urxvt(1) RXVT-UNICODE urxvt(1)NAME
rxvt-unicode (ouR XVT, unicode) - (a VT102 emulator for the X window
system)
SYNOPSISurxvt [options] [-e command [ args ]]
DESCRIPTION
rxvt-unicode, version 9.07, is a colour vt102 terminal emulator
intended as an xterm(1) replacement for users who do not require
features such as Tektronix 4014 emulation and toolkit-style
configurability. As a result, rxvt-unicode uses much less swap space --
a significant advantage on a machine serving many X sessions.
This document is also available on the World-Wide-Web at
<http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.1.pod>.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
See urxvt(7) (try "man 7 urxvt") for a list of frequently asked
questions and answer to them and some common problems. That document is
also accessible on the World-Wide-Web at
<http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.pod>.
RXVT-UNICODE VS. RXVT
Unlike the original rxvt, rxvt-unicode stores all text in Unicode
internally. That means it can store and display most scripts in the
world. Being a terminal emulator, however, some things are very
difficult, especially cursive scripts such as arabic, vertically
written scripts like mongolian or scripts requiring extremely complex
combining rules, like tibetan or devanagari. Don't expect pretty output
when using these scripts. Most other scripts, latin, cyrillic, kanji,
thai etc. should work fine, though. A somewhat difficult case are
right-to-left scripts, such as hebrew: rxvt-unicode adopts the view
that bidirectional algorithms belong in the application, not the
terminal emulator (too many things -- such as cursor-movement while
editing -- break otherwise), but that might change.
If you are looking for a terminal that supports more exotic scripts,
let me recommend "mlterm", which is a very user friendly, lean and
clean terminal emulator. In fact, the reason rxvt-unicode was born was
solely because the author couldn't get "mlterm" to use one font for
latin1 and another for japanese.
Therefore another design rationale was the use of multiple fonts to
display characters: The idea of a single unicode font which many other
programs force onto its users never made sense to me: You should be
able to choose any font for any script freely.
Apart from that, rxvt-unicode is also much better internationalised
than its predecessor, supports things such as XFT and ISO 14755 that
are handy in i18n-environments, is faster, and has a lot bugs less than
the original rxvt. This all in addition to dozens of other small
improvements.
It is still faithfully following the original rxvt idea of being lean
and nice on resources: for example, you can still configure rxvt-
unicode without most of its features to get a lean binary. It also
comes with a client/daemon pair that lets you open any number of
terminal windows from within a single process, which makes startup time
very fast and drastically reduces memory usage. See urxvtd(1) (daemon)
and urxvtc(1) (client).
It also makes technical information about escape sequences (which have
been extended) more accessible: see urxvt(7) for technical reference
documentation (escape sequences etc.).
OPTIONS
The urxvt options (mostly a subset of xterm's) are listed below. In
keeping with the smaller-is-better philosophy, options may be
eliminated or default values chosen at compile-time, so options and
defaults listed may not accurately reflect the version installed on
your system. `urxvt -h' gives a list of major compile-time options on
the Options line. Option descriptions may be prefixed with which
compile option each is dependent upon. e.g. `Compile XIM:' requires XIM
on the Options line. Note: `urxvt -help' gives a list of all command-
line options compiled into your version.
Note that urxvt permits the resource name to be used as a long-option
(--/++ option) so the potential command-line options are far greater
than those listed. For example: `urxvt --loginShell --color1 Orange'.
The following options are available:
-help, --help
Print out a message describing available options.
-display displayname
Attempt to open a window on the named X display (the older form -d
is still respected. but deprecated). In the absence of this option,
the display specified by the DISPLAY environment variable is used.
-depth bitdepth
Compile xft: Attempt to find a visual with the given bit depth;
resource depth.
[Please note that many X servers (and libXft) are buggy with
respect to "-depth 32" and/or alpha channels, and will cause all
sorts of graphical corruption. This is harmless, but we can't do
anything about this, so watch out]
-geometry geom
Window geometry (-g still respected); resource geometry.
-rv|+rv
Turn on/off simulated reverse video; resource reverseVideo.
-j|+j
Turn on/off jump scrolling (allow multiple lines per refresh);
resource jumpScroll.
-ss|+ss
Turn on/off skip scrolling (allow multiple screens per refresh);
resource skipScroll.
-tr|+tr
Turn on/off illusion of a transparent window background; resource
transparent.
-ip is still accepted as an obsolete alias but will be removed in
future versions.
Please address all transparency related issues to Sasha Vasko at
sasha@aftercode.net. Read the FAQ (man 7 urxvt)!
-fade number
Fade the text by the given percentage when focus is lost. Small
values fade a little only, 100 completely replaces all colours by
the fade colour; resource fading.
-fadecolor colour
Fade to this colour when fading is used (see -fade). The default
colour is opaque black. resource fadeColor.
-tint colour
Tint the transparent background pixmap with the given colour when
transparency is enabled with -tr. This only works for non-tiled
backgrounds, currently. See also the -sh option that can be used to
brighten or darken the image in addition to tinting it. Please
note that certain tint colours can be applied on the server-side,
thus yielding performance gain of two orders of magnitude. These
colours are: blue, red, green, cyan, magenta, yellow, and those
close to them. Also pure black and pure white colors essentially
mean no tinting; resource tintColor. Example:
urxvt-tr -tint blue -sh 40
-sh number
Darken (0 .. 100) or lighten (100 .. 200) the transparent
background image in addition to (or instead of) tinting it;
resource shading.
-blt string
Specify background blending type. If background pixmap is specified
at the same time as transparency - such pixmap will be blended over
transparency image, using method specified. Supported values are :
add, alphablend, allanon - color values averaging, colorize,
darken, diff, dissipate, hue, lighten, overlay, saturate, screen,
sub, tint, value. The default is alpha-blending. Compile
afterimage; resource blendType.
-blr HxV
Apply Gaussian Blur with the specified radii to the transparent
background image. If single number is specified - both vertical and
horizontal radii are considered to be the same. Setting one of the
radii to 1 and another to a large number creates interesting
effects on some backgrounds. Maximum radius value is 128. Compile
afterimage; resource blurRadius.
-icon file
Compile afterimage: Use the specified image as application icon.
This is used by many window managers, taskbars and pagers to
represent the application window; resource iconFile.
-bg colour
Window background colour; resource background.
-fg colour
Window foreground colour; resource foreground.
-pixmap file[;geom[:op1][:op2][...]]
Compile afterimage: Specify image file for the background and also
optionally specify its scaling with a geometry string. Note you may
need to add quotes to avoid special shell interpretation of the ";"
in the command-line; for more details see resource
backgroundPixmap.
-cr colour
The cursor colour; resource cursorColor.
-pr colour
The mouse pointer foreground colour; resource pointerColor.
-pr2 colour
The mouse pointer background colour; resource pointerColor2.
-bd colour
The colour of the border around the text area and between the
scrollbar and the text; resource borderColor.
-fn fontlist
Select the fonts to be used. This is a comma separated list of font
names that are checked in order when trying to find glyphs for
characters. The first font defines the cell size for characters;
other fonts might be smaller, but not (in general) larger. A
(hopefully) reasonable default font list is always appended to it.
See resource font for more details.
In short, to specify an X11 core font, just specify its name or
prefix it with "x:". To specify an XFT-font, you need to prefix it
with "xft:", e.g.:
urxvt-fn "xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:pixelsize=15"
urxvt-fn "9x15bold,xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"
See also the question "How does rxvt-unicode choose fonts?" in the
FAQ section of urxvt(7).
-fb fontlist
Compile font-styles: The bold font list to use when bold characters
are to be printed. See resource boldFont for details.
-fi fontlist
Compile font-styles: The italic font list to use when italic
characters are to be printed. See resource italicFont for details.
-fbi fontlist
Compile font-styles: The bold italic font list to use when bold
italic characters are to be printed. See resource boldItalicFont
for details.
-is|+is
Compile font-styles: Bold/Blink font styles imply high intensity
foreground/background (default). See resource intensityStyles for
details.
-name name
Specify the application name under which resources are to be
obtained, rather than the default executable file name. Name should
not contain `.' or `*' characters. Also sets the icon and title
name.
-ls|+ls
Start as a login-shell/sub-shell; resource loginShell.
-ut|+ut
Compile utmp: Inhibit/enable writing a utmp entry; resource
utmpInhibit.
-vb|+vb
Turn on/off visual bell on receipt of a bell character; resource
visualBell.
-sb|+sb
Turn on/off scrollbar; resource scrollBar.
-sr|+sr
Put scrollbar on right/left; resource scrollBar_right.
-st|+st
Display rxvt (non XTerm/NeXT) scrollbar without/with a trough;
resource scrollBar_floating.
-si|+si
Turn on/off scroll-to-bottom on TTY output inhibit; resource
scrollTtyOutput has opposite effect.
-sk|+sk
Turn on/off scroll-to-bottom on keypress; resource
scrollTtyKeypress.
-sw|+sw
Turn on/off scrolling with the scrollback buffer as new lines
appear. This only takes effect if -si is also given; resource
scrollWithBuffer.
-ptab|+ptab
If enabled (default), "Horizontal Tab" characters are being stored
as actual wide characters in the screen buffer, which makes it
possible to select and paste them. Since a horizontal tab is a
cursor movement and not an actual glyph, this can sometimes be
visually annoying as the cursor on a tab character is displayed as
a wide cursor; resource pastableTabs.
-bc|+bc
Blink the cursor; resource cursorBlink.
-uc|+uc
Make the cursor underlined; resource cursorUnderline.
-iconic
Start iconified, if the window manager supports that option.
Alternative form is -ic.
-sl number
Save number lines in the scrollback buffer. See resource entry for
limits; resource saveLines.
-b number
Compile frills: Internal border of number pixels. See resource
entry for limits; resource internalBorder.
-w number
Compile frills: External border of number pixels. Also, -bw and
-borderwidth. See resource entry for limits; resource
externalBorder.
-bl Compile frills: Set MWM hints to request a borderless window, i.e.
if honoured by the WM, the rxvt-unicode window will not have window
decorations; resource borderLess. If the window manager does not
support MWM hints (e.g. kwin), enables override-redirect mode.
-override-redirect
Compile frills: Sets override-redirect on the window; resource
override-redirect.
-sbg
Compile frills: Disable the usage of the built-in block
graphics/line drawing characters and just rely on what the
specified fonts provide. Use this if you have a good font and want
to use its block graphic glyphs; resource skipBuiltinGlyphs.
-lsp number
Compile frills: Lines (pixel height) to insert between each row of
the display. Useful to work around font rendering problems;
resource lineSpace.
-letsp number
Compile frills: Amount to adjust the computed character width by to
control overall letter spacing. Negative values will tighten up the
letter spacing, positive values will space letters out more. Useful
to work around odd font metrics; resource letterSpace.
-tn termname
This option specifies the name of the terminal type to be set in
the TERM environment variable. This terminal type must exist in the
termcap(5) database and should have li# and co# entries; resource
termName.
-e command [arguments]
Run the command with its command-line arguments in the urxvt
window; also sets the window title and icon name to be the basename
of the program being executed if neither -title (-T) nor -n are
given on the command line. If this option is used, it must be the
last on the command-line. If there is no -e option then the default
is to run the program specified by the SHELL environment variable
or, failing that, sh(1).
Please note that you must specify a program with arguments. If you
want to run shell commands, you have to specify the shell, like
this:
urxvt-e sh -c "shell commands"
-title text
Window title (-T still respected); the default title is the
basename of the program specified after the -e option, if any,
otherwise the application name; resource title.
-n text
Icon name; the default name is the basename of the program
specified after the -e option, if any, otherwise the application
name; resource iconName.
-C Capture system console messages.
-pt style
Compile XIM: input style for input method; OverTheSpot, OffTheSpot,
Root; resource preeditType.
-im text
Compile XIM: input method name. resource inputMethod.
-imlocale string
The locale to use for opening the IM. You can use an "LC_CTYPE" of
e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8" for normal text processing but "ja_JP.EUC-JP"
for the input extension to be able to input japanese characters
while staying in another locale. resource imLocale.
-imfont fontset
Set the font set to use for the X Input Method, see resource imFont
for more info.
-tcw
Change the meaning of triple-click selection with the left mouse
button. Only effective when the original (non-perl) selection code
is in-use. Instead of selecting a full line it will extend the
selection to the end of the logical line only. resource
tripleclickwords.
-insecure
Enable "insecure" mode, which currently enables most of the escape
sequences that echo strings. See the resource insecure for more
info.
-mod modifier
Override detection of Meta modifier with specified key: alt, meta,
hyper, super, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5; resource modifier.
-ssc|+ssc
Turn on/off secondary screen (default enabled); resource
secondaryScreen.
-ssr|+ssr
Turn on/off secondary screen scroll (default enabled); resource
secondaryScroll.
-hold|+hold
Turn on/off hold window after exit support. If enabled, urxvt will
not immediately destroy its window when the program executed within
it exits. Instead, it will wait till it is being killed or closed
by the user; resource hold.
-cd path
Sets the working directory for the shell (or the command specified
via -e). The path must be an absolute path and it must exist for
urxvt to start; resource chdir.
-xrm string
Works like the X Toolkit option of the same name, by adding the
string as if it were specified in a resource file. Resource values
specified this way take precedence over all other resource
specifications.
Note that you need to use the same syntax as in the .Xdefaults
file, e.g. "*.background: black". Also note that all urxvt-specific
options can be specified as long-options on the commandline, so use
of -xrm is mostly limited to cases where you want to specify other
resources (e.g. for input methods) or for compatibility with other
programs.
-keysym.sym string
Remap a key symbol. See resource keysym.
-embed windowid
Tells urxvt to embed its windows into an already-existing window,
which enables applications to easily embed a terminal.
Right now, urxvt will first unmap/map the specified window, so it
shouldn't be a top-level window. urxvt will also reconfigure it
quite a bit, so don't expect it to keep some specific state. It's
best to create an extra subwindow for urxvt and leave it alone.
The window will not be destroyed when urxvt exits.
It might be useful to know that urxvt will not close file
descriptors passed to it (except for stdin/out/err, of course), so
you can use file descriptors to communicate with the programs
within the terminal. This works regardless of whether the "-embed"
option was used or not.
Here is a short Gtk2-perl snippet that illustrates how this option
can be used (a longer example is in doc/embed):
my $rxvt = new Gtk2::Socket;
$rxvt->signal_connect_after (realize => sub {
my $xid = $_[0]->window->get_xid;
system "urxvt -embed $xid &";
});
-pty-fd file descriptor
Tells urxvt NOT to execute any commands or create a new pty/tty
pair but instead use the given file descriptor as the tty master.
This is useful if you want to drive urxvt as a generic terminal
emulator without having to run a program within it.
If this switch is given, urxvt will not create any utmp/wtmp
entries and will not tinker with pty/tty permissions - you have to
do that yourself if you want that.
As an extremely special case, specifying "-1" will completely
suppress pty/tty operations, which is probably only useful in
conjunction with some perl extension that manages the terminal.
Here is a example in perl that illustrates how this option can be
used (a longer example is in doc/pty-fd):
use IO::Pty;
use Fcntl;
my $pty = new IO::Pty;
fcntl $pty, F_SETFD, 0; # clear close-on-exec
system "urxvt -pty-fd " . (fileno $pty) . "&";
close $pty;
# now communicate with rxvt
my $slave = $pty->slave;
while (<$slave>) { print $slave "got <$_>\n" }
-pe string
Comma-separated list of perl extension scripts to use (or not to
use) in this terminal instance. See resource perl-ext for details.
RESOURCES
Note: `urxvt --help' gives a list of all resources (long options)
compiled into your version. All resources are also available as long-
options.
You can set and change the resources using X11 tools like xrdb. Many
distribution do also load settings from the ~/.Xresources file when X
starts. urxvt will consult the following files/resources in order, with
later settings overwriting earlier ones:
1. system-wide app-defaults file, either locale-dependent OR global
2. app-defaults file in $XAPPLRESDIR
3. RESOURCE_MANAGER property on root-window OR $HOME/.Xdefaults
4. SCREEN_RESOURCES for the current screen
5. $XENVIRONMENT file OR $HOME/.Xdefaults-<nodename>
6. resources specified via -xrm on the commandline
Note that when reading X resources, urxvt recognizes two class names:
Rxvt and URxvt. The class name Rxvt allows resources common to both
urxvt and the original rxvt to be easily configured, while the class
name URxvt allows resources unique to urxvt, to be shared between
different urxvt configurations. If no resources are specified, suitable
defaults will be used. Command-line arguments can be used to override
resource settings. The following resources are supported (you might
want to check the urxvtperl(3) manpage for additional settings by perl
extensions not documented here):
depth: bitdepth
Compile xft: Attempt to find a visual with the given bit depth;
option -depth.
buffered: boolean
Compile xft: Turn on/off double-buffering for xft (default
enabled). On some card/driver combination enabling it slightly
decreases performance, on most it greatly helps it. The slowdown is
small, so it should normally be enabled.
geometry: geom
Create the window with the specified X window geometry [default
80x24]; option -geometry.
background: colour
Use the specified colour as the window's background colour [default
White]; option -bg.
foreground: colour
Use the specified colour as the window's foreground colour [default
Black]; option -fg.
colorn: colour
Use the specified colour for the colour value n, where 0-7
corresponds to low-intensity (normal) colours and 8-15 corresponds
to high-intensity (bold = bright foreground, blink = bright
background) colours. The canonical names are as follows: 0=black,
1=red, 2=green, 3=yellow, 4=blue, 5=magenta, 6=cyan, 7=white, but
the actual colour names used are listed in the COLORS AND GRAPHICS
section.
Colours higher than 15 cannot be set using resources (yet), but can
be changed using an escape command (see urxvt(7)).
Colours 16-79 form a standard 4x4x4 colour cube (the same as xterm
with 88 colour support). Colours 80-87 are evenly spaces grey
steps.
colorBD: colour
colorIT: colour
Use the specified colour to display bold or italic characters when
the foreground colour is the default. If font styles are not
available (Compile styles) and this option is unset, reverse video
is used instead.
colorUL: colour
Use the specified colour to display underlined characters when the
foreground colour is the default.
colorRV: colour
Use the specified colour as the background for reverse video
characters when OPTION_HC is disabled (--disable-frills).
underlineColor: colour
If set, use the specified colour as the colour for the underline
itself. If unset, use the foreground colour.
cursorColor: colour
Use the specified colour for the cursor. The default is to use the
foreground colour; option -cr.
cursorColor2: colour
Use the specified colour for the colour of the cursor text. For
this to take effect, cursorColor must also be specified. The
default is to use the background colour.
reverseVideo: boolean
True: simulate reverse video by foreground and background colours;
option -rv. False: regular screen colours [default]; option +rv.
See note in COLORS AND GRAPHICS section.
jumpScroll: boolean
True: specify that jump scrolling should be used. When receiving
lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once a whole screen height of
lines has been read, resulting in fewer updates while still
displaying every received line; option -j.
False: specify that smooth scrolling should be used. urxvt will
force a screen refresh on each new line it received; option +j.
skipScroll: boolean
True: (the default) specify that skip scrolling should be used.
When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once in a
while (around 60 times per second), resulting in far fewer updates.
This can result in urxvt not ever displaying some of the lines it
receives; option -ss.
False: specify that everything is to be displayed, even if the
refresh is too fast for the human eye to read anything (or the
monitor to display anything); option +ss.
transparent: boolean
Turn on/off illusion of a transparent window background.
inheritPixmap is still accepted as an obsolete alias but will be
removed in future versions.
Please address all transparency related issues to Sasha Vasko at
sasha@aftercode.net. Read the FAQ (man 7 urxvt)!
fading: number
Fade the text by the given percentage when focus is lost; option
-fade.
fadeColor: colour
Fade to this colour, when fading is used (see fading:). The default
colour is black; option -fadecolor.
tintColor: colour
Tint the transparent background pixmap with the given colour;
option -tint.
shading: number
Darken (0 .. 100) or lighten (-1 .. -100) the transparent
background image in addition to tinting it; option -sh.
blendType: string
Specify background blending type; option -blt.
blurRadius: number
Apply gaussian blur with the specified radius to the transparent
background image; option -blr.
iconFile: file
Set the application icon pixmap; option -icon.
scrollColor: colour
Use the specified colour for the scrollbar [default #B2B2B2].
troughColor: colour
Use the specified colour for the scrollbar's trough area [default
#969696]. Only relevant for rxvt (non XTerm/NeXT) scrollbar.
borderColor: colour
The colour of the border around the text area and between the
scrollbar and the text.
backgroundPixmap: file[;geom[:op1][:op2][...]]
Use the specified image file for the background and also optionally
specify its scaling with a geometry string WxH+X+Y, (default
"0x0+50+50") in which "W" / "H" specify the horizontal/vertical
scale (percent), and "X" / "Y" locate the image centre (percent).
A scale of 0 displays the image with tiling. A scale of 1 displays
the image without any scaling. A scale of 2 to 9 specifies an
integer number of images in that direction. No image will be
magnified beyond 10 times its original size. The maximum permitted
scale is 1000. Additional operations can be specified after colon
:op1:op2.... Supported operations are:
tile force background image to be tiled and not scaled. Equivalent to 0x0
propscale will scale image keeping proportions
auto will scale image to match window size. Equivalent to 100x100
hscale will scale image horizontally to the window size
vscale will scale image vertically to the window size
scale will scale image to match window size
root will tile image as if it was a root window background, auto-adjusting
whenever terminal window moves
If used in conjunction with -tr option, the specified pixmap will
be blended over transparency image using either alpha-blending, or
any other blending type, specified with -blt "type" option.
path: path
Specify the colon-delimited search path for finding background
image files.
font: fontlist
Select the fonts to be used. This is a comma separated list of font
names that are checked in order when trying to find glyphs for
characters. The first font defines the cell size for characters;
other fonts might be smaller, but not (in general) larger. A
(hopefully) reasonable default font list is always appended to it;
option -fn.
Each font can either be a standard X11 core font (XLFD) name, with
optional prefix "x:" or a Xft font (Compile xft), prefixed with
"xft:".
In addition, each font can be prefixed with additional hints and
specifications enclosed in square brackets ("[]"). The only
available hint currently is "codeset=codeset-name", and this is
only used for Xft fonts.
For example, this font resource
URxvt.font: 9x15bold,\
-misc-fixed-bold-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1,\
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1, \
[codeset=JISX0208]xft:Kochi Gothic:antialias=false, \
xft:Code2000:antialias=false
specifies five fonts to be used. The first one is "9x15bold"
(actually the iso8859-1 version of the second font), which is the
base font (because it is named first) and thus defines the
character cell grid to be 9 pixels wide and 15 pixels high.
The second font is just used to add additional unicode characters
not in the base font, likewise the third, which is unfortunately
non-bold, but the bold version of the font does contain less
characters, so this is a useful supplement.
The third font is an Xft font with aliasing turned off, and the
characters are limited to the JIS 0208 codeset (i.e. japanese
kanji). The font contains other characters, but we are not
interested in them.
The last font is a useful catch-all font that supplies most of the
remaining unicode characters.
boldFont: fontlist
italicFont: fontlist
boldItalicFont: fontlist
The font list to use for displaying bold, italic or bold italic
characters, respectively.
If specified and non-empty, then the syntax is the same as for the
font-resource, and the given font list will be used as is, which
makes it possible to substitute completely different font styles
for bold and italic.
If unset (the default), a suitable font list will be synthesized by
"morphing" the normal text font list into the desired shape. If
that is not possible, replacement fonts of the desired shape will
be tried.
If set, but empty, then this specific style is disabled and the
normal text font will being used for the given style.
intensityStyles: boolean
When font styles are not enabled, or this option is enabled (True,
option -is, the default), bold/blink font styles imply high
intensity foreground/background colours. Disabling this option
(False, option +is) disables this behaviour, the high intensity
colours are not reachable.
title: string
Set window title string, the default title is the command-line
specified after the -e option, if any, otherwise the application
name; option -title.
iconName: string
Set the name used to label the window's icon or displayed in an
icon manager window, it also sets the window's title unless it is
explicitly set; option -n.
mapAlert: boolean
True: de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character. False: no
de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character [default].
urgentOnBell: boolean
True: set the urgency hint for the wm on receipt of a bell
character. False: do not set the urgency hint [default].
urxvt resets the urgency hint on every focus change.
visualBell: boolean
True: use visual bell on receipt of a bell character; option -vb.
False: no visual bell [default]; option +vb.
loginShell: boolean
True: start as a login shell by prepending a `-' to argv[0] of the
shell; option -ls. False: start as a normal sub-shell [default];
option +ls.
utmpInhibit: boolean
True: inhibit writing record into the system log file utmp; option
-ut. False: write record into the system log file utmp [default];
option +ut.
print-pipe: string
Specify a command pipe for vt100 printer [default lpr(1)]. Use
Print to initiate a screen dump to the printer and Ctrl-Print or
Shift-Print to include the scrollback as well.
The string will be interpreted as if typed into the shell as-is.
Example:
URxvt.print-pipe: cat > $(TMPDIR=$HOME mktemp urxvt.XXXXXX)
This creates a new file in your home directory with the screen
contents every time you hit "Print".
scrollstyle: mode
Set scrollbar style to rxvt, plain, next or xterm. plain is the
author's favourite.
scrollBar: boolean
True: enable the scrollbar [default]; option -sb. False: disable
the scrollbar; option +sb.
scrollBar_right: boolean
True: place the scrollbar on the right of the window; option -sr.
False: place the scrollbar on the left of the window; option +sr.
scrollBar_floating: boolean
True: display an rxvt scrollbar without a trough; option -st.
False: display an rxvt scrollbar with a trough; option +st.
scrollBar_align: mode
Align the top, bottom or centre [default] of the scrollbar thumb
with the pointer on middle button press/drag.
scrollTtyOutput: boolean
True: scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option -si.
False: do not scroll to bottom when tty receives output; option
+si.
scrollWithBuffer: boolean
True: scroll with scrollback buffer when tty receives new lines
(and scrollTtyOutput is False); option -sw. False: do not scroll
with scrollback buffer when tty receives new lines; option +sw.
scrollTtyKeypress: boolean
True: scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed. Special
keys are those which are intercepted by rxvt-unicode for special
handling and are not passed onto the shell; option -sk. False: do
not scroll to bottom when a non-special key is pressed; option +sk.
saveLines: number
Save number lines in the scrollback buffer [default 64]. This
resource is limited on most machines to 65535; option -sl.
internalBorder: number
Internal border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100;
option -b.
externalBorder: number
External border of number pixels. This resource is limited to 100;
option -w, -bw, -borderwidth.
borderLess: boolean
Set MWM hints to request a borderless window, i.e. if honoured by
the WM, the rxvt-unicode window will not have window decorations;
option -bl.
skipBuiltinGlyphs: boolean
Compile frills: Disable the usage of the built-in block
graphics/line drawing characters and just rely on what the
specified fonts provide. Use this if you have a good font and want
to use its block graphic glyphs; option -sbg.
termName: termname
Specifies the terminal type name to be set in the TERM environment
variable; option -tn.
lineSpace: number
Specifies number of lines (pixel height) to insert between each row
of the display [default 0]; option -lsp.
meta8: boolean
True: handle Meta (Alt) + keypress to set the 8th bit. False:
handle Meta (Alt) + keypress as an escape prefix [default].
mouseWheelScrollPage: boolean
True: the mouse wheel scrolls a page full. False: the mouse wheel
scrolls five lines [default].
pastableTabs: boolean
True: store tabs as wide characters. False: interpret tabs as
cursor movement only; option "-ptab".
cursorBlink: boolean
True: blink the cursor. False: do not blink the cursor [default];
option -bc.
cursorUnderline: boolean
True: Make the cursor underlined. False: Make the cursor a box
[default]; option -uc.
pointerBlank: boolean
True: blank the pointer when a key is pressed or after a set number
of seconds of inactivity. False: the pointer is always visible
[default].
pointerColor: colour
Mouse pointer foreground colour.
pointerColor2: colour
Mouse pointer background colour.
pointerBlankDelay: number
Specifies number of seconds before blanking the pointer [default
2]. Use a large number (e.g. 987654321) to effectively disable the
timeout.
backspacekey: string
The string to send when the backspace key is pressed. If set to DEC
or unset it will send Delete (code 127) or, if shifted, Backspace
(code 8) - which can be reversed with the appropriate DEC private
mode escape sequence.
deletekey: string
The string to send when the delete key (not the keypad delete key)
is pressed. If unset it will send the sequence traditionally
associated with the Execute key.
cutchars: string
The characters used as delimiters for double-click word selection
(whitespace delimiting is added automatically if resource is
given).
When the perl selection extension is in use (the default if
compiled in, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage), a suitable regex using
these characters will be created (if the resource exists,
otherwise, no regex will be created). In this mode, characters
outside ISO-8859-1 can be used.
When the selection extension is not used, only ISO-8859-1
characters can be used. If not specified, the built-in default is
used:
BACKSLASH `"'&()*,;<=>?@[]^{|}
preeditType: style
OverTheSpot, OffTheSpot, Root; option -pt.
inputMethod: name
name of inputMethod to use; option -im.
imLocale: name
The locale to use for opening the IM. You can use an "LC_CTYPE" of
e.g. "de_DE.UTF-8" for normal text processing but "ja_JP.EUC-JP"
for the input extension to be able to input japanese characters
while staying in another locale; option -imlocale.
imFont: fontset
Specify the font-set used for XIM styles "OverTheSpot" or
"OffTheSpot". It must be a standard X font set (XLFD patterns
separated by commas), i.e. it's not in the same format as the other
font lists used in urxvt. The default will be set-up to chose *any*
suitable found found, preferably one or two pixels differing in
size to the base font. option -imfont.
tripleclickwords: boolean
Change the meaning of triple-click selection with the left mouse
button. Instead of selecting a full line it will extend the
selection to the end of the logical line only; option -tcw.
insecure: boolean
Enables "insecure" mode. Rxvt-unicode offers some escape sequences
that echo arbitrary strings like the icon name or the locale. This
could be abused if somebody gets 8-bit-clean access to your
display, whether through a mail client displaying mail bodies
unfiltered or through write(1) or any other means. Therefore, these
sequences are disabled by default. (Note that many other terminals,
including xterm, have these sequences enabled by default, which
doesn't make it safer, though).
You can enable them by setting this boolean resource or specifying
-insecure as an option. At the moment, this enables display-answer,
locale, findfont, icon label and window title requests.
modifier: modifier
Set the key to be interpreted as the Meta key to: alt, meta, hyper,
super, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5; option -mod.
answerbackString: string
Specify the reply rxvt-unicode sends to the shell when an ENQ
(control-E) character is passed through. It may contain escape
values as described in the entry on keysym following.
secondaryScreen: boolean
Turn on/off secondary screen (default enabled).
secondaryScroll: boolean
Turn on/off secondary screen scroll (default enabled). If this
option is enabled, scrolls on the secondary screen will change the
scrollback buffer and, when secondaryScreen is off, switching
to/from the secondary screen will instead scroll the screen up.
hold: boolean
Turn on/off hold window after exit support. If enabled, urxvt will
not immediately destroy its window when the program executed within
it exits. Instead, it will wait till it is being killed or closed
by the user.
chdir: path
Sets the working directory for the shell (or the command specified
via -e). The path must be an absolute path and it must exist for
urxvt to start. If it isn't specified then the current working
directory will be used; option -cd.
keysym.sym: string
Compile frills: Associate string with keysym sym. The intervening
resource name keysym. cannot be omitted.
The format of sym is "(modifiers-)key", where modifiers can be any
combination of ISOLevel3, AppKeypad, Control, NumLock, Shift, Meta,
Lock, Mod1, Mod2, Mod3, Mod4, Mod5, and the abbreviated I, K, C, N,
S, M, A, L, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The NumLock, Meta and ISOLevel3 modifiers are usually aliased to
whatever modifier the NumLock key, Meta/Alt keys or ISO Level3
Shift/AltGr keys are being mapped. AppKeypad is a synthetic
modifier mapped to the current application keymap mode state.
The spellings of key can be obtained by using xev(1) command or
searching keysym macros from /usr/X11R6/include/X11/keysymdef.h and
omitting the prefix XK_. Alternatively you can specify key by its
hex keysym value (0x0000 - 0xFFFF). Note that the lookup of syms is
not performed in an exact manner; however, the closest match is
assured.
string may contain escape values ("\n": newline, "\000": octal
number), see RESOURCES in "man 7 X" for futher details.
You can define a range of keysyms in one shot by providing a string
with pattern list/PREFIX/MIDDLE/SUFFIX, where the delimiter `/'
should be a character not used by the strings.
Its usage can be demonstrated by an example:
URxvt.keysym.M-C-0x61: list|\033<M-C-|abc|>
The above line is equivalent to the following three lines:
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x61: \033<M-C-a>
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x62: \033<M-C-b>
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x63: \033<M-C-c>
If string takes the form of "command:STRING", the specified STRING
is interpreted and executed as urxvt's control sequence. For
example the following means "change the current locale to
"zh_CN.GBK" when Control-Meta-c is being pressed":
URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: command:\033]701;zh_CN.GBK\007
If string takes the form "perl:STRING", then the specified STRING
is passed to the "on_user_command" perl handler. See the
urxvtperl(3) manpage. For example, the selection extension
(activated via "urxvt -pe selection") listens for "selection:rot13"
events:
URxvt.keysym.M-C-c: perl:selection:rot13
Due the the large number of modifier combinations, a defined key
mapping will match if at at least the specified identifiers are
being set, and no other key mappings with those and more bits are
being defined. That means that defining a key map for "a" will
automatically provide definitions for "Meta-a", "Shift-a" and so
on, unless some of those are defined mappings themselves.
Unfortunately, this will override built-in key mappings. For
example if you overwrite the "Insert" key you will disable urxvt's
"Shift-Insert" mapping. To re-enable that, you can poke "holes"
into the user-defined keymap using the "builtin:" replacement:
URxvt.keysym.Insert: <my insert key sequence>
URxvt.keysym.S-Insert: builtin:
The first line defines a mapping for "Insert" and any combination
of modifiers. The second line re-establishes the default mapping
for "Shift-Insert".
The following example will map Control-Meta-1 and Control-Meta-2 to
the fonts "suxuseuro" and "9x15bold", so you can have some limited
font-switching at runtime:
URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]50;suxuseuro\007
URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]50;9x15bold\007
Other things are possible, e.g. resizing (see urxvt(7) for more
info):
URxvt.keysym.M-C-3: command:\033[8;25;80t
URxvt.keysym.M-C-4: command:\033[8;48;110t
perl-ext-common: string
perl-ext: string
Comma-separated list(s) of perl extension scripts (default:
"default") to use in this terminal instance; option -pe.
Extension names can be prefixed with a "-" sign to prohibit using
them. This can be useful to selectively disable some extensions
loaded by default, or specified via the "perl-ext-common" resource.
For example, "default,-selection" will use all the default
extension except "selection".
Extension names can also be followed by an argument in angle
brackets (e.g. "searchable-scrollback<M-s>", which binds the
hotkey for searchable scrollback to Alt/Meta-s). Mentioning the
same extension multiple times with different arguments will pass
multiple arguments to the extension.
Each extension is looked up in the library directories, loaded if
necessary, and bound to the current terminal instance.
If both of these resources are the empty string, then the perl
interpreter will not be initialized. The idea behind two options is
that perl-ext-common will be used for extensions that should be
available to all instances, while perl-ext is used for specific
instances.
perl-eval: string
Perl code to be evaluated when all extensions have been registered.
See the urxvtperl(3) manpage.
perl-lib: path
Colon-separated list of additional directories that hold extension
scripts. When looking for extensions specified by the "perl"
resource, urxvt will first look in these directories and then in
/usr/lib64/urxvt/perl/.
See the urxvtperl(3) manpage.
selection.pattern-idx: perl-regex
Additional selection patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for
details.
selection-autotransform.idx: perl-transform
Selection auto-transform patterns, see the urxvtperl(3) manpage for
details.
searchable-scrollback: keysym
Sets the hotkey that starts the incremental scrollback buffer
search (default: "M-s").
urlLauncher: string
Specifies the program to be started with a URL argument. Used by
the "selection-popup" and "matcher" perl extensions.
transient-for: windowid
Compile frills: Sets the WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property to the given
window id.
override-redirect: boolean
Compile frills: Sets override-redirect for the terminal window,
making it almost invisible to window managers; option
-override-redirect.
iso14755_52: boolean
Turn on/off ISO 14755 5.2 mode (default enabled).
THE SCROLLBAR
Lines of text that scroll off the top of the urxvt window (resource:
saveLines) and can be scrolled back using the scrollbar or by
keystrokes. The normal urxvt scrollbar has arrows and its behaviour is
fairly intuitive. The xterm-scrollbar is without arrows and its
behaviour mimics that of xterm
Scroll down with Button1 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Next. Scroll up
with Button3 (xterm-scrollbar) or Shift-Prior. Continuous scroll with
Button2.
MOUSE REPORTING
To temporarily override mouse reporting, for either the scrollbar or
the normal text selection/insertion, hold either the Shift or the Meta
(Alt) key while performing the desired mouse action.
If mouse reporting mode is active, the normal scrollbar actions are
disabled -- on the assumption that we are using a fullscreen
application. Instead, pressing Button1 and Button3 sends ESC [ 6 ~
(Next) and ESC [ 5 ~ (Prior), respectively. Similarly, clicking on the
up and down arrows sends ESC [ A (Up) and ESC [ B (Down), respectively.
THE SELECTION: SELECTING AND PASTING TEXT
The behaviour of text selection and insertion/pasting mechanism is
similar to xterm(1).
Selecting:
Left click at the beginning of the region, drag to the end of the
region and release; Right click to extend the marked region; Left
double-click to select a word; Left triple-click to select the
entire logical line (which can span multiple screen lines), unless
modified by resource tripleclickwords.
Starting a selection while pressing the Meta key (or Meta+Ctrl
keys) (Compile: frills) will create a rectangular selection instead
of a normal one. In this mode, every selected row becomes its own
line in the selection, and trailing whitespace is visually
underlined and removed from the selection.
Pasting:
Pressing and releasing the Middle mouse button in an urxvt window
causes the value of the PRIMARY selection (or CLIPBOARD with the
Meta modifier) to be inserted as if it had been typed on the
keyboard.
Pressing Shift-Insert causes the value of the PRIMARY selection to
be inserted too.
CHANGING FONTS
Changing fonts (or font sizes, respectively) via the keypad is not yet
supported in rxvt-unicode. Bug me if you need this.
You can, however, switch fonts at runtime using escape sequences, e.g.:
printf '\e]710;%s\007' "9x15bold,xft:Kochi Gothic"
You can use keyboard shortcuts, too:
URxvt.keysym.M-C-1: command:\033]710;suxuseuro\007\033]711;suxuseuro\007
URxvt.keysym.M-C-2: command:\033]710;9x15bold\007\033]711;9x15bold\007
rxvt-unicode will automatically re-apply these fonts to the output so
far.
ISO 14755 SUPPORT
ISO 14755 is a standard for entering and viewing unicode characters and
character codes using the keyboard. It consists of 4 parts. The first
part is available if rxvt-unicode has been compiled with
"--enable-frills", the rest is available when rxvt-unicode was compiled
with "--enable-iso14755".
· 5.1: Basic method
This allows you to enter unicode characters using their hexcode.
Start by pressing and holding both "Control" and "Shift", then
enter hex-digits (between one and six). Releasing "Control" and
"Shift" will commit the character as if it were typed directly.
While holding down "Control" and "Shift" you can also enter
multiple characters by pressing "Space", which will commit the
current character and lets you start a new one.
As an example of use, imagine a business card with a japanese
e-mail address, which you cannot type. Fortunately, the card has
the e-mail address printed as hexcodes, e.g. "671d 65e5". You can
enter this easily by pressing "Control" and "Shift", followed by
"6-7-1-D-SPACE-6-5-E-5", followed by releasing the modifier keys.
· 5.2: Keyboard symbols entry method
This mode lets you input characters representing the keycap symbols
of your keyboard, if representable in the current locale encoding.
Start by pressing "Control" and "Shift" together, then releasing
them. The next special key (cursor keys, home etc.) you enter will
not invoke its usual function but instead will insert the
corresponding keycap symbol. The symbol will only be entered when
the key has been released, otherwise pressing e.g. "Shift" would
enter the symbol for "ISO Level 2 Switch", although your intention
might have been to enter a reverse tab (Shift-Tab).
· 5.3: Screen-selection entry method
While this is implemented already (it's basically the selection
mechanism), it could be extended by displaying a unicode character
map.
· 5.4: Feedback method for identifying displayed characters for later
input
This method lets you display the unicode character code associated
with characters already displayed.
You enter this mode by holding down "Control" and "Shift" together,
then pressing and holding the left mouse button and moving around.
The unicode hex code(s) (it might be a combining character) of the
character under the pointer is displayed until you release
"Control" and "Shift".
In addition to the hex codes it will display the font used to draw
this character - due to implementation reasons, characters combined
with combining characters, line drawing characters and unknown
characters will always be drawn using the built-in support font.
With respect to conformance, rxvt-unicode is supposed to be compliant
to both scenario A and B of ISO 14755, including part 5.2.
LOGIN STAMPurxvt tries to write an entry into the utmp(5) file so that it can be
seen via the who(1) command, and can accept messages. To allow this
feature, urxvt may need to be installed setuid root on some systems or
setgid to root or to some other group on others.
COLORS AND GRAPHICS
In addition to the default foreground and background colours, urxvt can
display up to 16 colours (8 ANSI colours plus high-intensity bold/blink
versions of the same). Here is a list of the colours with their names.
color0 (black) = Black
color1 (red) = Red3
color2 (green) = Green3
color3 (yellow) = Yellow3
color4 (blue) = Blue3
color5 (magenta) = Magenta3
color6 (cyan) = Cyan3
color7 (white) = AntiqueWhite
color8 (bright black) = Grey25
color9 (bright red) = Red
color10 (bright green) = Green
color11 (bright yellow) = Yellow
color12 (bright blue) = Blue
color13 (bright magenta) = Magenta
color14 (bright cyan) = Cyan
color15 (bright white) = White
foreground = Black
background = White
It is also possible to specify the colour values of foreground,
background, cursorColor, cursorColor2, colorBD, colorUL as a number
0-15, as a convenient shorthand to reference the colour name of
color0-color15.
In addition to the colours defined above, urxvt offers an additional 72
colours. The first 64 of those (with indices 16 to 79) consist of a
4*4*4 RGB colour cube (i.e. index = r * 16 + g * 4 + b + 16), followed
by 8 additional shades of gray (with indices 80 to 87).
Together, all those colours implement the 88 colour xterm colours. Only
the first 16 can be changed using resources currently, the rest can
only be changed via command sequences ("escape codes").
Note that -rv ("reverseVideo: True") simulates reverse video by always
swapping the foreground/background colours. This is in contrast to
xterm(1) where the colours are only swapped if they have not otherwise
been specified. For example,
urxvt-fg Black -bg White -rv
would yield White on Black, while on xterm(1) it would yield Black on
White.
ALPHA CHANNEL SUPPORT
If Xft support has been compiled in and as long as Xft/Xrender/X don't
get their act together, rxvt-unicode will do it's own alpha channel
management:
You can prefix any color with an opaquenes percentage enclosed in
brackets, i.e. "[percent]", where "percent" is a decimal percentage
(0-100) that specifies the opacity of the color, where 0 is completely
transparent and 100 is completely opaque. For example, "[50]red" is a
half-transparent red, while "[95]#00ff00" is an almost opaque green.
This is the recommended format to specify transparency values, and
works with all ways to specify a colour.
For complete control, rxvt-unicode also supports
"rgba:rrrr/gggg/bbbb/aaaa" (exactly four hex digits/component) colour
specifications, where the additional "aaaa" component specifies opacity
(alpha) values. The minimum value of 0000 is completely transparent,
while "ffff" is completely opaque). The two example colours from
earlier could also be specified as "rgba:ff00/0000/0000/8000" and
"rgba:0000/ff00/0000/f332".
You probably need to specify "-depth 32", too, to force a visual with
alpha channels, and have the luck that your X-server uses ARGB pixel
layout, as X is far from just supporting ARGB visuals out of the box,
and rxvt-unicode just fudges around.
For example, the following selects an almost completely transparent
black background, and an almost opaque pink foreground:
urxvt-depth 32 -bg rgba:0000/0000/0000/4444 -fg "[80]pink"
When not using a background image, then the interpretation of the alpha
channel is up to your compositing manager (most interpret it as
transparency of course).
When using a background pixmap or pseudo-transparency, then the
background colour will always behave as if it were completely
transparent (so the background image shows instead), regardless of how
it was specified, while other colours will either be transparent as
specified (the background image will show through) on servers
supporting the RENDER extension, or fully opaque on servers not
supporting the RENDER EXTENSION.
Please note that due to bugs in Xft, specifying alpha values might
result in garbage being displayed when the X-server does not support
the RENDER extension.
ENVIRONMENTurxvt sets and/or uses the following environment variables:
TERM
Normally set to "rxvt-unicode", unless overwritten at configure
time, via resources or on the command line.
COLORTERM
Either "rxvt", "rxvt-xpm", depending on whether urxvt was compiled
with background image support, and optionally with the added
extension "-mono" to indicate that rxvt-unicode runs on a
monochrome screen.
COLORFGBG
Set to a string of the form "fg;bg" or "fg;xpm;bg", where "fg" is
the colour code used as default foreground/text colour (or the
string "default" to indicate that the default-colour escape
sequence is to be used), "bg" is the colour code used as default
background colour (or the string "default"), and "xpm" is the
string "default" if urxvt was compiled with background image
support. Libraries like "ncurses" and "slang" can (and do) use this
information to optimize screen output.
WINDOWID
Set to the (decimal) X Window ID of the urxvt window (the toplevel
window, which usually has subwindows for the scrollbar, the
terminal window and so on).
TERMINFO
Set to the terminfo directory iff urxvt was configured with
"--with-terminfo=PATH".
DISPLAY
Used by urxvt to connect to the display and set to the correct
display in its child processes if "-display" isn't used to
override. It defaults to ":0" if it doesn't exist.
SHELL
The shell to be used for command execution, defaults to "/bin/sh".
RXVT_SOCKET
The unix domain socket path used by urxvtc(1) and urxvtd(1).
Default $HOME/.rxvt-unicode-<nodename.
HOME
Used to locate the default directory for the unix domain socket for
daemon communications and to locate various resource files (such as
".Xdefaults")
XAPPLRESDIR
Directory where various X resource files are being located.
XENVIRONMENT
If set and accessible, gives the name of a X resource file to be
loaded by urxvt.
FILES
/usr/lib/X11/rgb.txt
Color names.
SEE ALSOurxvt(7), urxvtc(1), urxvtd(1), xterm(1), sh(1), resize(1), X(1),
pty(4), tty(4), utmp(5)CURRENT PROJECT COORDINATOR
Project Coordinator
Marc A. Lehmann <rxvt-unicode@schmorp.de>
<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html>
AUTHORS
John Bovey
University of Kent, 1992, wrote the original Xvt.
Rob Nation <nation@rocket.sanders.lockheed.com>
very heavily modified Xvt and came up with Rxvt
Angelo Haritsis <ah@doc.ic.ac.uk>
wrote the Greek Keyboard Input (no longer in code)
mj olesen <olesen@me.QueensU.CA>
Wrote the menu system.
Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.11 to 2.21)
Oezguer Kesim <kesim@math.fu-berlin.de>
Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.21a to 2.4.5)
Geoff Wing <gcw@pobox.com>
Rewrote screen display and text selection routines.
Project Coordinator (changes.txt 2.4.6 - rxvt-unicode)
Marc Alexander Lehmann <rxvt-unicode@schmorp.de>
Forked rxvt-unicode, unicode support, rewrote almost all the code,
perl extension, random hacks, numerous bugfixes and extensions.
Project Coordinator (Changes 1.0 -)
Emanuele Giaquinta <e.giaquinta@glauco.it>
Pty/tty/utmp/wtmp rewrite, lots of random hacking and bugfixing.
9.07 2009-12-30 urxvt(1)
