + If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more and + more. - To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this - pattern: + To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this + pattern: - URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) + URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+) - Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination - also selects words like the old code. + Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination also + selects words like the old code. - I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I - change/disable it? - You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the - perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps - rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. + I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I +change/disable it? + You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the + perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps + rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. - If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to - identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the - section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For - example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify - this perl-ext-common resource: + If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to + identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section + PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to + disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this + perl-ext-common resource: - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup - This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup - extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, - scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any - other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback - resource: + This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup + extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, + scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other + combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource: - URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s + URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s - The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I - switch this off? - During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs - strange escape sequences, how do I fix this? - These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal - circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into - the line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong - moment, but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor - movements or in some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to - detect this properly. + The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how +do I switch this off? + During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor +outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this? + These are caused by the "readline" perl extension. Under normal + circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the + line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment, + but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in + some cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly. - You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the - "readline" extension: + You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the "readline" + extension: - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline - - Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? - Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X - applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS - loads resources into the X display (the right way to do it), - rxvt-unicode will ignore any resource files in your home directory. - It will only read $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to - the display. - - If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that - resources are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to - re-login after every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). - - Also consider the form resources have to use: - - URxvt.resource: value - - If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of - specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it - works. If unsure, use the form above. - - I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? - First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in - rxvt-unicode, so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author - about it (but you may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it - working consider it a rite of passage: ... and you failed. - - Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and - option descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. - Really, do it! - - 1. Use inheritPixmap: - - Esetroot wallpaper.jpg - rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40 - - That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and - tinting support, or you are unable to read. - - 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables - you to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just - shade/tint/whatever your picture with gimp: - - convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm - rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background - - That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, - or you are unable to read. - - 3. Use an ARGB visual: - - rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc - - This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that - doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals - aren't there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains - the neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it - work, but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in - place. - - 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job: - - xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \ - -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000 - - Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace - 0xc0000000 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it - doesn't work and your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces. - - Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? - I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause - extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you - can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables - always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) - after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is - a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding - conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. - - text data bss drs rss filename - 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything - 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything - - When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves - xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 - and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. - - text data bss drs rss filename - 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything - 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything - - The very large size of the text section is explained by the - east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but - nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core - fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k - emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course - doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font - instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft - indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used. - - Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of - one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use - more memory. - - Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), - this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like - gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or - konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after - exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of - warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*. - - Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? - Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: - I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a - fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). - Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. - - My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but - in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability - limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale - support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than - C++ itself. - - Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write - programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to - write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large - libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is - what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config: - - libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) - libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) - libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) - /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) - - And here is rxvt-unicode: - - libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) - libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) - libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) - libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) - /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) - - No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in - statically), except maybe libX11 :) - - Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? - Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that - implements a simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so - any of these should give you tabs: - - rxvt -pe tabbed - - URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed - - It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window - managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features - allow it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by - doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which - features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding - application. - - How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? - The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape - sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. - When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the - daemon. - - I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... - The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large - patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but - unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug - to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the - genuine version () and try - to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the - problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should - be reported via the Debian Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to - report the bug). - - For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and - probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's - also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for - other users that might encounter the same issue. - - I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any - recommendation? - You should build one binary with the default options. configure now - enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them - runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling - them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl - interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, - selection, likely more in the future) depends on it. - - You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" - resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will - result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, - add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. - This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables - it. - - If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal - one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with - "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot - of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely - used). - - I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this - safe? - It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to - properly install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. - - When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will - fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling - on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop - privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals - that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, - as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" - to attackers). - - This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very - early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before - main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which - should result in very little risk. - - When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? - The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely - available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same - problem often arises). - - The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, - this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): - - REMOTE=remotesystem.domain - infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" - - ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, - - If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set - "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of - problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and - different 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 (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 rxvt (quite common...) you could also - replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. - - "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. - Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it - by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. - - "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. - I need a termcap file entry. - One reason you might want this is that some distributions or - operating systems still compile some programs using the - long-obsoleted termcap library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) - and rely on a termcap entry for "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 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:\ - :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ - :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ - :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ - :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ - :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ - :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ - :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ - :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ - :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ - :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ - :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ - :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ - :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\ - :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\ - :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ - :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ - :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ - :vs=\E[?25h: - - Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? - The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to - decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration - file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file - (among with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: - - TERM rxvt-unicode - - to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: - - alias ls='ls --color=auto' - - to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". - - Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? - Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? - Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? - Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged - distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by - setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. - Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) - furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, - so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I - log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on - how to do this). - - 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 "TERM" setting, although the details of wether - and how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a - compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and - please report if that helped. - - Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? - Unicode does not seem to work? - If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character - but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program - output is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale - settings. - - Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the - programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the - login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the - locale to something else, e.g. "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. - - printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" - - If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification - not supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command - which displays this (also, "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: ... - - Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. - - If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly - then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs - just don't support locales :( - - Why do some characters look so much different than others? - How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? - Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. - Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of - your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you - want to display. - - rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. - Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks - 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.: - - rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... - - When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base - font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to - the 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 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. - - 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/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 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 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 - "Can I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document). - - Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings? - Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that - character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for - terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. - Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are - just "a bit" too wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used - that redraws adjacent characters. - - All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, - however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed - bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the - correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which - unfortunately is wrong in these cases). - - It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, - freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you - might try using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If - that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font. - - All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their - bounding box data is correct. - - On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. - Seems to be a known bug, read - . Some people use the - following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: - - #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) - - My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. - The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not - set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported - by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and - your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose - keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual), - then rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method. - - In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more - than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None. - - I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO - 14755 - Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on - international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your - advantage, typing to get a ASCII NUL. This works for - other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default - telnet escape character and so on. - - How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much? - First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal - settings ("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 - - Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how - can I fix that? - 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 "rxvt-unicode" terminfo - definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which - will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode - features. - - I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. - Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined - in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements - it, wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" - requires that wchar_t is represented as unicode. - - 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 wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with - respect to standards. - - However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" - and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t. - - "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language - apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) - representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between - wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other - encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and - every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into - anything except the current locale encoding. - - Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this - by carrying their own replacement functions for character set - handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or - doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the - OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal - emulator). - - 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 for them :) - - I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. - Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst - problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. - - How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? - rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using - the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no - longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a - single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or - "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as - the old libW11 emulation. - - At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any - multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are - likely limited to 8-bit encodings. - - How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? - Is there an option to switch encodings? - Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, - and no specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't - even know about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to - terminal I/O. - - 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 *locale*. - Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, - "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, - locale-independent table under all locales). - - Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. - All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree - in the interpretation of characters. - - Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, - nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. - - On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable - contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an - already-installed locale. Common names for locales are - "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. - "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. "de" or "german") - are also common. - - Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the - encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. - "de_DE.UTF-8" and "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 "LC_CTYPE" category. - - Can I switch locales at runtime? - Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets - rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". - - printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS - - See also the previous answer. - - Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in - one locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it - (e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "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 "luit" program, which usually works fine, - except for some locales where character width differs between - program- and rxvt-unicode-locales. - - Can I switch the fonts at runtime? - Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has - the same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect - immediately: - - printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" - - This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer - a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, - where japanese fonts would only be in your way. - - You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. - - Why do italic characters look as if clipped? - Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For - example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera - Sans 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 - - My input method wants but I want UTF-8, what can I do? - You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest - of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": - - URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP - - Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and - still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not - be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, - as your input method limits you. - - Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. - Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by - design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory - leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering - at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally - succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, - however, crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides - cooperate. - - So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. - - Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? - 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 accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find - a font for your characters. - - Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger - scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will - use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to - almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will - then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" - it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. - - Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? - Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, - as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to - disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves - lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. - - Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? - Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to - fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core - fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It - has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author - thinks they look best that way. - - If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. - - Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. - Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing - some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. - I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise - specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt - or Shift keys are depressed. - - What's with this bold/blink stuff? - If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using - the standard foreground colour. - - For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the - text blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard - colours. Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be - ignored. - - On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set - high-intensity foreground/background colors. - - color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. - - color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. - - I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? - You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults - resources (or as long-options). - - 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 - (not by me) as "pretty girly". - - URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 - URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 - URxvt.background: #0e0e0e - URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 - URxvt.color0: #000000 - URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 - URxvt.color1: #dc74d1 - URxvt.color9: #dc74d1 - URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7 - URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7 - URxvt.color3: #dfe37e - URxvt.color11: #dfe37e - URxvt.color5: #9e88f0 - URxvt.color13: #9e88f0 - URxvt.color6: #73f7ff - URxvt.color14: #73f7ff - URxvt.color7: #e1dddd - URxvt.color15: #e1dddd - - How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? - Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the - listening socket and then fork. - - What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? - Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the - BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following - question) there are two standard values that can be used for - Backspace: "^H" and "^?". - - Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the - debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only - only correct choice :). - - Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the - value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode - wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote - shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to - CERASE in , will be used (which may not be the same as - your stty setting). - - For starting a new rxvt-unicode: - - # use Backspace = ^H - $ stty erase ^H - $ rxvt - - # use Backspace = ^? - $ stty erase ^? - $ rxvt - - Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l". - - For an existing rxvt-unicode: - - # use Backspace = ^H - $ stty erase ^H - $ echo -n "^[[36h" - - # use Backspace = ^? - $ stty erase ^? - $ echo -n "^[[36l" - - This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, - but if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo - value properly reflects that. - - 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. - - Some other Backspace problems: - - some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) - expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for - help. - - Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner. - - I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them? - There are some compile-time selections available via configure. - Unless you have run "configure" with the "--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 - URxvt" - - URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~ - URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~ - URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033 - URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033 - URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033 - URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033 - URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033 - URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007 - - See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource. - - 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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize. - KP_Insert == Insert - F22 == Print - F27 == Home - F29 == Prior - F33 == End - F35 == Next - - Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various - possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap - the keys as required for your particular machine. - - 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 check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, - slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide - whether or not to use color. - - How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable? - If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled - insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script - snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of - rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in - these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to - distinguish rxvt-unicode from a regular xterm. - - Courtesy of Chuck Blake with the following shell - script snippets: - - # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells: - [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know - if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then - stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not - echo -n '^[Z' - read term_id - stty icanon echo - if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then - echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string - read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell - fi - fi - - How do I compile the manual pages for myself? - You need to have a recent version of perl installed as - /usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. - Then go to the doc subdirectory and enter "make alldoc". - - My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human? - Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", - channel "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might - be interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not - FAQs :). + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline + + Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources? + Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X + applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads + resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will + ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read + $HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display. + + If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources + are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after + every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources). + + Also consider the form resources have to use: + + URxvt.resource: value + + If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of + specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it works. + If unsure, use the form above. + + I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong? + First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, + so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you + may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a + rite of passage: ... and you failed. + + Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option + descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it! + + 1. Use inheritPixmap: + + Esetroot wallpaper.jpg + rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40 + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting + support, or you are unable to read. + + 2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you + to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever + your picture with gimp: + + convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm + rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background + + That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or + you are unable to read. + + 3. Use an ARGB visual: + + rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc + + This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that + doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't + there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the + neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, + but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place. + + 4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job: + + xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \ + -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000 + + Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000 + by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and + your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces. + + Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? + I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra + bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see + that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always + being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after + startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is a bit + unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion, + iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything + 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything + + When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft + and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my + libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything + 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything + + The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian + encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else + and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those + encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k emergency buffer that my c++ + compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of + memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds + a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even + when not used. + + Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of + one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use + more memory. + + Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this + still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like + gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole + (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half + a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits + out), it fares extremely well *g*. + + Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? + Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I + had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a + fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put + even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. + + My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in + the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits + are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and + unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself. + + Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs + in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in + C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is + not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my + system with a minimal config: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + And here is rxvt-unicode: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically), + except maybe libX11 :) + + Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? + Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a + simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these + should give you tabs: + + rxvt -pe tabbed + + URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed + + It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window + managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow + it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed + or the upcoming "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt + (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application. + + How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? + The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape + sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. When + using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the daemon. + + I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... + The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large + patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but + unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to + the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine + version () and try to reproduce + the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific + to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian + Bug Tracking System (use "reportbug" to report the bug). + + For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and + probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a + bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users + that might encounter the same issue. + + I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any +recommendation? + You should build one binary with the default options. configure now + enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them + runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling + them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter + should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely + more in the future) depends on it. + + You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext" resources + system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will result in useful + behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty + "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the + perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it. + + If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one + with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with + "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of + encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used). + + I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe? + It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly + install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. + + When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork + into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some + systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges + immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep + privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains + things as perl interpreters, which might be "helpful" to attackers). + + This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very + early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before + main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should + result in very little risk. + + When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? + The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available + as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often + arises). + + The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this + can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp): + + REMOTE=remotesystem.domain + infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti" + + ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system, + + If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set + "TERM=rxvt" or even "TERM=xterm", and live with the small number of + problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different + 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 (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 rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace + the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. + + "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. + Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it by + "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. + + "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. + I need a termcap file entry. + One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating + systems still compile some programs using the long-obsoleted termcap + library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry + for "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 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:\ + :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ + :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ + :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ + :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ + :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ + :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ + :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ + :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ + :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ + :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ + :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ + :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ + :kh=\E[7~:kl=\EOD:kr=\EOC:ks=\E[?1h\E=:ku=\EOA:le=^H:\ + :mb=\E[5m:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m\017:mr=\E[7m:nd=\E[C:rc=\E8:\ + :sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:so=\E[7m:sr=\EM:st=\EH:ta=^I:\ + :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\ + :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\ + :vs=\E[?25h: + + Why does "ls" no longer have coloured output? + The "ls" in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to + decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration + file. Needless to say, "rxvt-unicode" is not in it's default file (among + with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: + + TERM rxvt-unicode + + to "/etc/DIR_COLORS" or simply add: + + alias ls='ls --color=auto' + + to your ".profile" or ".bashrc". + + Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode? + Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic? + Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly? + Make sure you are using "TERM=rxvt-unicode". Some pre-packaged + distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by + setting "TERM" to "rxvt", which doesn't have these extra features. + Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) + furthermore fail to even install the "rxvt-unicode" terminfo file, so + you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in + to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on how to do + this). + + 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 "TERM" setting, although the details of wether and + how this can happen are unknown, as "TERM=rxvt" should offer a + compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please + report if that helped. + + Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding? + Unicode does not seem to work? + If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but + getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output + is subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings. + + Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same "LC_CTYPE" setting as the + programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the "C" locale, while the + login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale + to something else, e.g. "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. + + printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE" + + If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a "LC_CTYPE" specification not + supported on your systems. Some systems have a "locale" command which + displays this (also, "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: ... + + Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system. + + If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then + you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't + support locales :( + + Why do some characters look so much different than others? + How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts? + Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. + Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your + system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want to + display. + + rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. + Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks + 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.: + + rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... + + When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font. + If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the 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 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. + + 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/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 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 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 "Can + I switch the fonts at runtime?" later in this document). + + Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings? + Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that + character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal + use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode + will avoid these characters. For characters that are just "a bit" too + wide a special "careful" rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent + characters. + + All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, + however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed + bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct + way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is + wrong in these cases). + + It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype, + or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try + using the "-lsp" option to give the font more height. If that doesn't + work, you might be forced to use a different font. + + All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their + bounding box data is correct. + + On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. + Seems to be a known bug, read + . Some people use the + following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: + + #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) + + My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. + The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set + correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your + input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input + method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not + support this (for instance because it is not visual), then rxvt-unicode + will continue without an input method. + + In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than + one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None. + + I cannot type "Ctrl-Shift-2" to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755 + Either try "Ctrl-2" alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on + international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your + advantage, typing to get a ASCII NUL. This works for + other codes, too, such as "Ctrl-Shift-1-d" to type the default telnet + escape character and so on. + + How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much? + First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings + ("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 + + Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that? + 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 "rxvt-unicode" terminfo + definition to only claim 8 colour support or use "TERM=rxvt", which will + fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features. + + I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all. + Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol "__STDC_ISO_10646__" to be defined in + your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it, + wether it defines the symbol or not. "__STDC_ISO_10646__" requires that + wchar_t is represented as unicode. + + 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 + wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards. + + However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" and + "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t. + + "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language apps + in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) + representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between wchar_t + (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other encoding without + implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There + simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current + locale encoding. + + Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by + carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with + them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple + conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements + encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator). + + 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 for them :) + + I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. + Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst + problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. + + How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? + rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the + X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer + supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single + font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or + "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the + old libW11 emulation. + + At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any + multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are + likely limited to 8-bit encodings. + + How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? + Is there an option to switch encodings? + Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no + specific "utf-8" mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know + about UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O. + + 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 *locale*. + Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, + "xterm" gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, + locale-independent table under all locales). + + Rxvt-unicode uses the "LC_CTYPE" locale category to select encoding. All + programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the + interpretation of characters. + + Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor + is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like. + + On most systems, the content of the "LC_CTYPE" environment variable + contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed + locale. Common names for locales are "en_US.UTF-8", "de_DE.ISO-8859-15", + "ja_JP.EUC-JP", i.e. "language_country.encoding", but other forms (i.e. + "de" or "german") are also common. + + Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the + encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. + "de_DE.UTF-8" and "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 "LC_CTYPE" category. + + Can I switch locales at runtime? + Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets + rxvt-unicode's idea of "LC_CTYPE". + + printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS + + See also the previous answer. + + Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one + locale (e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8") but some programs don't support it (e.g. + UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start "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 "luit" program, which usually works fine, + except for some locales where character width differs between program- + and rxvt-unicode-locales. + + Can I switch the fonts at runtime? + Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the + same effect as using the "-fn" switch, and takes effect immediately: + + printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic" + + This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a + japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where + japanese fonts would only be in your way. + + You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching. + + Why do italic characters look as if clipped? + Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For + example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans + 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 + + My input method wants but I want UTF-8, what can I do? + You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of + the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": + + URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP + + Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and still + use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able + to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, as your input + method limits you. + + Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits. + Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by + design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory + leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at + exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while + SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, crashes + cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate. + + So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers. + + Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that? + 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 accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your + characters. + + Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger + scrollback buffers: Without "--enable-unicode3", rxvt-unicode will use 6 + bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a + kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if + full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With "--enable-unicode3" it gets + worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. + + Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? + Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it + is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable + antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves lots of + memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. + + Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? + Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to + fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core + fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has + antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they + look best that way. + + If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually. + + Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. + Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some + editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard + that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick + check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are + depressed. + + What's with this bold/blink stuff? + If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using the + standard foreground colour. + + For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text + blink when compiled with "--enable-blinking". with standard colours. + Without "--enable-blinking", the blink attribute will be ignored. + + On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity + foreground/background colors. + + color0-7 are the low-intensity colors. + + color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors. + + I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them? + You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults + resources (or as long-options). + + 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 (not by + me) as "pretty girly". + + URxvt.cursorColor: #dc74d1 + URxvt.pointerColor: #dc74d1 + URxvt.background: #0e0e0e + URxvt.foreground: #4ad5e1 + URxvt.color0: #000000 + URxvt.color8: #8b8f93 + URxvt.color1: #dc74d1 + URxvt.color9: #dc74d1 + URxvt.color2: #0eb8c7 + URxvt.color10: #0eb8c7 + URxvt.color3: #dfe37e + URxvt.color11: #dfe37e + URxvt.color5: #9e88f0 + URxvt.color13: #9e88f0 + URxvt.color6: #73f7ff + URxvt.color14: #73f7ff + URxvt.color7: #e1dddd + URxvt.color15: #e1dddd + + How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? + Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the + listening socket and then fork. + + What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? + Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace + keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are + two standard values that can be used for Backspace: "^H" and "^?". + + Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the + debian policy of using "^?" when unsure, because it's the one only only + correct choice :). + + Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the + value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode + wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), + then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in + , will be used (which may not be the same as your stty + setting). + + For starting a new rxvt-unicode: + + # use Backspace = ^H + $ stty erase ^H + $ rxvt + + # use Backspace = ^? + $ stty erase ^? + $ rxvt + + Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l". + + For an existing rxvt-unicode: + + # use Backspace = ^H + $ stty erase ^H + $ echo -n "^[[36h" + + # use Backspace = ^? + $ stty erase ^? + $ echo -n "^[[36l" + + This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but + if you use Backspace = "^H", make sure that the termcap/terminfo value + properly reflects that. + + 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. + + Some other Backspace problems: + + some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect + Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help. + + Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner. + + I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them? + There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless + you have run "configure" with the "--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 URxvt" + + URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~ + URxvt.keysym.End: \033[4~ + URxvt.keysym.C-apostrophe: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-slash: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-semicolon: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-grave: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-comma: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-period: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-0x60: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-Tab: \033 + URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033 + URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033 + URxvt.keysym.S-space: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Up: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Down: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Left: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-Right: \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-C-0: list \033 + URxvt.keysym.M-C-a: list \033 + URxvt.keysym.F12: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007 + + See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource. + + 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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize. + KP_Insert == Insert + F22 == Print + F27 == Home + F29 == Prior + F33 == End + F35 == Next + + Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various + possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the + keys as required for your particular machine. + + 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 + check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn, + Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether + or not to use color. + + How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable? + If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled + insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script + snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode + wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) + then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from + a regular xterm. + + Courtesy of Chuck Blake with the following shell script + snippets: + + # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells: + [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know + if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then + stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15 # see if enhanced rxvt or not + echo -n '^[Z' + read term_id + stty icanon echo + if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then + echo -n '^[[7n' # query the rxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string + read DISPLAY # set it in our local shell + fi + fi + + How do I compile the manual pages for myself? + You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl, + one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. Then go to the doc + subdirectory and enter "make alldoc". + + My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human? + Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: "irc.freenode.net", channel + "#rxvt-unicode" has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be + interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :). diff --git a/doc/rxvt.7.html b/doc/rxvt.7.html index e7973203..a23daa43 100644 --- a/doc/rxvt.7.html +++ b/doc/rxvt.7.html @@ -18,7 +18,63 @@
  • FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
  • RXVT TECHNICAL REFERENCE
    • @@ -69,10 +125,9 @@ all escape sequences, and other background information.

    FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

    -

    The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select -single words?

    -

    Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can use -the following resource:

    +

    The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select single words?

    +

    If you want to select e.g. alphanumeric words, you can use the following +setting:

        URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)

    If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended @@ -82,181 +137,117 @@ more and more.

    URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)

    Please also note that the LeftClick Shift-LeftClik combination also selects words like the old code.

    -
    -
    I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I -change/disable it?
    -
    -
    -You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the +

    +

    +

    I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I change/disable it?

    +

    You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps -rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory. -

    -
    +rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.

    If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify this perl-ext-common resource:

    -
    -
        URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
    -
    -

    This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example, scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback resource:

    -
    -
        URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
    -
    -

    -
    The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how -do I switch this off?
    -
    -
    During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor -outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?
    -
    -
    -These are caused by the readline perl extension. Under normal +

    +

    +

    The cursor moves when selecting text in the current input line, how do I switch this off?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    During rlogin/ssh/telnet/etc. sessions, clicking near the cursor outputs strange escape sequences, how do I fix this?

    +

    These are caused by the readline perl extension. Under normal circumstances, it will move your cursor around when you click into the line that contains it. It tries hard not to do this at the wrong moment, but when running a program that doesn't parse cursor movements or in some -cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly. -

    -
    +cases during rlogin sessions, it fails to detect this properly.

    You can permamently switch this feature off by disabling the readline extension:

    -
    -
        URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-readline
    -
    -

    -
    Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?
    -
    -
    -Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X +

    +

    +

    Why doesn't rxvt-unicode read my resources?

    +

    Well, why, indeed? It does, in a way very similar to other X applications. Most importantly, this means that if you or your OS loads resources into the X display (the right way to do it), rxvt-unicode will ignore any resource files in your home directory. It will only read -$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display. -

    -
    +$HOME/.Xdefaults when no resources are attached to the display.

    If you have or use an $HOME/.Xresources file, chances are that resources are loaded into your X-server. In this case, you have to re-login after every change (or run xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources).

    -
    -

    Also consider the form resources have to use:

    -
    -
       URxvt.resource: value
    -
    -

    If you want to use another form (there are lots of different ways of specifying resources), make sure you understand wether and why it works. If unsure, use the form above.

    -
    -

    -
    I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?
    -
    -
    -First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, so +

    +

    +

    I can't get transparency working, what am I doing wrong?

    +

    First of all, transparency isn't officially supported in rxvt-unicode, so you are mostly on your own. Do not bug the author about it (but you may bug everybody else). Also, if you can't get it working consider it a rite -of passage: ... and you failed. -

    -
    +of passage: ... and you failed.

    Here are four ways to get transparency. Do read the manpage and option descriptions for the programs mentioned and rxvt-unicode. Really, do it!

    -
    -

    1. Use inheritPixmap:

    -
    -
        Esetroot wallpaper.jpg
    rxvt -ip -tint red -sh 40
    -
    -

    That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack transparency and tinting support, or you are unable to read.

    -
    -

    2. Use a simple pixmap and emulate pseudo-transparency. This enables you to use effects other than tinting and shading: Just shade/tint/whatever your picture with gimp:

    -
    -
        convert wallpaper.jpg -blur 20x20 -modulate 30 background.xpm
    rxvt -pixmap background.xpm -pe automove-background
    -
    -

    That works. If you think it doesn't, you lack XPM and Perl support, or you are unable to read.

    -
    -

    3. Use an ARGB visual:

    -
    -
        rxvt -depth 32 -fg grey90 -bg rgba:0000/0000/4444/cccc
    -
    -

    This requires XFT support, and the support of your X-server. If that doesn't work for you, blame Xorg and Keith Packard. ARGB visuals aren't there yet, no matter what they claim. Rxvt-Unicode contains the neccessary bugfixes and workarounds for Xft and Xlib to make it work, but that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place.

    -
    -

    4. Use xcompmgr and let it do the job:

    -
    -
       xprop -frame -f _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c \
         -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0xc0000000
    -
    -

    Then click on a window you want to make transparent. Replace 0xc0000000 by other values to change the degree of opacity. If it doesn't work and your server crashes, you got to keep the pieces.

    -
    -

    -
    Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
    -
    -
    -I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra +

    +

    +

    Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?

    +

    I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) after startup. Even with --disable-everything, this comparison is a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding conversion, iso14755 etc.) are -already in use in this mode. -

    -
    +already in use in this mode.

         text    data     bss     drs     rss filename
    98398    1664      24   15695    1824 rxvt --disable-everything
   188985    9048   66616   18222    1788 urxvt --disable-everything
    -
    -

    When you --enable-everything (which _is_ unfair, as this involves xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.

    -
    -
         text    data     bss     drs     rss filename
   163431    2152      24   20123    2060 rxvt --enable-everything
  1035683   49680   66648   29096    3680 urxvt --enable-everything
    -
    -

    The very large size of the text section is explained by the east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core fonts that use those @@ -265,231 +256,160 @@ compiler allocates (but of course doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.

    -
    -

    Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use more memory.

    -
    -

    Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.

    -
    -

    -
    Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
    -
    -
    -Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I had +

    +

    +

    Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?

    +

    Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). Put even -shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. -

    -
    +shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.

    My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than C++ itself.

    -
    -

    Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:

    -
    -
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
    -
    -

    And here is rxvt-unicode:

    -
    -
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
    libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)     
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)   
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
    -
    -

    No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in statically), except maybe libX11 :)

    -
    -

    -
    Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
    -
    -
    -Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a +

    +

    +

    Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?

    +

    Beginning with version 7.3, there is a perl extension that implements a simple tabbed terminal. It is installed by default, so any of these should -give you tabs: -

    -
    +give you tabs:

        rxvt -pe tabbed
    -
    -
        URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,tabbed
    -
    -

    It will also work fine with tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming Gtk2::URxvt perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) terminal as an example embedding application.

    -
    -

    -
    How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
    -
    -
    -The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape +

    +

    +

    How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?

    +

    The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape sequence ESC [ 8 n sets the window title to the version number. When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the -daemon. -

    -

    -
    I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
    -
    -
    -The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large +daemon.

    +

    +

    +

    I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...

    +

    The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode (but unfortunately this notice has been removed). Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download and install the genuine version (http://software.schmorp.de#rxvt-unicode) and try to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the Debian Bug -Tracking System (use reportbug to report the bug). -

    -
    +Tracking System (use reportbug to report the bug).

    For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for other users that might encounter the same issue.

    -
    -

    -
    I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any -recommendation?
    -
    -
    -You should build one binary with the default options. configure +

    +

    +

    I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any recommendation?

    +

    You should build one binary with the default options. configure now enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus, selection, likely more in -the future) depends on it. -

    -
    +the future) depends on it.

    You should not overwrite the perl-ext-common snd perl-ext resources system-wide (except maybe with defaults). This will result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory, add an empty perl-ext-common resource to the app-defaults file. This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables it.

    -
    -

    If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal one with --disable-everything (very useful) and a maximal one with --enable-everything (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely used).

    -
    -

    -
    I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?
    -
    -
    -It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly -install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now. -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this safe?

    +

    It should be, starting with release 7.1. You are encouraged to properly +install urxvt with privileges necessary for your OS now.

    When rxvt-unicode detects that it runs setuid or setgid, it will fork into a helper process for privileged operations (pty handling on some systems, utmp/wtmp/lastlog handling on others) and drop privileges immediately. This is much safer than most other terminals that keep privileges while running (but is more relevant to urxvt, as it contains things as perl interpreters, which might be ``helpful'' to attackers).

    -
    -

    This forking is done as the very first within main(), which is very early and reduces possible bugs to initialisation code run before main(), or things like the dynamic loader of your system, which should result in very little risk.

    -
    -

    -
    When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
    -
    -
    -The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available -as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises). -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?

    +

    The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely available +as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same problem often arises).

    The correct solution for this problem is to install the terminfo, this can be done like this (with ncurses' infocmp):

    -
    -
        REMOTE=remotesystem.domain
    infocmp rxvt-unicode | ssh $REMOTE "cat >/tmp/ti && tic /tmp/ti"
    -
    -

    ... or by installing rxvt-unicode normally on the remote system,

    -
    -

    If you cannot or do not want to do this, then you can simply set TERM=rxvt or even TERM=xterm, and live with the small number of problems arising, which includes wrong keymapping, less and different 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 (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 rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one.

    -
    -

    -
    tic outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.
    -
    -
    -Most likely it's the empty definition for enacs=. Just replace it by -enacs=\E[0@ and try again. -
    -

    -
    bash's readline does not work correctly under rxvt.
    -
    -
    I need a termcap file entry.
    -
    -
    -One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating +

    +

    +

    tic outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry.

    +

    Most likely it's the empty definition for enacs=. Just replace it by +enacs=\E[0@ and try again.

    +

    +

    +

    bash's readline does not work correctly under rxvt.

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    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 library (Fedora Core's bash is one example) and rely on a termcap entry -for rxvt-unicode. -

    -
    +for 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 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:\
@@ -511,144 +431,108 @@ like this:
    
            :te=\E[r\E[?1049l:ti=\E[?1049h:ue=\E[24m:up=\E[A:\
            :us=\E[4m:vb=\E[?5h\E[?5l:ve=\E[?25h:vi=\E[?25l:\
            :vs=\E[?25h:
    -
    -

    -
    Why does ls no longer have coloured output?
    -
    -
    -The ls in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to +

    +

    +

    Why does ls no longer have coloured output?

    +

    The ls in the GNU coreutils unfortunately doesn't use terminfo to decide wether a terminal has colour, but uses it's own configuration file. Needless to say, rxvt-unicode is not in it's default file (among -with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add: -

    -
    +with most other terminals supporting colour). Either add:

        TERM rxvt-unicode
    -
    -

    to /etc/DIR_COLORS or simply add:

    -
    -
        alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    -
    -

    to your .profile or .bashrc.

    -
    -

    -
    Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?
    -
    -
    Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?
    -
    -
    Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?
    -
    -
    -Make sure you are using TERM=rxvt-unicode. Some pre-packaged +

    +

    +

    Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. use the 88 colour mode?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    Why doesn't vim/emacs etc. make use of italic?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    Why are the secondary screen-related options not working properly?

    +

    Make sure you are using TERM=rxvt-unicode. Some pre-packaged distributions (most notably Debian GNU/Linux) break rxvt-unicode by setting TERM to rxvt, which doesn't have these extra features. Unfortunately, some of these (most notably, again, Debian GNU/Linux) furthermore fail to even install the rxvt-unicode terminfo file, so you will need to install it on your own (See the question When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? on -how to do this). -

    -

    -
    My numerical keypad acts weird and generates differing output?
    -
    -
    -Some Debian GNUL/Linux users seem to have this problem, although no +how to do this).

    +

    +

    +

    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 TERM setting, although the details of wether and how this can happen are unknown, as TERM=rxvt should offer a compatible keymap. See the answer to the previous question, and please report if that -helped. -

    -

    -
    Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?
    -
    -
    Unicode does not seem to work?
    -
    -
    -If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but +helped.

    +

    +

    +

    Rxvt-unicode does not seem to understand the selected encoding?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    Unicode does not seem to work?

    +

    If you encounter strange problems like typing an accented character but getting two unrelated other characters or similar, or if program output is -subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings. -

    -
    +subtly garbled, then you should check your locale settings.

    Rxvt-unicode must be started with the same LC_CTYPE setting as the programs. Often rxvt-unicode is started in the C locale, while the login script running within the rxvt-unicode window changes the locale to something else, e.g. 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.

    -
    -
       printf '\e]701;%s\007' "$LC_CTYPE"
    -
    -

    If this doesn't work, then maybe you use a LC_CTYPE specification not supported on your systems. Some systems have a locale command which displays this (also, 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: ...
    -
    -

    Then the locale you specified is not supported on your system.

    -
    -

    If nothing works and you are sure that everything is set correctly then you will need to remember a little known fact: Some programs just don't support locales :(

    -
    -

    -
    Why do some characters look so much different than others?
    -
    -
    How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?
    -
    -
    -Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is +

    +

    +

    Why do some characters look so much different than others?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?

    +

    Most fonts do not contain the full range of Unicode, which is fine. Chances are that the font you (or the admin/package maintainer of your system/os) have specified does not cover all the characters you want -to display. -

    -
    +to display.

    rxvt-unicode makes a best-effort try at finding a replacement font. Often the result is fine, but sometimes the chosen font looks 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.:

    -
    -
        rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3...
    -
    -

    When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to the 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 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.

    -
    -

    -
    Why do some chinese characters look so different than others?
    -
    -
    -This is because there is a difference between script and language -- +

    +

    +

    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/chinese character, it might choose a japanese font for @@ -656,134 +540,94 @@ 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 -chinese characters that are also in the japanese font. -

    -
    +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 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 Can I switch the fonts at runtime? later in this document).

    -
    -

    -
    Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?
    -
    -
    -Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that character +

    +

    +

    Why does rxvt-unicode sometimes leave pixel droppings?

    +

    Most fonts were not designed for terminal use, which means that character size varies a lot. A font that is otherwise fine for terminal use might contain some characters that are simply too wide. Rxvt-unicode will avoid these characters. For characters that are just ``a bit'' too wide a special -``careful'' rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent characters. -

    -
    +``careful'' rendering mode is used that redraws adjacent characters.

    All of this requires that fonts do not lie about character sizes, however: Xft fonts often draw glyphs larger than their acclaimed bounding box, and rxvt-unicode has no way of detecting this (the correct way is to ask for the character bounding box, which unfortunately is wrong in these cases).

    -
    -

    It's not clear (to me at least), wether this is a bug in Xft, freetype, or the respective font. If you encounter this problem you might try using the -lsp option to give the font more height. If that doesn't work, you might be forced to use a different font.

    -
    -

    All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their bounding box data is correct.

    -
    -

    -
    On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.
    -
    -
    -Seems to be a known bug, read +

    +

    +

    On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide.

    +

    Seems to be a known bug, read http://nixdoc.net/files/forum/about34198.html. Some people use the -following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: -

    -
    +following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working:

        #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x)
    -
    -

    -
    My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.
    -
    -
    -The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set +

    +

    +

    My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working.

    +

    The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported by your input method. For example, if you specified OverTheSpot and your input method (e.g. the default input method handling Compose keys) does not support this (for instance because it is not visual), then -rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method. -

    -
    +rxvt-unicode will continue without an input method.

    In this case either do not specify a preeditStyle or specify more than one pre-edit style, such as OverTheSpot,Root,None.

    -
    -

    -
    I cannot type Ctrl-Shift-2 to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755
    -
    -
    -Either try Ctrl-2 alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on +

    +

    +

    I cannot type Ctrl-Shift-2 to get an ASCII NUL character due to ISO 14755

    +

    Either try Ctrl-2 alone (it often is mapped to ASCII NUL even on international keyboards) or simply use ISO 14755 support to your advantage, typing <Ctrl-Shift-0> to get a ASCII NUL. This works for other codes, too, such as Ctrl-Shift-1-d to type the default telnet escape -character and so on. -

    -

    -
    How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?
    -
    -
    -First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings +character and so on.

    +

    +

    +

    How can I keep rxvt-unicode from using reverse video so much?

    +

    First of all, make sure you are running with the right terminal settings (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: -

    -
    +rxvt-unicode might use reverse video to simulate the effect:

        URxvt.colorBD:  white
    URxvt.colorIT:  green
    -
    -

    -
    Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?
    -
    -
    -For some unexplainable reason, some rare programs assume a very weird +

    +

    +

    Some programs assume totally weird colours (red instead of blue), how can I fix that?

    +

    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. -

    -
    +these programs not to assume non-ISO colours without very good reasons.

    In the meantime, you can either edit your rxvt-unicode terminfo definition to only claim 8 colour support or use TERM=rxvt, which will fix colours but keep you from using other rxvt-unicode features.

    -
    -

    -
    I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.
    -
    -
    -Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol __STDC_ISO_10646__ to be defined +

    +

    +

    I am on FreeBSD and rxvt-unicode does not seem to work at all.

    +

    Rxvt-unicode requires the symbol __STDC_ISO_10646__ to be defined in your compile environment, or an implementation that implements it, wether it defines the symbol or not. __STDC_ISO_10646__ requires that -wchar_t is represented as unicode. -

    -
    +wchar_t is represented as unicode.

    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 wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards.

    -
    -

    However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in POSIX, ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8 locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t.

    -
    -

    __STDC_ISO_10646__ is the only sane way to support multi-language apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between @@ -791,53 +635,41 @@ representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert betwee without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into anything except the current locale encoding.

    -
    -

    Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by carrying their own replacement functions for character set handling with them, and either implementing OS-dependent hacks or doing multiple conversions (which is slow and unreliable in case the OS implements encodings slightly different than the terminal emulator).

    -
    -

    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 for them :)

    -
    -

    -
    I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.
    -
    -
    -Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst -problems with wcwidth and a compile problem. -
    -

    -
    How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?
    -
    -
    -rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using +

    +

    +

    I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc.

    +

    Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst +problems with wcwidth and a compile problem.

    +

    +

    +

    How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin?

    +

    rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a single font). I recommend starting the X-server in -multiwindow or -rootless mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as the -old libW11 emulation. -

    -
    +old libW11 emulation.

    At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any multi-byte encodings (you might try LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8), so you are likely limited to 8-bit encodings.

    -
    -

    -
    How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?
    -
    -
    Is there an option to switch encodings?
    -
    -
    -Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no +

    +

    +

    How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use?

    +

    See next entry.

    +

    +

    +

    Is there an option to switch encodings?

    +

    Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, and no specific ``utf-8'' mode, such as xterm. In fact, it doesn't even know about -UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O. -

    -
    +UTF-8 or any other encodings with respect to terminal I/O.

    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 @@ -845,213 +677,141 @@ and code number. This mechanism is the locale. Applications not using that info will have problems (for example, xterm gets the width of characters wrong as it uses it's own, locale-independent table under all locales).

    -
    -

    Rxvt-unicode uses the LC_CTYPE locale category to select encoding. All programs doing the same (that is, most) will automatically agree in the interpretation of characters.

    -
    -

    Unfortunately, there is no system-independent way to select locales, nor is there a standard on how locale specifiers will look like.

    -
    -

    On most systems, the content of the LC_CTYPE environment variable contains an arbitrary string which corresponds to an already-installed locale. Common names for locales are en_US.UTF-8, de_DE.ISO-8859-15, ja_JP.EUC-JP, i.e. language_country.encoding, but other forms (i.e. de or german) are also common.

    -
    -

    Rxvt-unicode ignores all other locale categories, and except for the encoding, ignores country or language-specific settings, i.e. de_DE.UTF-8 and 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 LC_CTYPE category.

    -
    -

    -
    Can I switch locales at runtime?
    -
    -
    -Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets -rxvt-unicode's idea of LC_CTYPE. -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    Can I switch locales at runtime?

    +

    Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which sets +rxvt-unicode's idea of LC_CTYPE.

       printf '\e]701;%s\007' ja_JP.SJIS
    -
    -

    See also the previous answer.

    -
    -

    Sometimes this capability is rather handy when you want to work in one locale (e.g. de_DE.UTF-8) but some programs don't support it (e.g. UTF-8). For example, I use this script to start 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 luit program, which usually works fine, except for some locales where character width differs between program- and rxvt-unicode-locales.

    -
    -

    -
    Can I switch the fonts at runtime?
    -
    -
    -Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the same -effect as using the -fn switch, and takes effect immediately: -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    Can I switch the fonts at runtime?

    +

    Yes, using an escape sequence. Try something like this, which has the same +effect as using the -fn switch, and takes effect immediately:

        printf '\e]50;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
    -
    -

    This is useful if you e.g. work primarily with japanese (and prefer a japanese font), but you have to switch to chinese temporarily, where japanese fonts would only be in your way.

    -
    -

    You can think of this as a kind of manual ISO-2022 switching.

    -
    -

    -
    Why do italic characters look as if clipped?
    -
    -
    -Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For +

    +

    +

    Why do italic characters look as if clipped?

    +

    Many fonts have difficulties with italic characters and hinting. For example, the otherwise very nicely hinted font xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono completely fails in it's italic face. A workaround might be to -enable freetype autohinting, i.e. like this: -

    -
    +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
    -
    -

    -
    My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
    -
    -
    -You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of the -terminal, using the resource imlocale: -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?

    +

    You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest of the +terminal, using the resource imlocale:

        URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
    -
    -

    Now you can start your terminal with LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8 and still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not be able to input characters outside EUC-JP in a normal way then, as your input method limits you.

    -
    -

    -
    Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.
    -
    -
    -Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by +

    +

    +

    Rxvt-unicode crashes when the X Input Method changes or exits.

    +

    Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, as the XIM protocol is racy by design. Applications can avoid some crashes at the expense of memory leaks, and Input Methods can avoid some crashes by careful ordering at exit time. kinput2 (and derived input methods) generally succeeds, while SCIM (or similar input methods) fails. In the end, however, -crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate. -

    -
    +crashes cannot be completely avoided even if both sides cooperate.

    So the only workaround is not to kill your Input Method Servers.

    -
    -

    -
    Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?
    -
    -
    -Rxvt-unicode tries to obey the rule of not charging you for something you +

    +

    +

    Rxvt-unicode uses gobs of memory, how can I reduce that?

    +

    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 -accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your characters. -

    -
    +accidentally when rxvt-unicode tries to find a font for your characters.

    Also, many people (me included) like large windows and even larger scrollback buffers: Without --enable-unicode3, rxvt-unicode will use 6 bytes per screen cell. For a 160x?? window this amounts to almost a kilobyte per line. A scrollback buffer of 10000 lines will then (if full) use 10 Megabytes of memory. With --enable-unicode3 it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.

    -
    -

    -
    Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
    -
    -
    -Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as +

    +

    +

    Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?

    +

    Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to disable antialiasing (by appending :antialias=false), which saves lots of -memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. -

    -

    -
    Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
    -
    -
    -Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to +memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.

    +

    +

    +

    Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?

    +

    Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It has antialiasing disabled for most of them, because the author thinks they -look best that way. -

    -
    +look best that way.

    If you want antialiasing, you have to specify the fonts manually.

    -
    -

    -
    Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
    -
    -
    -Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing +

    +

    +

    Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.

    +

    Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are -depressed. -

    -

    -
    What's with this bold/blink stuff?
    -
    -
    -If no bold colour is set via colorBD:, bold will invert text using the -standard foreground colour. -
    -
    +depressed.

    +

    +

    +

    What's with this bold/blink stuff?

    +

    If no bold colour is set via colorBD:, bold will invert text using the +standard foreground colour.

    For the standard background colour, blinking will actually make the text blink when compiled with --enable-blinking. with standard colours. Without --enable-blinking, the blink attribute will be ignored.

    -
    -

    On ANSI colours, bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity foreground/background colors.

    -
    -

    color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.

    -
    -

    color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.

    -
    -

    -
    I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
    -
    -
    -You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults -resources (or as long-options). -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?

    +

    You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.Xdefaults +resources (or as long-options).

    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
@@ -1061,8 +821,6 @@ including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
    
    URxvt.color5:   #A800A8
    URxvt.color6:   #00A8A8
    URxvt.color7:   #A8A8A8
    -
    -
        URxvt.color8:   #000054
    URxvt.color9:   #FF0054
@@ -1072,12 +830,8 @@ including the murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
    
    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
@@ -1097,102 +851,64 @@ me) as ``pretty girly''.
    
    URxvt.color14:      #73f7ff
    URxvt.color7:       #e1dddd
    URxvt.color15:      #e1dddd
    -
    -

    -
    How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?
    -
    -
    -Try rxvtd -f -o, which tells rxvtd to open the -display, create the listening socket and then fork. -
    -

    -
    What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
    -
    -
    -Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the +

    +

    +

    How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?

    +

    Try rxvtd -f -o, which tells rxvtd to open the +display, create the listening socket and then fork.

    +

    +

    +

    What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?

    +

    Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are two standard values that can be used for -Backspace: ^H and ^?. -

    -
    +Backspace: ^H and ^?.

    Historically, either value is correct, but rxvt-unicode adopts the debian policy of using ^? when unsure, because it's the one only only correct choice :).

    -
    -

    Rxvt-unicode tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the value of `erase' to guess the value for backspace. If rxvt-unicode wasn't started from a terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), then the system value of `erase', which corresponds to CERASE in <termios.h>, will be used (which may not be the same as your stty setting).

    -
    -

    For starting a new rxvt-unicode:

    -
    -
        # use Backspace = ^H
    $ stty erase ^H
    $ rxvt
    -
    -
        # use Backspace = ^?
    $ stty erase ^?
    $ rxvt
    -
    -

    Toggle with ESC [ 36 h / ESC [ 36 l.

    -
    -

    For an existing rxvt-unicode:

    -
    -
        # use Backspace = ^H
    $ stty erase ^H
    $ echo -n "^[[36h"
    -
    -
        # use Backspace = ^?
    $ stty erase ^?
    $ echo -n "^[[36l"
    -
    -

    This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but if you use Backspace = ^H, make sure that the termcap/terminfo value properly reflects that.

    -
    -

    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.

    -
    -

    Some other Backspace problems:

    -
    -

    some editors use termcap/terminfo, some editors (vim I'm told) expect Backspace = ^H, GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.

    -
    -

    Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner.

    -
    -

    -
    I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
    -
    -
    -There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless +

    +

    +

    I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?

    +

    There are some compile-time selections available via configure. Unless you have run ``configure'' with the --disable-resources option you can -use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms. -

    -
    +use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms.

    Here's an example for a URxvt session started using rxvt -name URxvt

    -
    -
        URxvt.keysym.Home:          \033[1~
    URxvt.keysym.End:           \033[4~
@@ -1214,16 +930,10 @@ use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms.
    URxvt.keysym.M-C-0:         list \033<M-C- 0123456789 >
    URxvt.keysym.M-C-a:         list \033<M-C- abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz >
    URxvt.keysym.F12:           command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
    -
    -

    See some more examples in the documentation for the keysym resource.

    -
    -

    -
    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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
    -
    -
    +

    +

    +

    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 mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.

        KP_Insert == Insert
    F22 == Print
@@ -1231,37 +941,27 @@ has the following mappings that rxvt-unicode doesn't recognize.
    
-
    -

    Rather than have rxvt-unicode try to accommodate all the various possible keyboard mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the keys as required for your particular machine.

    -
    -
    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 +

    +

    +

    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 check and see if that is set. Note that several programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this variable to decide whether or -not to use color. -

    -

    -
    How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
    -
    -
    -If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled +not to use color.

    +

    +

    +

    How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?

    +

    If you've compiled rxvt-unicode with DISPLAY_IS_IP and have enabled insecure mode then it is possible to use the following shell script snippets to correctly set the display. If your version of rxvt-unicode wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish rxvt-unicode from a -regular xterm. -

    -
    +regular xterm.

    Courtesy of Chuck Blake <cblake@BBN.COM> with the following shell script snippets:

    -
    -
        # Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
    [ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm # assume an xterm if we don't know
@@ -1275,24 +975,18 @@ snippets:
    
          read DISPLAY           # set it in our local shell
       fi
    fi
    -
    -

    -
    How do I compile the manual pages for myself?
    -
    -
    -You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl, +

    +

    +

    How do I compile the manual pages for myself?

    +

    You need to have a recent version of perl installed as /usr/bin/perl, one that comes with pod2man, pod2text and pod2html. Then go to -the doc subdirectory and enter make alldoc. -

    -

    -
    My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?
    -
    -
    -Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: irc.freenode.net, +the doc subdirectory and enter make alldoc.

    +

    +

    +

    My question isn't answered here, can I ask a human?

    +

    Before sending me mail, you could go to IRC: irc.freenode.net, channel #rxvt-unicode has some rxvt-unicode enthusiasts that might be -interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :). -

    -

    +interested in learning about new and exciting problems (but not FAQs :).

    -- 2.34.1