1urxvt(1) RXVT-UNICODE urxvt(1)
2
6 rxvt-unicode (ouR XVT, unicode) - (a VT102 emulator for the X window
7 system)
8
10 urxvt [options] [-e command [ args ]]
11
13 rxvt-unicode, version 9.22, is a colour vt102 terminal emulator
14 intended as an xterm(1) replacement for users who do not require
15 features such as Tektronix 4014 emulation and toolkit-style
16 configurability. As a result, rxvt-unicode uses much less swap space --
17 a significant advantage on a machine serving many X sessions.
18 This document is also available on the World-Wide-Web at
20 <http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.1.pod>.
21
23 See urxvt(7) (try "man 7 urxvt") for a list of frequently asked
24 questions and answer to them and some common problems. That document is
25 also accessible on the World-Wide-Web at
26 <http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.pod>.
27
29 Unlike the original rxvt, rxvt-unicode stores all text in Unicode
30 internally. That means it can store and display most scripts in the
31 world. Being a terminal emulator, however, some things are very
32 difficult, especially cursive scripts such as arabic, vertically
33 written scripts like mongolian or scripts requiring extremely complex
34 combining rules, like tibetan or devanagari. Don't expect pretty output
35 when using these scripts. Most other scripts, latin, cyrillic, kanji,
36 thai etc. should work fine, though. A somewhat difficult case are
37 right-to-left scripts, such as hebrew: rxvt-unicode adopts the view
38 that bidirectional algorithms belong in the application, not the
39 terminal emulator (too many things -- such as cursor-movement while
40 editing -- break otherwise), but that might change.
41 If you are looking for a terminal that supports more exotic scripts,
43 let me recommend "mlterm", which is a very user friendly, lean and
44 clean terminal emulator. In fact, the reason rxvt-unicode was born was
45 solely because the author couldn't get "mlterm" to use one font for
46 latin1 and another for japanese.
47 Therefore another design rationale was the use of multiple fonts to
49 display characters: The idea of a single unicode font which many other
50 programs force onto its users never made sense to me: You should be
51 able to choose any font for any script freely.
52 Apart from that, rxvt-unicode is also much better internationalised
54 than its predecessor, supports things such as XFT and ISO 14755 that
55 are handy in i18n-environments, is faster, and has a lot bugs less than
56 the original rxvt. This all in addition to dozens of other small
57 improvements.
58 It is still faithfully following the original rxvt idea of being lean
60 and nice on resources: for example, you can still configure rxvt-
61 unicode without most of its features to get a lean binary. It also
62 comes with a client/daemon pair that lets you open any number of
63 terminal windows from within a single process, which makes startup time
64 very fast and drastically reduces memory usage. See urxvtd(1) (daemon)
65 and urxvtc(1) (client).
66 It also makes technical information about escape sequences (which have
68 been extended) more accessible: see urxvt(7) for technical reference
69 documentation (escape sequences etc.).
70
72 The urxvt options (mostly a subset of xterm's) are listed below. In
73 keeping with the smaller-is-better philosophy, options may be
74 eliminated or default values chosen at compile-time, so options and
75 defaults listed may not accurately reflect the version installed on
76 your system. `urxvt -h' gives a list of major compile-time options on
77 the Options line. Option descriptions may be prefixed with which
78 compile option each is dependent upon. e.g. `Compile XIM:' requires XIM
79 on the Options line. Note: `urxvt -help' gives a list of all command-
80 line options compiled into your version.
81 Note that urxvt permits the resource name to be used as a long-option
83 (--/++ option) so the potential command-line options are far greater
84 than those listed. For example: `urxvt --loginShell --color1 Orange'.
85 The following options are available:
87 -help, --help
89 Print out a message describing available options.
90 -display displayname
92 Attempt to open a window on the named X display (the older form -d
93 is still respected. but deprecated). In the absence of this option,
94 the display specified by the DISPLAY environment variable is used.
95 -depth bitdepth
97 Compile frills: Attempt to find a visual with the given bit depth;
98 resource depth.
99 [Please note that many X servers (and libXft) are buggy with
101 respect to "-depth 32" and/or alpha channels, and will cause all
102 sorts of graphical corruption. This is harmless, but we can't do
103 anything about this, so watch out]
104 -visual visualID
106 Compile frills: Use the given visual (see e.g. "xdpyinfo" for
107 possible visual ids) instead of the default, and also allocate a
108 private colormap. All visual types except for DirectColor are
109 supported.
110 -geometry geom
112 Window geometry (-g still respected); resource geometry.
113 -rv|+rv
115 Turn on/off simulated reverse video; resource reverseVideo.
116 -j|+j
118 Turn on/off jump scrolling (allow multiple lines per refresh);
119 resource jumpScroll.
120 -ss|+ss
122 Turn on/off skip scrolling (allow multiple screens per refresh);
123 resource skipScroll.
124 -fade number
126 Fade the text by the given percentage when focus is lost. Small
127 values fade a little only, 100 completely replaces all colours by
128 the fade colour; resource fading.
129 -fadecolor colour
131 Fade to this colour when fading is used (see -fade). The default
132 colour is opaque black. resource fadeColor.
133 -icon file
135 Compile pixbuf: Use the specified image as application icon. This
136 is used by many window managers, taskbars and pagers to represent
137 the application window; resource iconFile.
138 -bg colour
140 Window background colour; resource background.
141 -fg colour
143 Window foreground colour; resource foreground.
144 -cr colour
146 The cursor colour; resource cursorColor.
147 -pr colour
149 The mouse pointer foreground colour; resource pointerColor.
150 -pr2 colour
152 The mouse pointer background colour; resource pointerColor2.
153 -bd colour
155 The colour of the border around the text area and between the
156 scrollbar and the text; resource borderColor.
157 -fn fontlist
159 Select the fonts to be used. This is a comma separated list of font
160 names that are checked in order when trying to find glyphs for
161 characters. The first font defines the cell size for characters;
162 other fonts might be smaller, but not (in general) larger. A
163 (hopefully) reasonable default font list is always appended to it.
164 See resource font for more details.
165 In short, to specify an X11 core font, just specify its name or
167 prefix it with "x:". To specify an XFT-font, you need to prefix it
168 with "xft:", e.g.:
169 urxvt -fn "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:pixelsize=15"
171 urxvt -fn "9x15bold,xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"
172 See also the question "How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?" in the
174 FAQ section of urxvt(7).
175 -fb fontlist
177 Compile font-styles: The bold font list to use when bold characters
178 are to be printed. See resource boldFont for details.
179 -fi fontlist
181 Compile font-styles: The italic font list to use when italic
182 characters are to be printed. See resource italicFont for details.
183 -fbi fontlist
185 Compile font-styles: The bold italic font list to use when bold
186 italic characters are to be printed. See resource boldItalicFont
187 for details.
188 -is|+is
190 Compile font-styles: Bold/Blink font styles imply high intensity
191 foreground/background (default). See resource intensityStyles for
192 details.
193 -name name
195 Specify the application name under which resources are to be
196 obtained, rather than the default executable file name. Name should
197 not contain `.' or `*' characters. Also sets the icon and title
198 name.
199 -ls|+ls
201 Start as a login-shell/sub-shell; resource loginShell.
202 -mc milliseconds
204 Specify the maximum time between multi-click selections.
205 -ut|+ut
207 Compile utmp: Inhibit/enable writing a utmp entry; resource
208 utmpInhibit.
209 -vb|+vb
211 Turn on/off visual bell on receipt of a bell character; resource
212 visualBell.
213 -sb|+sb
215 Turn on/off scrollbar; resource scrollBar.
216 -sr|+sr
218 Put scrollbar on right/left; resource scrollBar_right.
219 -st|+st
221 Display rxvt (non XTerm/NeXT) scrollbar without/with a trough;
222 resource scrollBar_floating.
223 -si|+si
225 Turn on/off scroll-to-bottom on TTY output inhibit; resource
226 scrollTtyOutput has opposite effect.
227 -sk|+sk
229 Turn on/off scroll-to-bottom on keypress; resource
230 scrollTtyKeypress.
231 -sw|+sw
233 Turn on/off scrolling with the scrollback buffer as new lines
234 appear. This only takes effect if -si is also given; resource
235 scrollWithBuffer.
236 -ptab|+ptab
238 If enabled (default), "Horizontal Tab" characters are being stored
239 as actual wide characters in the screen buffer, which makes it
240 possible to select and paste them. Since a horizontal tab is a
241 cursor movement and not an actual glyph, this can sometimes be
242 visually annoying as the cursor on a tab character is displayed as
243 a wide cursor; resource pastableTabs.
244 -bc|+bc
246 Blink the cursor; resource cursorBlink.
247 -uc|+uc
249 Make the cursor underlined; resource cursorUnderline.
250 -iconic
252 Start iconified, if the window manager supports that option.
253 Alternative form is -ic.
254 -sl number
256 Save number lines in the scrollback buffer. See resource entry for
257 limits; resource saveLines.
258 -b number
260 Compile frills: Internal border of number pixels. See resource
261 entry for limits; resource internalBorder.
262 -w number
264 Compile frills: External border of number pixels. Also, -bw and
265 -borderwidth. See resource entry for limits; resource
266 externalBorder.
267 -bl Compile frills: Set MWM hints to request a borderless window, i.e.
269 if honoured by the WM, the rxvt-unicode window will not have window
270 decorations; resource borderLess. If the window manager does not
271 support MWM hints (e.g. kwin), enables override-redirect mode.
272 -override-redirect
274 Compile frills: Sets override-redirect on the window; resource
275 override-redirect.
276 -dockapp
278 Sets the initial state of the window to WithdrawnState, which makes
279 window managers that support this extension treat it as a dockapp.
280 -sbg
282 Compile frills: Disable the usage of the built-in block
283 graphics/line drawing characters and just rely on what the
284 specified fonts provide. Use this if you have a good font and want
285 to use its block graphic glyphs; resource skipBuiltinGlyphs.
286 -lsp number
288 Compile frills: Lines (pixel height) to insert between each row of
289 the display. Useful to work around font rendering problems;
290 resource lineSpace.
291 -letsp number
293 Compile frills: Amount to adjust the computed character width by to
294 control overall letter spacing. Negative values will tighten up the
295 letter spacing, positive values will space letters out more. Useful
296 to work around odd font metrics; resource letterSpace.
297 -tn termname
299 This option specifies the name of the terminal type to be set in
300 the TERM environment variable. This terminal type must exist in the
301 termcap(5) database and should have li# and co# entries; resource
302 termName.
303 -e command [arguments]
305 Run the command with its command-line arguments in the urxvt
306 window; also sets the window title and icon name to be the basename
307 of the program being executed if neither -title (-T) nor -n are
308 given on the command line. If this option is used, it must be the
309 last on the command-line. If there is no -e option then the default
310 is to run the program specified by the SHELL environment variable
311 or, failing that, sh(1).
312 Please note that you must specify a program with arguments. If you
314 want to run shell commands, you have to specify the shell, like
315 this:
316 urxvt -e sh -c "shell commands"
318 -title text
320 Window title (-T still respected); the default title is the
321 basename of the program specified after the -e option, if any,
322 otherwise the application name; resource title.
323 -n text
325 Icon name; the default name is the basename of the program
326 specified after the -e option, if any, otherwise the application
327 name; resource iconName.
328 -C Capture system console messages.
330 -pt style
332 Compile XIM: input style for input method; OverTheSpot, OffTheSpot,
333 Root; resource preeditType.
334 If the perl extension "xim-onthespot" is used (which is the
336 default), then additionally the "OnTheSpot" preedit type is
337 available.
338 -im text
340 Compile XIM: input method name. resource inputMethod.
341 -imlocale string
343 The locale to use for opening the IM. You can use an "LC_CTYPE" of
344 e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8" for normal text processing but "ja_JP.EUC-JP"
345 for the input extension to be able to input japanese characters
346 while staying in another locale. resource imLocale.
347 -imfont fontset
349 Set the font set to use for the X Input Method, see resource imFont
350 for more info.
351 -tcw
353 Change the meaning of triple-click selection with the left mouse
354 button. Only effective when the original (non-perl) selection code
355 is in-use. Instead of selecting a full line it will extend the
356 selection to the end of the logical line only. resource
357 tripleclickwords.
358 -insecure
360 Enable "insecure" mode, which currently enables most of the escape
361 sequences that echo strings. See the resource insecure for more
362 info.
363 -mod modifier
365 Override detection of Meta modifier with specified key: alt, meta,
366 hyper, super, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5; resource modifier.
367 -ssc|+ssc
369 Turn on/off secondary screen (default enabled); resource
370 secondaryScreen.
371 -ssr|+ssr
373 Turn on/off secondary screen scroll (default enabled); resource
374 secondaryScroll.
375 -hold|+hold
377 Turn on/off hold window after exit support. If enabled, urxvt will
378 not immediately destroy its window when the program executed within
379 it exits. Instead, it will wait till it is being killed or closed
380 by the user; resource hold.
381 -cd path
383 Sets the working directory for the shell (or the command specified
384 via -e). The path must be an absolute path and it must exist for
385 urxvt to start; resource chdir.
386 -xrm string
388 Works like the X Toolkit option of the same name, by adding the
389 string as if it were specified in a resource file. Resource values
390 specified this way take precedence over all other resource
391 specifications.
392 Note that you need to use the same syntax as in the .Xdefaults
394 file, e.g. "*.background: black". Also note that all urxvt-specific
395 options can be specified as long-options on the commandline, so use
396 of -xrm is mostly limited to cases where you want to specify other
397 resources (e.g. for input methods) or for compatibility with other
398 programs.
399 -keysym.sym string
401 Remap a key symbol. See resource keysym.
402 -embed windowid
404 Tells urxvt to embed its windows into an already-existing window,
405 which enables applications to easily embed a terminal.
406 Right now, urxvt will first unmap/map the specified window, so it
408 shouldn't be a top-level window. urxvt will also reconfigure it
409 quite a bit, so don't expect it to keep some specific state. It's
410 best to create an extra subwindow for urxvt and leave it alone.
411 The window will not be destroyed when urxvt exits.
413 It might be useful to know that urxvt will not close file
415 descriptors passed to it (except for stdin/out/err, of course), so
416 you can use file descriptors to communicate with the programs
417 within the terminal. This works regardless of whether the "-embed"
418 option was used or not.
419 Here is a short Gtk2-perl snippet that illustrates how this option
421 can be used (a longer example is in doc/embed):
422 my $rxvt = new Gtk2::Socket;
424 $rxvt->signal_connect_after (realize => sub {
425 my $xid = $_[0]->window->get_xid;
426 system "urxvt -embed $xid &";
427 });
428 -pty-fd file descriptor
430 Tells urxvt NOT to execute any commands or create a new pty/tty
431 pair but instead use the given file descriptor as the tty master.
432 This is useful if you want to drive urxvt as a generic terminal
433 emulator without having to run a program within it.
434 If this switch is given, urxvt will not create any utmp/wtmp
436 entries and will not tinker with pty/tty permissions - you have to
437 do that yourself if you want that.
438 As an extremely special case, specifying "-1" will completely
440 suppress pty/tty operations, which is probably only useful in
441 conjunction with some perl extension that manages the terminal.
442 Here is a example in perl that illustrates how this option can be
444 used (a longer example is in doc/pty-fd):
445 use IO::Pty;
447 use Fcntl;
448 my $pty = new IO::Pty;
450 fcntl $pty, F_SETFD, 0; # clear close-on-exec
451 system "urxvt -pty-fd " . (fileno $pty) . "&";
452 close $pty;
453 # now communicate with rxvt
455 my $slave = $pty->slave;
456 while (<$slave>) { print $slave "got <$_>\n" }
457 -pe string
459 Comma-separated list of perl extension scripts to use (or not to
460 use) in this terminal instance. See resource perl-ext for details.
461
463 Note: `urxvt --help' gives a list of all resources (long options)
464 compiled into your version. All resources are also available as long-
465 options.
466 You can set and change the resources using X11 tools like xrdb. Many
468 distribution do also load settings from the ~/.Xresources file when X
469 starts. urxvt will consult the following files/resources in order, with
470 later settings overwriting earlier ones:
471 1. app-defaults file in $XAPPLRESDIR
473 2. $HOME/.Xdefaults
474 3. RESOURCE_MANAGER property on root-window of screen 0
475 4. SCREEN_RESOURCES property on root-window of the current screen
476 5. $XENVIRONMENT file OR $HOME/.Xdefaults-<nodename>
477 6. resources specified via -xrm on the commandline
478 Note that when reading X resources, urxvt recognizes two class names:
480 Rxvt and URxvt. The class name Rxvt allows resources common to both
481 urxvt and the original rxvt to be easily configured, while the class
482 name URxvt allows resources unique to urxvt, to be shared between
483 different urxvt configurations. If no resources are specified, suitable
484 defaults will be used. Command-line arguments can be used to override
485 resource settings. The following resources are supported (you might
486 want to check the urxvtperl(3) manpage for additional settings by perl
487 extensions not documented here):
488 depth: bitdepth
490 Compile xft: Attempt to find a visual with the given bit depth;
491 option -depth.
492 buffered: boolean
494 Compile xft: Turn on/off double-buffering for xft (default
495 enabled). On some card/driver combination enabling it slightly
496 decreases performance, on most it greatly helps it. The slowdown is
497 small, so it should normally be enabled.
498 geometry: geom
500 Create the window with the specified X window geometry [default
501 80x24]; option -geometry.
502 background: colour
504 Use the specified colour as the window's background colour [default
505 White]; option -bg.
506 foreground: colour
508 Use the specified colour as the window's foreground colour [default
509 Black]; option -fg.
510 colorn: colour
512 Use the specified colour for the colour value n, where 0-7
513 corresponds to low-intensity (normal) colours and 8-15 corresponds
514 to high-intensity (bold = bright foreground, blink = bright
515 background) colours. The canonical names are as follows: 0=black,
516 1=red, 2=green, 3=yellow, 4=blue, 5=magenta, 6=cyan, 7=white, but
517 the actual colour names used are listed in the COLOURS AND GRAPHICS
518 section.
519 Colours higher than 15 cannot be set using resources (yet), but can
521 be changed using an escape command (see urxvt(7)).
522 Colours 16-79 form a standard 4x4x4 colour cube (the same as xterm
524 with 88 colour support). Colours 80-87 are evenly spaces grey
525 steps.
526 colorBD: colour
528 colorIT: colour
529 Use the specified colour to display bold or italic characters when
530 the foreground colour is the default. If font styles are not
531 available (Compile styles) and this option is unset, reverse video
532 is used instead.
533 colorUL: colour
535 Use the specified colour to display underlined characters when the
536 foreground colour is the default.
537 underlineColor: colour
539 If set, use the specified colour as the colour for the underline
540 itself. If unset, use the foreground colour.
541 highlightColor: colour
543 If set, use the specified colour as the background for highlighted
544 characters. If unset, use reverse video.
545 highlightTextColor: colour
547 If set and highlightColor is set, use the specified colour as the
548 foreground for highlighted characters.
549 cursorColor: colour
551 Use the specified colour for the cursor. The default is to use the
552 foreground colour; option -cr.
553 cursorColor2: colour
555 Use the specified colour for the colour of the cursor text. For
556 this to take effect, cursorColor must also be specified. The
557 default is to use the background colour.
558 reverseVideo: boolean
560 True: simulate reverse video by foreground and background colours;
561 option -rv. False: regular screen colours [default]; option +rv.
562 See note in COLOURS AND GRAPHICS section.
563 jumpScroll: boolean
565 True: specify that jump scrolling should be used. When receiving
566 lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once a whole screen height of
567 lines has been read, resulting in fewer updates while still
568 displaying every received line; option -j.
569 False: specify that smooth scrolling should be used. urxvt will
571 force a screen refresh on each new line it received; option +j.
572 skipScroll: boolean
574 True: (the default) specify that skip scrolling should be used.
575 When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once in a
576 while (around 60 times per second), resulting in far fewer updates.
577 This can result in urxvt not ever displaying some of the lines it
578 receives; option -ss.
579 False: specify that everything is to be displayed, even if the
581 refresh is too fast for the human eye to read anything (or the
582 monitor to display anything); option +ss.
583 fading: number
585 Fade the text by the given percentage when focus is lost; option
586 -fade.
587 fadeColor: colour
589 Fade to this colour, when fading is used (see fading:). The default
590 colour is black; option -fadecolor.
591 iconFile: file
593 Set the application icon pixmap; option -icon.
594 scrollColor: colour
596 Use the specified colour for the scrollbar [default #B2B2B2].
597 troughColor: colour
599 Use the specified colour for the scrollbar's trough area [default
600 #969696]. Only relevant for rxvt (non XTerm/NeXT) scrollbar.
601 borderColor: colour
603 The colour of the border around the text area and between the
604 scrollbar and the text.
605 font: fontlist
607 Select the fonts to be used. This is a comma separated list of font
608 names that are checked in order when trying to find glyphs for
609 characters. The first font defines the cell size for characters;
610 other fonts might be smaller, but not (in general) larger. A
611 (hopefully) reasonable default font list is always appended to it;
612 option -fn.
613 Each font can either be a standard X11 core font (XLFD) name, with
615 optional prefix "x:" or a Xft font (Compile xft), prefixed with
616 "xft:".
617 In addition, each font can be prefixed with additional hints and
619 specifications enclosed in square brackets ("[]"). The only
620 available hint currently is "codeset=codeset-name", and this is
621 only used for Xft fonts.
622 For example, this font resource
624 URxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
626 -misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
627 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
628 [codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic:antialias=false, \
629 xft:Code2000:antialias=false
630 specifies five fonts to be used. The first one is "9x15bold"
632 (actually the iso8859-1 version of the second font), which is the
633 base font (because it is named first) and thus defines the
634 character cell grid to be 9 pixels wide and 15 pixels high.
635 The second font is just used to add additional unicode characters
637 not in the base font, likewise the third, which is unfortunately
638 non-bold, but the bold version of the font does contain fewer
639 characters, so this is a useful supplement.
640 The third font is an Xft font with aliasing turned off, and the
642 characters are limited to the JIS 0208 codeset (i.e. japanese
643 kanji). The font contains other characters, but we are not
644 interested in them.
645 The last font is a useful catch-all font that supplies most of the
647 remaining unicode characters.
648 boldFont: fontlist
650 italicFont: fontlist
651 boldItalicFont: fontlist
652 The font list to use for displaying bold, italic or bold italic
653 characters, respectively.
654 If specified and non-empty, then the syntax is the same as for the
656 font-resource, and the given font list will be used as is, which
657 makes it possible to substitute completely different font styles
658 for bold and italic.
659 If unset (the default), a suitable font list will be synthesized by
661 "morphing" the normal text font list into the desired shape. If
662 that is not possible, replacement fonts of the desired shape will
663 be tried.
664 If set, but empty, then this specific style is disabled and the
666 normal text font will being used for the given style.
667 intensityStyles: boolean
669 When font styles are not enabled, or this option is enabled (True,
670 option -is, the default), bold/blink font styles imply high
671 intensity foreground/background colours. Disabling this option
672 (False, option +is) disables this behaviour, the high intensity
673 colours are not reachable.
674 title: string
676 Set window title string, the default title is the command-line
677 specified after the -e option, if any, otherwise the application
678 name; option -title.
679 iconName: string
681 Set the name used to label the window's icon or displayed in an
682 icon manager window, it also sets the window's title unless it is
683 explicitly set; option -n.
684 mapAlert: boolean
686 True: de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character. False: no
687 de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character [default].
688 urgentOnBell: boolean
690 True: set the urgency hint for the wm on receipt of a bell
691 character. False: do not set the urgency hint [default].
692 urxvt resets the urgency hint on every focus change.
694 visualBell: boolean
696 True: use visual bell on receipt of a bell character; option -vb.
697 False: no visual bell [default]; option +vb.
698 loginShell: boolean
700 True: start as a login shell by prepending a `-' to argv[0] of the
701 shell; option -ls. False: start as a normal sub-shell [default];
702 option +ls.
703 multiClickTime: number
705 Specify the maximum time in milliseconds between multi-click select
706 events. The default is 500 milliseconds; option -mc.
707 utmpInhibit: boolean
709 True: inhibit writing record into the system log file utmp; option
710 -ut. False: write record into the system log file utmp [default];
711 option +ut.
712 print-pipe: string
714 Specify a command pipe for vt100 printer [default lpr(1)]. Use
715 Print to initiate a screen dump to the printer and Ctrl-Print or
716 Shift-Print to include the scrollback as well.
717 The string will be interpreted as if typed into the shell as-is.
719 Example:
721 URxvt.print-pipe: cat > $(TMPDIR=$HOME mktemp urxvt.XXXXXX)
723 This creates a new file in your home directory with the screen
725 contents every time you hit "Print".
726 scrollstyle: mode
728 Set scrollbar style to rxvt, plain, next or xterm. plain is the
729 author's favourite.
730 thickness: number
732 Set the scrollbar width in pixels.
733 scrollBar: boolean
735 True: enable the scrollbar [default]; option -sb. False: disable
736 the scrollbar; option +sb.
737 scrollBar_right: boolean
739 True: place the scrollbar on the right of the window; option -sr.
740 False: place the scrollbar on the left of the window; option +sr.
741 scrollBar_floating: boolean
743 True: display an rxvt scrollbar without a trough; option -st.
744 False: display an rxvt scrollbar with a trough; option +st.
745 scrollBar_align: mode
747 Align the top, bottom or centre [default] of the scrollbar thumb
748 with the pointer on middle button press/drag.
749 scrollTtyOutput: boolean
751 True: scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option -si.
752 False: do not scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option
753 +si.
754 scrollWithBuffer: boolean
756 True: scroll with scrollback buffer when tty receives new lines
757 (i.e. try to show the same lines) and scrollTtyOutput is False;
758 option -sw. False: do not scroll with scrollback buffer when tty
759 receives new lines; option +sw.
760 scrollTtyKeypress: boolean
762 True: scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed. Special
763 keys are those which are intercepted by rxvt-unicode for special
764 handling and are not passed onto the shell; option -sk. False: do
765 not scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed; option +sk.
766 saveLines: number
768 Save number lines in the scrollback buffer [default 1000]; option
769 -sl.
770 internalBorder: number
772 Internal border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100;
773 option -b.
774 externalBorder: number
776 External border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100;
777 option -w, -bw, -borderwidth.
778 borderLess: boolean
780 Set MWM hints to request a borderless window, i.e. if honoured by
781 the WM, the rxvt-unicode window will not have window decorations;
782 option -bl.
783 skipBuiltinGlyphs: boolean
785 Compile frills: Disable the usage of the built-in block
786 graphics/line drawing characters and just rely on what the
787 specified fonts provide. Use this if you have a good font and want
788 to use its block graphic glyphs; option -sbg.
789 termName: termname
791 Specifies the terminal type name to be set in the TERM environment
792 variable; option -tn.
793 lineSpace: number
795 Specifies number of lines (pixel height) to insert between each row
796 of the display [default 0]; option -lsp.
797 meta8: boolean
799 True: handle Meta (Alt) + keypress to set the 8th bit. False:
800 handle Meta (Alt) + keypress as an escape prefix [default].
801 mouseWheelScrollPage: boolean
803 True: the mouse wheel scrolls a page full. False: the mouse wheel
804 scrolls five lines [default].
805 pastableTabs: boolean
807 True: store tabs as wide characters. False: interpret tabs as
808 cursor movement only; option "-ptab".
809 cursorBlink: boolean
811 True: blink the cursor. False: do not blink the cursor [default];
812 option -bc.
813 cursorUnderline: boolean
815 True: Make the cursor underlined. False: Make the cursor a box
816 [default]; option -uc.
817 pointerBlank: boolean
819 True: blank the pointer when a key is pressed or after a set number
820 of seconds of inactivity. False: the pointer is always visible
821 [default].
822 pointerColor: colour
824 Mouse pointer foreground colour.
825 pointerColor2: colour
827 Mouse pointer background colour.
828 pointerShape: string
830 Compile frills: Specifies the name of the mouse pointer shape
831 [default xterm]. See the macros in the X11/cursorfont.h include
832 file for possible values (omit the "XC_" prefix).
833 pointerBlankDelay: number
835 Specifies number of seconds before blanking the pointer [default
836 2]. Use a large number (e.g. 987654321) to effectively disable the
837 timeout.
838 backspacekey: string
840 The string to send when the backspace key is pressed. If set to DEC
841 or unset it will send Delete (code 127) or, with control, Backspace
842 (code 8) - which can be reversed with the appropriate DEC private
843 mode escape sequence.
844 deletekey: string
846 The string to send when the delete key (not the keypad delete key)
847 is pressed. If unset it will send the sequence traditionally
848 associated with the Execute key.
849 cutchars: string
851 The characters used as delimiters for double-click word selection
852 (whitespace delimiting is added automatically if resource is
853 given).
854 When the perl selection extension is in use (the default if
856 compiled in, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage), a suitable regex using
857 these characters will be created (if the resource exists,
858 otherwise, no regex will be created). In this mode, characters
859 outside ISO-8859-1 can be used.
860 When the selection extension is not used, only ISO-8859-1
862 characters can be used. If not specified, the built-in default is
863 used:
864 BACKSLASH `"'&()*,;<=>?@[]^{|}
866 preeditType: style
868 OnTheSpot, OverTheSpot, OffTheSpot, Root; option -pt.
869 inputMethod: name
871 name of inputMethod to use; option -im.
872 imLocale: name
874 The locale to use for opening the IM. You can use an "LC_CTYPE" of
875 e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8" for normal text processing but "ja_JP.EUC-JP"
876 for the input extension to be able to input japanese characters
877 while staying in another locale; option -imlocale.
878 imFont: fontset
880 Specify the font-set used for XIM styles "OverTheSpot" or
881 "OffTheSpot". It must be a standard X font set (XLFD patterns
882 separated by commas), i.e. it's not in the same format as the other
883 font lists used in urxvt. The default will be set-up to chose *any*
884 suitable found found, preferably one or two pixels differing in
885 size to the base font. option -imfont.
886 tripleclickwords: boolean
888 Change the meaning of triple-click selection with the left mouse
889 button. Instead of selecting a full line it will extend the
890 selection to the end of the logical line only; option -tcw.
891 insecure: boolean
893 Enables "insecure" mode. Rxvt-unicode offers some escape sequences
894 that echo arbitrary strings like the icon name or the locale. This
895 could be abused if somebody gets 8-bit-clean access to your
896 display, whether through a mail client displaying mail bodies
897 unfiltered or through write(1) or any other means. Therefore, these
898 sequences are disabled by default. (Note that many other terminals,
899 including xterm, have these sequences enabled by default, which
900 doesn't make it safer, though).
901 You can enable them by setting this boolean resource or specifying
903 -insecure as an option. At the moment, this enables display-answer,
904 locale, findfont, icon label and window title requests.
905 modifier: modifier
907 Set the key to be interpreted as the Meta key to: alt, meta, hyper,
908 super, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5; option -mod.
909 answerbackString: string
911 Specify the reply rxvt-unicode sends to the shell when an ENQ
912 (control-E) character is passed through. It may contain escape
913 values as described in the entry on keysym following.
914 secondaryScreen: boolean
916 Turn on/off secondary screen (default enabled).
917 secondaryScroll: boolean
919 Turn on/off secondary screen scroll (default enabled). If this
920 option is enabled, scrolls on the secondary screen will change the
921 scrollback buffer and, when secondaryScreen is off, switching
922 to/from the secondary screen will instead scroll the screen up.
923 hold: boolean
925 Turn on/off hold window after exit support. If enabled, urxvt will
926 not immediately destroy its window when the program executed within
927 it exits. Instead, it will wait till it is being killed or closed
928 by the user.
929 chdir: path
931 Sets the working directory for the shell (or the command specified
932 via -e). The path must be an absolute path and it must exist for
933 urxvt to start. If it isn't specified then the current working
934 directory will be used; option -cd.
935 keysym.sym: action
937 Compile frills: Associate action with keysym sym. The intervening
938 resource name keysym. cannot be omitted.
939 Using this resource, you can map key combinations such as
941 "Ctrl-Shift-BackSpace" to various actions, such as outputting a
942 different string than would normally result from that combination,
943 making the terminal scroll up or down the way you want it, or any
944 other thing an extension might provide.
945 The key combination that triggers the action, sym, has the
947 following format:
948 (modifiers-)key
950 Where modifiers can be any combination of ISOLevel3, AppKeypad,
952 Control, NumLock, Shift, Meta, Lock, Mod1, Mod2, Mod3, Mod4, Mod5,
953 and the abbreviated I, K, C, N, S, M, A, L, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
954 The NumLock, Meta and ISOLevel3 modifiers are usually aliased to
956 whatever modifier the NumLock key, Meta/Alt keys or ISO Level3
957 Shift/AltGr keys are being mapped. AppKeypad is a synthetic
958 modifier mapped to the current application keymap mode state.
959 Due the the large number of modifier combinations, a key mapping
961 will match if at least the specified identifiers are being set, and
962 no other key mappings with those and more bits are being defined.
963 That means that defining a mapping for "a" will automatically
964 provide definitions for "Meta-a", "Shift-a" and so on, unless some
965 of those are defined mappings themselves. See the "builtin:"
966 action, below, for a way to work around this when this is a
967 problem.
968 The spelling of key depends on your implementation of X. An easy
970 way to find a key name is to use the xev(1) command. You can find a
971 list by looking for the "XK_" macros in the X11/keysymdef.h include
972 file (omit the "XK_" prefix). Alternatively you can specify key by
973 its hex keysym value (0x0000 - 0xFFFF).
974 As with any resource value, the action string may contain backslash
976 escape sequences ("\n": newline, "\\": backslash, "\000": octal
977 number), see RESOURCES in "man 7 X" for further details.
978 An action starts with an action prefix that selects a certain type
980 of action, followed by a colon. An action string without colons is
981 interpreted as a literal string to pass to the tty (as if it was
982 prefixed with "string:").
983 The following action prefixes are known - extensions can provide
985 additional prefixes:
986 string:STRING
988 If the action starts with "string:" (or otherwise contains no
989 colons), then the remaining "STRING" will be passed to the
990 program running in the terminal. For example, you could replace
991 whatever Shift-Tab outputs by the string "echo rm -rf /"
992 followed by a newline:
993 URxvt.keysym.Shift-Tab: string:echo rm -rf /\n
995 This could in theory be used to completely redefine your
997 keymap.
998 In addition, for actions of this type, you can define a range
1000 of keysyms in one shot by loading the "keysym-list" perl
1001 extension and providing an action with pattern
1002 list/PREFIX/MIDDLE/SUFFIX, where the delimiter `/' should be a
1003 character not used by the strings.
1004 Its usage can be demonstrated by an example:
1006 URxvt.keysym.M-C-0x61: list|\033<|abc|>
1008 The above line is equivalent to the following three lines:
1010 URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x61: string:\033<a>
1012 URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x62: string:\033<b>
1013 URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x63: string:\033<c>
1014 command:STRING
1016 If action takes the form of "command:STRING", the specified
1017 STRING is interpreted and executed as urxvt's control sequence
1018 (basically the opposite of "string:" - instead of sending it to
1019 the program running in the terminal, it will be treated as if
1020 it were program output). This is most useful to feed command
1021 sequences into urxvt.
1022 For example the following means "change the current locale to
1024 "zh_CN.GBK" when Control-Meta-c is being pressed":
1025 URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
1027 The following example will map Control-Meta-1 and
1029 Control-Meta-2 to the fonts "suxuseuro" and "9x15bold", so you
1030 can have some limited font-switching at runtime:
1031 URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]50;suxuseuro\007
1033 URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]50;9x15bold\007
1034 Other things are possible, e.g. resizing (see urxvt(7) for more
1036 info):
1037 URxvt.keysym.M-C-3: command:\033[8;25;80t
1039 URxvt.keysym.M-C-4: command:\033[8;48;110t
1040 builtin:
1042 The builtin action is the action that urxvt would execute if no
1043 key binding existed for the key combination. The obvious use is
1044 to undo the effect of existing bindings. The not so obvious use
1045 is to reinstate bindings when another binding overrides too
1046 many modifiers.
1047 For example if you overwrite the "Insert" key you will disable
1049 urxvt's "Shift-Insert" mapping. To re-enable that, you can poke
1050 "holes" into the user-defined keymap using the "builtin:"
1051 replacement:
1052 URxvt.keysym.Insert: <my insert key sequence>
1054 URxvt.keysym.S-Insert: builtin:
1055 The first line defines a mapping for "Insert" and any
1057 combination of modifiers. The second line re-establishes the
1058 default mapping for "Shift-Insert".
1059 builtin-string:
1061 This action is mainly useful to restore string mappings for
1062 keys that have predefined actions in urxvt. The exact semantics
1063 are a bit difficult to explain - basically, this action will
1064 send the string to the application that would be sent if urxvt
1065 wouldn't have a built-in action for it.
1066 An example might make it clearer: urxvt normally pastes the
1068 selection when you press "Shift-Insert". With the following
1069 bindings, it would instead emit the (undocumented, but what
1070 applications running in the terminal might expect) sequence
1071 "ESC [ 2 $" instead:
1072 URxvt.keysym.S-Insert: builtin-string:
1074 URxvt.keysym.C-S-Insert: builtin:
1075 The first line disables the paste functionality for that key
1077 combination, and the second reinstates the default behaviour
1078 for "Control-Shift-Insert", which would otherwise be
1079 overridden.
1080 Similarly, to let applications gain access to the "C-M-c" (copy
1082 to clipboard) and "C-M-v" (paste clipboard) key combination,
1083 you can do this:
1084 URxvt.keysym.C-M-c: builtin-string:
1086 URxvt.keysym.C-M-v: builtin-string:
1087 EXTENSION:STRING
1089 An action of this form invokes the action STRING, if any,
1090 provided by the urxvtperl(3) extension EXTENSION. The extension
1091 will be loaded automatically if necessary.
1092 Not all extensions define actions, but popular extensions that
1094 do include the selection and matcher extensions (documented in
1095 their own manpages, urxvt-selection(1) and urxvt-matcher(1),
1096 respectively).
1097 From the silly examples department, this will rot13-"encrypt"
1099 urxvt's selection when Alt-Control-c is pressed on typical PC
1100 keyboards:
1101 URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: selection:rot13
1103 perl:STRING *DEPRECATED*
1105 This is a deprecated way of invoking commands provided by perl
1106 extensions. It is still supported, but should not be used
1107 anymore.
1108 perl-ext-common: string
1110 perl-ext: string
1111 Comma-separated list(s) of perl extension scripts (default:
1112 "default") to use in this terminal instance; option -pe.
1113 Extension names can be prefixed with a "-" sign to prohibit using
1115 them. This can be useful to selectively disable some extensions
1116 loaded by default, or specified via the "perl-ext-common" resource.
1117 For example, "default,-selection" will use all the default
1118 extensions except "selection".
1119 The default set includes the "selection", "option-popup",
1121 "selection-popup", "readline" and "searchable-scrollback"
1122 extensions, and extensions which are mentioned in keysym resources.
1123 Any extension such that a corresponding resource is given on the
1125 command line is automatically appended to perl-ext.
1126 Each extension is looked up in the library directories, loaded if
1128 necessary, and bound to the current terminal instance. When the
1129 library search path contains multiple extension files of the same
1130 name, then the first one found will be used.
1131 If both of these resources are the empty string, then the perl
1133 interpreter will not be initialized. The rationale for having two
1134 options is that perl-ext-common will be used for extensions that
1135 should be available to all instances, while perl-ext is used for
1136 specific instances.
1137 perl-eval: string
1139 Perl code to be evaluated when all extensions have been registered.
1140 See the urxvtperl(3) manpage.
1141 perl-lib: path
1143 Colon-separated list of additional directories that hold extension
1144 scripts. When looking for perl extensions, urxvt will first look in
1145 these directories, then in $URXVT_PERL_LIB, $HOME/.urxvt/ext and
1146 lastly in /usr/lib64/urxvt/perl/.
1147 See the urxvtperl(3) manpage.
1149 selection.pattern-idx: perl-regex
1151 Additional selection patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for
1152 details.
1153 selection-autotransform.idx: perl-transform
1155 Selection auto-transform patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for
1156 details.
1157 searchable-scrollback: keysym *DEPRECATED*
1159 This resource is deprecated and will be removed. Use a keysym
1160 resource instead, e.g.:
1161 URxvt.keysym.M-s: searchable-scrollback:start
1163 url-launcher: string
1165 Specifies the program to be started with a URL argument. Used by
1166 the "selection-popup" and "matcher" perl extensions.
1167 transient-for: windowid
1169 Compile frills: Sets the WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property to the given
1170 window id.
1171 override-redirect: boolean
1173 Compile frills: Sets override-redirect for the terminal window,
1174 making it almost invisible to window managers; option
1175 -override-redirect.
1176 iso14755: boolean
1178 Turn on/off ISO 14755 (default enabled).
1179 iso14755_52: boolean
1181 Turn on/off ISO 14755 5.2 mode (default enabled).
1182
1184 -pixmap file[;oplist]
1185 backgroundPixmap: file[;oplist]
1186 Compile pixbuf: Use the specified image file as the window's
1187 background and also optionally specify a colon separated list of
1188 operations to modify it. Note that you may need to quote the ";"
1189 character when using the command line option, as ";" is usually a
1190 metacharacter in shells. Supported operations are:
1191 WxH+X+Y
1193 sets scale and position. "W" / "H" specify the
1194 horizontal/vertical scale (percent), and "X" / "Y" locate the
1195 image centre (percent). A scale of 0 disables scaling.
1196 op=tile
1198 enables tiling
1199 op=keep-aspect
1201 maintain the image aspect ratio when scaling
1202 op=root-align
1204 use the position of the terminal window relative to the root
1205 window as the image offset, simulating a root window background
1206 The default scale and position setting is "100x100+50+50".
1208 Alternatively, a predefined set of templates can be used to achieve
1209 the most common setups:
1210 style=tiled
1212 the image is tiled with no scaling. Equivalent to
1213 0x0+0+0:op=tile
1214 style=aspect-stretched
1216 the image is scaled to fill the whole window maintaining the
1217 aspect ratio and centered. Equivalent to
1218 100x100+50+50:op=keep-aspect
1219 style=stretched
1221 the image is scaled to fill the whole window. Equivalent to
1222 100x100
1223 style=centered
1225 the image is centered with no scaling. Equivalent to 0x0+50+50
1226 style=root-tiled
1228 the image is tiled with no scaling and using 'root'
1229 positioning. Equivalent to 0x0:op=tile:op=root-align
1230 If multiple templates are specified the last one wins. Note that a
1232 template overrides all the scale, position and operations settings.
1233 If used in conjunction with pseudo-transparency, the specified
1235 pixmap will be blended over the transparent background using alpha-
1236 blending.
1237 -tr|+tr
1239 transparent: boolean
1240 Turn on/off pseudo-transparency by using the root pixmap as
1241 background.
1242 -ip (inheritPixmap) is still accepted as an obsolete alias but will
1244 be removed in future versions.
1245 -tint colour
1247 tintColor: colour
1248 Tint the transparent background with the given colour. Note that a
1249 black tint yields a completely black image while a white tint
1250 yields the image unchanged.
1251 -sh number
1253 shading: number
1254 Darken (0 .. 99) or lighten (101 .. 200) the transparent
1255 background. A value of 100 means no shading.
1256 -blr HxV
1258 blurRadius: HxV
1259 Apply gaussian blur with the specified radius to the transparent
1260 background. If a single number is specified, the vertical and
1261 horizontal radii are considered to be the same. Setting one of the
1262 radii to 1 and the other to a large number creates interesting
1263 effects on some backgrounds. The maximum radius value is 128. An
1264 horizontal or vertical radius of 0 disables blurring.
1265 path: path
1267 Specify the colon-delimited search path for finding background
1268 image files.
1269
1271 Lines of text that scroll off the top of the urxvt window (resource:
1272 saveLines) and can be scrolled back using the scrollbar or by
1273 keystrokes. The normal urxvt scrollbar has arrows and its behaviour is
1274 fairly intuitive. The xterm-scrollbar is without arrows and its
1275 behaviour mimics that of xterm
1276 Scroll down with Button1 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Next. Scroll up
1278 with Button3 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Prior. Continuous scroll with
1279 Button2.
1280
1282 To temporarily override mouse reporting, for either the scrollbar or
1283 the normal text selection/insertion, hold either the Shift or the Meta
1284 (Alt) key while performing the desired mouse action.
1285 If mouse reporting mode is active, the normal scrollbar actions are
1287 disabled -- on the assumption that we are using a fullscreen
1288 application. Instead, pressing Button1 and Button3 sends ESC [ 6 ~
1289 (Next) and ESC [ 5 ~ (Prior), respectively. Similarly, clicking on the
1290 up and down arrows sends ESC [ A (Up) and ESC [ B (Down), respectively.
1291
1293 The behaviour of text selection and insertion/pasting mechanism is
1294 similar to xterm(1).
1295 Selecting:
1297 Left click at the beginning of the region, drag to the end of the
1298 region and release; Right click to extend the marked region; Left
1299 double-click to select a word; Left triple-click to select the
1300 entire logical line (which can span multiple screen lines), unless
1301 modified by resource tripleclickwords.
1302 Starting a selection while pressing the Meta key (or Meta+Ctrl
1304 keys) (Compile: frills) will create a rectangular selection instead
1305 of a normal one. In this mode, every selected row becomes its own
1306 line in the selection, and trailing whitespace is visually
1307 underlined and removed from the selection.
1308 Pasting:
1310 Pressing and releasing the Middle mouse button in an urxvt window
1311 causes the value of the PRIMARY selection (or CLIPBOARD with the
1312 Meta modifier) to be inserted as if it had been typed on the
1313 keyboard.
1314 Pressing Shift-Insert causes the value of the PRIMARY selection to
1316 be inserted too.
1317 rxvt-unicode also provides the bindings Ctrl-Meta-c and
1319 <Ctrl-Meta-v> to interact with the CLIPBOARD selection. The first
1320 binding causes the value of the internal selection to be copied to
1321 the CLIPBOARD selection, while the second binding causes the value
1322 of the CLIPBOARD selection to be inserted.
1323
1325 Changing fonts (or font sizes, respectively) via the keypad is not yet
1326 supported in rxvt-unicode. Bug me if you need this.
1327 You can, however, switch fonts at runtime using escape sequences, e.g.:
1329 printf '\e]710;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
1331 You can use keyboard shortcuts, too:
1333 URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
1335 URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
1336 rxvt-unicode will automatically re-apply these fonts to the output so
1338 far.
1339
1341 ISO 14755 is a standard for entering and viewing unicode characters and
1342 character codes using the keyboard. It consists of 4 parts. The first
1343 part is available if rxvt-unicode has been compiled with
1344 "--enable-frills", the rest is available when rxvt-unicode was compiled
1345 with "--enable-iso14755".
1346 · 5.1: Basic method
1348 This allows you to enter unicode characters using their hexcode.
1350 Start by pressing and holding both "Control" and "Shift", then
1352 enter hex-digits (between one and six). Releasing "Control" and
1353 "Shift" will commit the character as if it were typed directly.
1354 While holding down "Control" and "Shift" you can also enter
1355 multiple characters by pressing "Space", which will commit the
1356 current character and lets you start a new one.
1357 As an example of use, imagine a business card with a japanese
1359 e-mail address, which you cannot type. Fortunately, the card has
1360 the e-mail address printed as hexcodes, e.g. "671d 65e5". You can
1361 enter this easily by pressing "Control" and "Shift", followed by
1362 "6-7-1-D-SPACE-6-5-E-5", followed by releasing the modifier keys.
1363 · 5.2: Keyboard symbols entry method
1365 This mode lets you input characters representing the keycap symbols
1367 of your keyboard, if representable in the current locale encoding.
1368 Start by pressing "Control" and "Shift" together, then releasing
1370 them. The next special key (cursor keys, home etc.) you enter will
1371 not invoke its usual function but instead will insert the
1372 corresponding keycap symbol. The symbol will only be entered when
1373 the key has been released, otherwise pressing e.g. "Shift" would
1374 enter the symbol for "ISO Level 2 Switch", although your intention
1375 might have been to enter a reverse tab (Shift-Tab).
1376 · 5.3: Screen-selection entry method
1378 While this is implemented already (it's basically the selection
1380 mechanism), it could be extended by displaying a unicode character
1381 map.
1382 · 5.4: Feedback method for identifying displayed characters for later
1384 input
1385 This method lets you display the unicode character code associated
1387 with characters already displayed.
1388 You enter this mode by holding down "Control" and "Shift" together,
1390 then pressing and holding the left mouse button and moving around.
1391 The unicode hex code(s) (it might be a combining character) of the
1392 character under the pointer is displayed until you release
1393 "Control" and "Shift".
1394 In addition to the hex codes it will display the font used to draw
1396 this character - due to implementation reasons, characters combined
1397 with combining characters, line drawing characters and unknown
1398 characters will always be drawn using the built-in support font.
1399 With respect to conformance, rxvt-unicode is supposed to be compliant
1401 to both scenario A and B of ISO 14755, including part 5.2.
1402
1404 urxvt tries to write an entry into the utmp(5) file so that it can be
1405 seen via the who(1) command, and can accept messages. To allow this
1406 feature, urxvt may need to be installed setuid root on some systems or
1407 setgid to root or to some other group on others.
1408
1410 In addition to the default foreground and background colours, urxvt can
1411 display up to 88/256 colours: 8 ANSI colours plus high-intensity
1412 (potentially bold/blink) versions of the same, and 72 (or 240 in 256
1413 colour mode) colours arranged in an 4x4x4 (or 6x6x6) colour RGB cube
1414 plus a 8 (24) colour greyscale ramp.
1415 Here is a list of the ANSI colours with their names.
1417 color0 (black) = Black
1419 color1 (red) = Red3
1420 color2 (green) = Green3
1421 color3 (yellow) = Yellow3
1422 color4 (blue) = Blue3
1423 color5 (magenta) = Magenta3
1424 color6 (cyan) = Cyan3
1425 color7 (white) = AntiqueWhite
1426 color8 (bright black) = Grey25
1427 color9 (bright red) = Red
1428 color10 (bright green) = Green
1430 color11 (bright yellow) = Yellow
1431 color12 (bright blue) = Blue
1432 color13 (bright magenta) = Magenta
1433 color14 (bright cyan) = Cyan
1434 color15 (bright white) = White
1435 foreground = Black
1436 background = White
1437 It is also possible to specify the colour values of foreground,
1439 background, cursorColor, cursorColor2, colorBD, colorUL as a number
1440 0-15, as a convenient shorthand to reference the colour name of
1441 color0-color15.
1442 The following text gives values for the standard 88 colour mode (and
1444 values for the 256 colour mode in parentheses).
1445 The RGB cube uses indices 16..79 (16..231) using the following
1447 formulas:
1448 index_88 = (r * 4 + g) * 4 + b + 16 # r, g, b = 0..3
1450 index_256 = (r * 6 + g) * 6 + b + 16 # r, g, b = 0..5
1451 The grayscale ramp uses indices 80..87 (232..239), from 10% to 90% in
1453 10% steps (1/26 to 25/26 in 1/26 steps) - black and white are already
1454 part of the RGB cube.
1455 Together, all those colours implement the 88 (256) colour xterm
1457 colours. Only the first 16 can be changed using resources currently,
1458 the rest can only be changed via command sequences ("escape codes").
1459 Applications are advised to use terminfo or command sequences to
1461 discover number and RGB values of all colours (yes, you can query
1462 this...).
1463 Note that -rv ("reverseVideo: True") simulates reverse video by always
1465 swapping the foreground/background colours. This is in contrast to
1466 xterm(1) where the colours are only swapped if they have not otherwise
1467 been specified. For example,
1468 urxvt -fg Black -bg White -rv
1470 would yield White on Black, while on xterm(1) it would yield Black on
1472 White.
1473 ALPHA CHANNEL SUPPORT
1475 If Xft support has been compiled in and as long as Xft/Xrender/X don't
1476 get their act together, rxvt-unicode will do its own alpha channel
1477 management:
1478 You can prefix any colour with an opaqueness percentage enclosed in
1480 brackets, i.e. "[percent]", where "percent" is a decimal percentage
1481 (0-100) that specifies the opacity of the colour, where 0 is completely
1482 transparent and 100 is completely opaque. For example, "[50]red" is a
1483 half-transparent red, while "[95]#00ff00" is an almost opaque green.
1484 This is the recommended format to specify transparency values, and
1485 works with all ways to specify a colour.
1486 For complete control, rxvt-unicode also supports
1488 "rgba:rrrr/gggg/bbbb/aaaa" (exactly four hex digits/component) colour
1489 specifications, where the additional "aaaa" component specifies opacity
1490 (alpha) values. The minimum value of 0000 is completely transparent,
1491 while "ffff" is completely opaque). The two example colours from
1492 earlier could also be specified as "rgba:ff00/0000/0000/8000" and
1493 "rgba:0000/ff00/0000/f332".
1494 You probably need to specify "-depth 32", too, to force a visual with
1496 alpha channels, and have the luck that your X-server uses ARGB pixel
1497 layout, as X is far from just supporting ARGB visuals out of the box,
1498 and rxvt-unicode just fudges around.
1499 For example, the following selects an almost completely transparent
1501 black background, and an almost opaque pink foreground:
1502 urxvt -depth 32 -bg rgba:0000/0000/0000/4444 -fg "[80]pink"
1504 When not using a background image, then the interpretation of the alpha
1506 channel is up to your compositing manager (most interpret it as
1507 transparency of course).
1508 When using a background pixmap or pseudo-transparency, then the
1510 background colour will always behave as if it were completely
1511 transparent (so the background image shows instead), regardless of how
1512 it was specified, while other colours will either be transparent as
1513 specified (the background image will show through) on servers
1514 supporting the RENDER extension, or fully opaque on servers not
1515 supporting the RENDER EXTENSION.
1516 Please note that due to bugs in Xft, specifying alpha values might
1518 result in garbage being displayed when the X-server does not support
1519 the RENDER extension.
1520
1522 urxvt sets and/or uses the following environment variables:
1523 TERM
1525 Normally set to "rxvt-unicode", unless overwritten at configure
1526 time, via resources or on the command line.
1527 COLORTERM
1529 Either "rxvt", "rxvt-xpm", depending on whether urxvt was compiled
1530 with background image support, and optionally with the added
1531 extension "-mono" to indicate that rxvt-unicode runs on a
1532 monochrome screen.
1533 COLORFGBG
1535 Set to a string of the form "fg;bg" or "fg;xpm;bg", where "fg" is
1536 the colour code used as default foreground/text colour (or the
1537 string "default" to indicate that the default-colour escape
1538 sequence is to be used), "bg" is the colour code used as default
1539 background colour (or the string "default"), and "xpm" is the
1540 string "default" if urxvt was compiled with background image
1541 support. Libraries like "ncurses" and "slang" can (and do) use this
1542 information to optimize screen output.
1543 WINDOWID
1545 Set to the (decimal) X Window ID of the urxvt window (the toplevel
1546 window, which usually has subwindows for the scrollbar, the
1547 terminal window and so on).
1548 TERMINFO
1550 Set to the terminfo directory iff urxvt was configured with
1551 "--with-terminfo=PATH".
1552 DISPLAY
1554 Used by urxvt to connect to the display and set to the correct
1555 display in its child processes if "-display" isn't used to
1556 override. It defaults to ":0" if it doesn't exist.
1557 SHELL
1559 The shell to be used for command execution, defaults to "/bin/sh".
1560 RXVT_SOCKET [sic]
1562 The unix domain socket path used by urxvtc(1) and urxvtd(1).
1563 Default $HOME/.urxvt/urxvtd-<nodename>.
1565 URXVT_PERL_LIB
1567 Additional :-separated library search path for perl extensions.
1568 Will be searched after -perl-lib but before ~/.urxvt/ext and the
1569 system library directory.
1570 URXVT_PERL_VERBOSITY
1572 See urxvtperl(3).
1573 HOME
1575 Used to locate the default directory for the unix domain socket for
1576 daemon communications and to locate various resource files (such as
1577 ".Xdefaults")
1578 XAPPLRESDIR
1580 Directory where application-specific X resource files are located.
1581 XENVIRONMENT
1583 If set and accessible, gives the name of a X resource file to be
1584 loaded by urxvt.
1585
1587 /usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt
1588 Colour names.
1589
1591 urxvt(7), urxvtc(1), urxvtd(1), urxvt-extensions(1), urxvtperl(3),
1592 xterm(1), sh(1), resize(1), X(1), pty(4), tty(4), utmp(5)
1593
1595 Project Coordinator
1596 Marc A. Lehmann <rxvt-unicode@schmorp.de>.
1597 <http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html>
1599
1601 John Bovey
1602 University of Kent, 1992, wrote the original Xvt.
1603 Rob Nation <nation@rocket.sanders.lockheed.com>
1605 very heavily modified Xvt and came up with Rxvt
1606 Angelo Haritsis <ah@doc.ic.ac.uk>
1608 wrote the Greek Keyboard Input (no longer in code)
1609 mj olesen <olesen@me.QueensU.CA>
1611 Wrote the menu system.
1612 Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.11 to 2.21)
1614 Oezguer Kesim <kesim@math.fu-berlin.de>
1616 Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.21a to 2.4.5)
1617 Geoff Wing <gcw@pobox.com>
1619 Rewrote screen display and text selection routines.
1620 Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.4.6 - rxvt-unicode)
1622 Marc Alexander Lehmann <rxvt-unicode@schmorp.de>
1624 Forked rxvt-unicode, unicode support, rewrote almost all the code,
1625 perl extension, random hacks, numerous bugfixes and extensions.
1626 Project Coordinator (Changes 1.0 -)
1628 Emanuele Giaquinta <emanuele.giaquinta@gmail.com>
1630 pty/utmp code rewrite, image code improvements, many random hacks
1631 and bugfixes.
16329.22 2016-01-23 urxvt(1)