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--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: I have a question...
Q: What exactly is the name of this project, materm or mrxvt?
Q: Why not use GNU screen? It has provided the multi-screen features!
Q: Why not use gnome-terminal/konsole? They have provided the functionality of
mrxvt!
Q: How to build mrxvt, since I cannot find the configure script as usual!?
Q: I just upgraded to mrxvt-0.5.x, and feature XXX doesn't work anymore.
Q: When I run mrxvt from command line, it outputs lots of verbose text. How to
disable it?
Q: I do not have root privilege on my system. Can I install mrxvt, and what are
the restrictions if I install it as normal user?
Q: When I run mrxvt with multiple tabs, why does the output of the `w' command
shows many users are using the system?
Q: I dislike the default mrxvt font, so I have installed some new fonts, like
the Verdana font. But when I run mrxvt with option `-fn verdana', mrxvt
complains that it cannot find the verdana font! What is wrong?
Q: When I want to use Chinese (or Korea/Japanese) encoding and font, executing
command `mrxvt -km gb -mfont fontname' is not working! For example, it
complains that -km is a bad option.
Q: I have ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.mrxvtrc, which one is the first to be read?
Q: How do I input Chinese (or Korea/Japanese) in mrxvt?
Q: I execute mrxvt with CJK encoding and X11 fonts. But sometimes CJK
characters are not display completely, or there are some extra pixels left
after the CJK characters.
Q: Does mrxvt support UTF-8 locale/encoding method?
Q: I use UTF-8 as default encoding method, but mrxvt does not support it. So
can I start mrxvt with other encoding method, e.g., zh_CN.GB2312 without
changing the default encoding method?
Q: I run mrxvt with `-o 25' option, but the window is not translucent!
Q: When I run mrxvt in transparent mode or background image mode, can I make
the background a little darker?
Q: Why the tinting does not work after I set the tint color in command line or
~/.mrxvtrc?
Q: I am tired with the current tinting color, can I change the color without
restart mrxvt?
Q: How to start mrxvt with multiple tabs initially?
Q: How do I let each tab execute different applications when mrxvt starts?
Q: How to change the title of a tab after mrxvt starts?
Q: My Control-Left / Right and Home / End keys do not work properly in some
applications.
Q: How do I set the tab title to the current command?
Q: How to dynamically change the title of the mrxvt window so that it is the
same as the current active tab when I switch to a new tab?
Q: Why cannot I close a tab? The close button is grey!
Q: Is there any keyboard combination to manipulate the tabs?
Q: Mrxvt default hotkey ctrl+shift+minus conflicts with Emacs. How can I
disable this mrxvt default hotkey?
Q: How to enable freetype font, or, say the XFT support?
Q: After I use freetype font, the text rendering speed seems to slow down a
lot! How to improve the speed?
Q: After I use freetype font, the line space seems too large. Is there any way
to narrow down the line space?
Q: Can I change the color of tab background and text?
Q: I notice that sometimes there is a dash-dot frame around the title of
inactive tabs. What has happened? Is it a bug?
Q: I notice that the inactive tab is highlighted by the dash-dot frame, but
after I switch to it, I see nothing happened. What is wrong with it?
Q: I like to use command line options to create a new tab in the current mrxvt
terminal and execute some commands. For example, if I run command `mrxvt
--new-tab -e pine' in a mrxvt terminal, the current terminal will open a new
tab and run pine in it. Can you implement it for me?
Q: I like to use context menu when I right click in the terminal window. For
example, to copy/paste text. Can you support it?
Q: Will you rewrite mrxvt using C++? The object oriented feature of C++ can
make mrxvt much modular.
Q: How do I know which mrxvt version I'm using?
Q: Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
Q: What's with this bold/blink stuff? I can never get blinking text!
Q: I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
Q: What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
Q: Why doesn't the Backspace key work on my Linux machine?
Q: I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
Q: I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How do
I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the following
mappings that mrxvt doesn't recognize.
Q: How do I distinguish if I'm running mrxvt or a regular xterm? I need this to
decide about setting colors etc.
Q: How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
Q: Where is the CVS repository of mrxvt?
Q: I find a bug, or I would like to see a new feature in mrxvt, how to report
it?
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Frequently Asked Questions with answers :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Q: I have a question...
A: Have you read the README, README.configure, INSTALL, FAQ, TIPS, man page...?
Before asking a question, please read through these documents for potential
answers.
Here is a good tutorial to ask questions:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
-----
Q: What exactly is the name of this project, materm or mrxvt?
A: The current official name of this project is mrxvt (I honestly hope Rui
Carmo will not reclaim the ownership of mrxvt because he is the first person
who tried to hack a multi-tab rxvt on Cygwin and got this name for his
project. Here is the link of his work:
http://the.taoofmac.com/space/Projects/mrxvt).
As stated in README, in the beginning, the project name was materm - derived
from the project multi-aterm. And this was the name when I registered the
project at sourceforge. Unfortunately it is not easy to rename materm to
mrxvt at sourceforge. This is why we keep materm as the name at sourceforge.
-----
Q: Why not use GNU screen? It has provided the multi-screen features!
A: Because I do not like GNU screen. ;-) People have their own flavors. Plus,
mrxvt provides some features that GNU screen lacks, e.g., use mouse click to
switch from different tabs... :p
-----
Q: Why not use gnome-terminal/konsole? They have provided the functionality of
mrxvt!
A: Because they are heavy, slow, and depend on too many libraries. For example,
gnome-terminal 2.6.1 in the Slackware -current tree depends on
58 libraries, konsole of KDE 3.3 in the gentoo depends on 41 libraries,
mrxvt with all features only depends on 19 libraries, and this number can be
further reduced to 5 (of course you need to strip out some features, like
background image ;-))!! Since all I need is a fast and lightweight X
terminal emulator supporting multi-tabs, I decide to create mrxvt by myself.
-----
Q: How to build mrxvt, since I cannot find the configure script as usual!?
A: Have you read the INSTALL file?
-----
Q: I just upgraded to mrxvt-0.5.x, and feature XXX doesn't work anymore.
A: Don't panic! Something is possibly different in the latest release.
The following are the changes you need to be most wary of when upgrading to
mrxvt-4.x to 0.5.x:
1. Background tinting works differently when compiled with XRender
support (enabled by default in 0.5.0). Now if you want your
background tinted to a specific color, you need to set the tintColor
resource to that color, and NOT the mask (as you had to in 0.4.x).
Specifically, if you want a dark tint, then set tintColor to #000000
(in 0.4.x you would set it to #ffffff).
Also keep in mind that very bright colors (e.g. #ffffff) are not very
transparent and not good for tinting.
2. The default terminal name is now "rxvt" and not "xterm". On systems
with badly configured termcap / terminfo entries for "rxvt", this
will cause NUMEROUS ncurses based programs to behave very badly
(including bash!). If you have any problems, ask your Linux vendor to
fix this! Or wimp out and set the termName resource to "xterm" in
your ~/.mrxvtrc
3. The old "hotkey" feature has been disabled. The new "macro" feature
in 0.5.0 extends the functionality of the old "hotkey" feature.
4. The menu syntax for actions from 0.5.x is incompatible with the
syntax from earlier versions. See the man page for details.
5. The keysym resource is disabled by default (use macros instead).
6. A few default key-bindings were changed (mainly to adhere to the
convention that terminal programs should use Ctrl-Shift modifiers for
all it's shortcuts, and let the window manager / child process use
other modifier combinations).
For example the Shift+Left / Shift+Right macros to switch tabs are
enabled ONLY in the primary screen (i.e. they will not work when you
are running Vim). Vim uses Shift+Left/Right to move between words, so
we do not override this behaviour in Vim.
Read the man page and /etc/mrxvt/mrxvtrc for a complete list and
description of the macros defined in 0.5.x.
7. A few escape sequences (controlling creation / movement of tabs) have
been disabled for security reasons. The functions can of course be
accessed using keyboard macros or the popup-menus.
8. Escape sequences generated by function keys / modified cursor keys
have now been changed to produce exactly the same escape sequences as
Xterm does. (If you don't like this, then undefine the macro
XTERM_KEYS in src/feature.h). As a result of this, to get Ctrl+Left /
Right working in your shell, change ~/.inputrc the way you would for
Xterm (not rxvt). This is described later on in this FAQ.
9. The option --tabShell, --cmdInitTabs have been removed. The options
--initTermNum and --vt%d.xx have been marked as obsolete.
Mrxvt-0.5.0 has a new "profile" feature intended to replace the above
options. Here settings are associated to a "profile" instead of a
tab. Tabs can be created on demand with any desired profile. (The
earlier design led to some unresolvable bugs when the user moved
tabs). Migrating to profiles is easy:
1. Replace the old vt%d.xx resources with profile%d.xx. remember
that the profile%d resources refer to the PROFILE number, and
not the TAB number.
2. To open a new tab with profile number N use the macro "NewTab
-N". E.g.
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+F1: NewTab -1
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+F2: NewTab -2
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+F3: NewTab -3
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+F4: NewTab -4
3. Finally replace your initTermNumber option with
initProfileList. The argument to initProfileList is a comma
separated list of profiles you want opened in new tabs on
startup.
A more complete list of changes is in the ChangeLog, and in the Subversion
logs.
-----
Q: When I run mrxvt from command line, it outputs lots of verbose text. How to
disable it?
A: You probably have configured mrxvt with debug support. You need to
reconfigure mrxvt to disable debug support and rebuild it, like the
following:
$ ./configure --enable-whatever-options --disable-debug $ make
-----
Q: I do not have root privilege on my system. Can I install mrxvt, and what are
the restrictions if I install it as normal user?
A: Surely you can install mrxvt without root privilege. You can configure mrxvt
with --prefix=/home/youraccount and install it. Or you can simply copy the
mrxvt program to anywhere you wish. Mrxvt only requires setuid root in order
to write to utmp/wtmp/lastlog. If you do not have root privilege, you will
only lose this feature.
-----
Q: When I run mrxvt with multiple tabs, why does the output of the `w' command
shows many users are using the system?
A: This is because each mrxvt tab logs itself in an entry of the utmp file. If
you do not want this feature, remove the setuid permission from mrxvt binary
and do not build mrxvt with utempter support.
-----
Q: I dislike the default mrxvt font, so I have installed some new fonts, like
the Verdana font. But when I run mrxvt with option `-fn verdana', mrxvt
complains that it cannot find the verdana font! What is wrong?
A: There are two types of fonts in X Window System, the ancient X11 bitmap
fonts and the new freetype fonts. Mrxvt is capable to use either type of
fonts.
The X11 bitmap fonts have a special format of names. You can execute command
`xlsfonts | more' to get a complete list of all X11 bitmap fonts installed
in your system, and pick one you like. Or you can execute program `xfontsel'
to pick one, which shows you the look of the font nicely. As you can see,
the font name is in a special format like the following example. That is why
mrxvt complains if you only provide the name of the font:
-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--14-140-75-75-m-90-iso8859-1
The freetype fonts are much simpler to handle. You only need to give the
font family name to `-xftfn' option, there is not a magic format like X11
font. You can specify other characteristics of the freetype font using other
related options.
-----
Q: When I want to use Chinese (or Korea/Japanese) encoding and font, executing
command `mrxvt -km gb -mfont fontname' is not working! For example, it
complains that -km is a bad option.
A: Most probably, you have not enabled gb/big5/kanji/korea options when you
configure the mrxvt. These options are turned off by default. Reconfigure
mrxvt to enable these options and rebuild it like the following:
$ ./configure --enable-gb --enable-whatever-other-options
$ make
$ su
$ make install
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Q: I have ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.mrxvtrc, which one is the first to be read?
A: ~/.mrxvtrc will be the one to be read, and ~/.Xdefaults is ignored. Mrxvt
tries to read three resources files in sequence: ~/.mrxvtrc, ~/.Xdefaults
and ~/.Xresources. If either one is successfully opened, the rest are
ignored.
Very soon the ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xresources files will not be used by
mrxvt, and we recomend you call your config file ~/.mrxvtrc.
-----
Q: How do I input Chinese (or Korea/Japanese) in mrxvt?
A: First of all, you need to to enable the language options for
Chinese/Korea/Japanese as the above question when you configure mrxvt. You
also needs to enable the XIM option (--enable-xim).
Then make sure you have correctly setup and started the XIM server, like
SCIM, Chinput, fcitx, etc.
Next, set the correct locale for mrxvt. You only need to set the environment
variable LC_CTYPE. But after you set it, make sure that the environment
variable LC_ALL is not set.
Finally, set the correct X resources in ~/.mrxvtrc file as the followling.
Remember the value of inputMethod is case sensitive.
mrxvt*multichar_encoding: GB
mrxvt*inputMethod: SCIM
-----
Q: I execute mrxvt with CJK encoding and X11 fonts. But sometimes CJK
characters are not display completely, or there are some extra pixels left
after the CJK characters.
A: This is a known issue for displaying CJK characters using X11 fonts. Mrxvt
requires that the width of each CJK character (mfont) be twice as the width
of each english character (font). If this condition is not met, mrxvt may
display CJK characters with some problems. For example, if you choose 6x12
as the font, and the SimSun font as the mfont, but the width of the SimSun
font is 13, you will get in trouble. In particular, let us assume that you
want to display a string "XXabc", where "XX" represents a single Chinese
character. With SimSun font, the width of "XX" is 13, but mrxvt thinks it is
12 (= 2 * 6)!!! Thus, when "abc" is displayed, two pixels of "XX" will be
overwritten by "a"! There are two solutions to this issue. One is to
carefully choose the font and mfont such that the width of mfont is twice of
the font. The other is to use freetype font, where we have a special
handling to avoid this problem.
-----
Q: Does mrxvt support UTF-8 locale/encoding method?
A: Not now. This is a planned work and hopefully will be supported in the next
development branch (0.5.x).
-----
Q: I use UTF-8 as default encoding method, but mrxvt does not support it. So
can I start mrxvt with other encoding method, e.g., zh_CN.GB2312 without
changing the default encoding method?
A: No problem! You can start mrxvt like the following if you use bash/ksh/sh:
LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.GB2312 mrxvt &
If you use csh, try the following
env LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.GB2312 mrxvt &
-----
Q: I run mrxvt with `-o 25' option, but the window is not translucent!
A: First make sure your X server support translucent, such as Xorg 6.8.1. Next,
make sure the translucent extension is enabled in the X server. You can use
command `xdpyinfo' to check whether the Composite extension is in the
extension list. Then make sure you have run the program `xcompmgr' to enable
translucent.
-----
Q: When I run mrxvt in transparent mode or background image mode, can I make
the background a little darker?
A: Yes, you can. Just tint the background to black using the --shading and
--tintColor options:
Mrxvt.transparent: True
Mrxvt.transparentScrollbar: True
Mrxvt.transparentTabbar: True
Mrxvt.tintColor: #000000
Mrxvt.shading: 85
You can use Ctrl+Shift+J / K to change the shading amount when mrxvt is
running.
-----
Q: Why the tinting does not work after I set the tint color in command line or
~/.mrxvtrc?
A: First, tinting only works for user supplied background image or transparent
background. Secondly, you have to set the shade option as well.
-----
Q: I am tired with the current tinting color, can I change the color without
restart mrxvt?
A: Yes, you can. Control-RightClick on the terminal window. Select the
"Transparency / Tint Background / " menu options.
Alternately you can run use an escape sequence as follows:
$ echo "\e]66;red\a"
You can have macros / menu entries to do the same. See also the program
settitle.c and mrxvtset.pl supplied with the source, and mrxvt_seq.txt.bz2
for a complete list of escape sequences supplied by mrxvt.
-----
Q: How to start mrxvt with multiple tabs initially?
A You can set the number of tabs you want in ~/.mrxvtrc as the following
example:
mrxvt.initProfileList: 0,0,0
Alternatively, you can set it using command line option -ip.
-----
Q: How do I let each tab execute different applications when mrxvt starts?
A: You can set command for each tab in ~/.mrxvtrc as the following example:
Mrxvt.profile1.background: #000040
Mrxvt.profile1.command: !mc
Mrxvt.profile1.tabTitle: "Midnight Commander"
Mrxvt.profile2.command: telnet www.mitbbs.com
Mrxvt.initProfileList: 0,1,2
This will open three tabs on startup containing the shell, mc and telnet.
See /etc/mrxvt/mrxvtrc.sample for a more complete example.
If you only want to change the tab command in other tabs (and not the
background / saveLines etc), then you can use the NewTab macro as follows:
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+F1: NewTab "man mrxvt" man mrxvt
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+b: NewTab bash
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+v: NewTab "Vim" !vim
-----
Q: How to change the title of a tab after mrxvt starts?
A: You can select some text in the mrxvt terminal and press the hot key
combinations: Ctrl+Shift+s, Shift+Delete or middle click with the mouse. The
tab title will be changed to the selected text. Currently, the selected text
must be in the same mrxvt terminal.
You can also change the tab title through escape sequence.
$ echo -ne "\e]62;New tab title\a"
Alternately use compile settitle.c, or use the perl script mrxvtset.pl.
-----
Q: My Control-Left / Right and Home / End keys do not work properly in some
applications.
A: To get your modified cursor keys working properly in Vim, just upgrade to
Vim 7. The new behaviour in mrxvt is designed to work "out of the box" with
Vim 7.
To get your modified cursor keys working in bash / readline based
applications put the following in your ~/.inputrc:
# Cursor movement for mrxvt-0.5.x / xterm
"\e[1;5C": forward-word
"\e[1;5D": backward-word
"\e[7~": beginning-of-line
"\e[8~": end-of-line
As of 0.5.0 the escape sequences mrxvt produces for modified cursor keys is
the same as those produced by Xterm. If you do not like this behaviour,
undefine the XTERM_KEYS macro in src/feature.h.
Alternately you can use the macro feature of mrxvt to make the cursor keys
produce the string that is expected by your application (explained later on
in this FAQ)
-----
Q: How do I set the tab title to the current command?
A: Bash users add the following to your ~/.bashrc:
# Change the window title of X terminals
if [[ $TERM =~ "xterm|rxvt" ]]; then
# set -o functrace
if [[ -n $MRXVT_TABTITLE ]]; then
trap 'echo -ne "\e]61;${BASH_COMMAND//\"/} (${PWD/$HOME/~})\a"' DEBUG
else
trap 'echo -ne "\e]0;${BASH_COMMAND//\"/} (${PWD/$HOME/~})\a"' DEBUG
fi
fi
Alternately (for tcsh), if you want your current command displayed in
your tab title, add the following lines to your ~/.tcshrc
# Change the window title of X terminals
set backslash_quote
if( $?DISPLAY && $?TERM ) then
if( $?MRXVT_TABTITLE ) then
# Set the tab title for mrxvt
alias jobcmd 'echo -n \\\\033]61\;\!#:q \($cwd\) \\\\007 > /dev/stderr'
alias cwdcmd 'echo -n \\\\033]61\;\!#:q \($cwd\) \\\\007 > /dev/stderr'
else
# Set the window title for xterm
alias jobcmd 'echo -n \\\\033]0\;\!#:q \($cwd\) \\\\007 > /dev/stderr'
alias cwdcmd 'echo -n \\\\033]0\;\!#:q \($cwd\) \\\\007 > /dev/stderr'
endif
endif
unset backslash_quote
-----
Q: How to dynamically change the title of the mrxvt window so that it is the
same as the current active tab when I switch to a new tab?
A: You can set X resources `syncTabTitle' to true or run mrxvt with -stt
option.
-----
Q: Why cannot I close a tab? The close button is grey!
A: Most probably, you have enabled the protectSecondary resource and you are
running an application, like vi and mc that is using the secondary screen in
the current tab. Mrxvt considers this tab being protected and disallows you
to close it. To close the tab, please exit the application first. To disable
this option, you can modify the ~/.mrxvtrc file or run mrxvt with +ps
option.
-----
Q: Is there any keyboard combination to manipulate the tabs?
A: Yes. Please read the man page. Mrxvt currently support the default
gnome-terminal and konsole combinations. If you prefer your own
combinations, you can define them in the configuration file as well. Please
refer to the man page for details.
-----
Q: Mrxvt default hotkey ctrl+shift+minus conflicts with Emacs. How can I
disable this mrxvt default hotkey?
A: Put the following two lines into your mrxvt configuration file, usually
~/.mrxvtrc:
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+underscore: Dummy
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+Shift+plus: Dummy
-----
Q: How to enable freetype font, or, say the XFT support?
A: You can either use the -xft command line option or the `xft' X resource
option in the ~/.mrxvtrc file. Check the sample configuration file
doc/xdefaults-sample.txt and man page for more details.
-----
Q: After I use freetype font, the text rendering speed seems to slow down a
lot! How to improve the speed?
A: Yes, this is a known problem with XFT support. One way to fix it is to
disable antialias (and autohinting or hinting). But it may make the font
look ugly. If you do not like it, disable XFT support and use X11 font
instead.
-----
Q: After I use freetype font, the line space seems too large. Is there any way
to narrow down the line space?
A: This is probably because you have enabled the multichar support when you
configure mrxvt. In this case, mrxvt loads two fonts, one the normal font,
and one the multichar font. But due to some problems with XFT library, the
font loading function does not follow our instructions to load the two fonts
at specified size. Thus, the size of two fonts are often different. To get a
better rendering result, mrxvt picks the large size, which is usually the
multichar font. But normal text are usually displayed using normal font at a
smaller size. So it appears that the line space is too large. To solve this
problem, you can specify the multichar font be the same as the normal font
since mrxvt 0.3.9, or specify the -xftnfm option to not to load multichar
font, or build mrxvt without multichar support.
-----
Q: Can I change the color of tab background and text?
A: Yes you can. You can use command line option to set foreground and
background color of active or inactive tabs like this:
$ mrxvt -tabfg blue -tabbg grey -itabfg black -itabbg dark
Or you can set them in ~/.mrxvtrc like this:
! text color of active tab
Mrxvt.tabForeground: blue
! background color of active tab
Mrxvt.tabBackground: grey
! text color of inactive tab
Mrxvt.itabForeground: black
! background color of inactive tab
Mrxvt.itabBackground: dark
Or you can use an escape sequence to change it dynamically (see the man
page).
-----
Q: I notice that sometimes there is a dash-dot frame around the title of
inactive tabs. What has happened? Is it a bug?
A: This is a new feature introduced from 0.3.9. This indicates that something
has happened in the inactive tab, and you probably should check it.
You can try using the -htb option to ensure that inactive tabs are
highlighted only when a bell is sounded by that tab.
-----
Q: I notice that the inactive tab is highlighted by the dash-dot frame, but
after I switch to it, I see nothing happened. What is wrong with it?
A: This is because you might be running some programs in the inactive tab, like
pine. These programs have some features to refresh the screen periodically,
though the content of the screen has not changed. Mrxvt detects the refresh
and thinks the screen has changed. It is difficult to tell whether the
content of the screen is truly changed in this case.
You can try using the -htb option to ensure that inactive tabs are
highlighted only when a bell is sounded by that tab.
-----
Q: I like to use command line options to create a new tab in the current mrxvt
terminal and execute some commands. For example, if I run command `mrxvt
--new-tab -e pine' in a mrxvt terminal, the current terminal will open a new
tab and run pine in it. Can you implement it for me?
A: Unfortunately, no. This is a dangerous feature that can cause serious
security problems. For details about the security problem, consult to the
following link:
http://www.digitaldefense.net/labs/papers/Termulation.txt
As of mrxvt-0.5.0, you can have macros (or menu items) that open a new tab
and execute your favourite program in it (but you have to press a key or
select from a menu in your mrxvt window). Multiple window support is planned
in the near future, and maybe then something will be done about this issue
after multiple window support is implemented.
-----
Q: I like to use context menu when I right click in the terminal window. For
example, to copy/paste text. Can you support it?
A: YES! As of mrxvt-0.5.0 popup menus are supported. By default control right
click on the terminal for a (customizable) menu. Control left click (or
right click on the tabbar) for a list of all tabs. You must compile mrxvt
with --enable-menubar.
-----
Q: Will you rewrite mrxvt using C++? The object oriented feature of C++ can
make mrxvt much modular.
A: No! Because I do not like C++. C does not mean to be less modular or
non-object oriented. It depends on how you do it. If you really like a C++
implementation of rxvt, check out the rxvt-unicode project.
-----
Q: How do I know which mrxvt version I'm using?
A: The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). For rxvt version
2.14 and later, the escape sequence `ESC[8n' sets the window title to the
version number.
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Q: Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
A: Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing some
editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard
that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick
check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt or Shift keys are depressed.
See doc/refer.txt
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Q: What's with this bold/blink stuff? I can never get blinking text!
A: It is not possible, and likely will never be, for mrxvt to have actual
blinking text. Instead (if mrxvt was compiled without NO_BOLDCOLOR),
bold/blink attributes are used to set high-intensity foreground or
background colors ... like what you'd see on a PC video adapter. There are
programs, notably John Davis' SLang-based ones
ftp://space.mit.edu/pub/davis, that use bold/blink attributes to permit 16
colors.
color0-7 are the low-intensity colors.
color8-15 are the corresponding high-intensity colors.
A side issue of this bold/blink stuff is the question of how the normal
default foreground/background colors are to be treated. If the default
foreground/background match one of the low-intensity colors (color0-7), the
bold/blink attribute will invoke the appropriate high-intensity color
(color8-15).
In the case that the default foreground doesn't match one of the
low-intensity colors, the bold attribute will use an `overstrike' to
simulate a bold font. But note this leaves pixel-droppings and so, rather
than wasting an inordinate amounts of energy to fix it, its use is simply
deprecated.
In the case that the default background doesn't match one of the
low-intensity colors, the blink attribute is simply ignored (rather than
representing it as bold as xterm does).
-----
Q: I don't like the screen colors. How do I change them?
A: You can change the screen colors at run-time using ~/.mrxvtrc resources (or
as long-options) ... see the man-page.
Here are values that are supposed to resemble a VGA screen, including the
murky brown that passes for low-intensity yellow:
Mrxvt.color0: #000000
Mrxvt.color1: #A80000
Mrxvt.color2: #00A800
Mrxvt.color3: #A8A800
Mrxvt.color4: #0000A8
Mrxvt.color5: #A800A8
Mrxvt.color6: #00A8A8
Mrxvt.color7: #A8A8A8
Mrxvt.color8: #000054
Mrxvt.color9: #FF0054
Mrxvt.color10: #00FF54
Mrxvt.color11: #FFFF54
Mrxvt.color12: #0000FF
Mrxvt.color13: #FF00FF
Mrxvt.color14: #00FFFF
Mrxvt.color15: #FFFFFF
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Q: What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
A: Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the BackSpace keysym
(not likely for Linux ... see the following question) there are two standard
values that can be used for Backspace: ^H and ^?.
Mrxvt tries to inherit the current stty settings and uses the value of
`erase' to guess the value for backspace. If mrxvt wasn't started from a
terminal (say, from a menu or by remote shell), then the system value of
`erase', which corresponds to CERASE in , will be used (which may
not be the same as your stty setting).
For starting a new mrxvt:
use Backspace = ^H
$ stty erase ^H
$ mrxvt
or
$ mrxvt --backspacekey ^H -e bash
use Backspace = ^?
$ stty erase ^?
$ mrxvt
$ mrxvt --backspacekey ^? -e bash
NB: generate either value with BackSpace and Ctrl/Shift-BackSpace. Toggle
with "ESC[36h" / "ESC[36l" as documented in "doc/refer.txt"
For an existing mrxvt:
use Backspace = ^H
$ stty erase ^H
$ echo -n "^[[36h"
use Backspace = ^?
$ stty erase ^?
$ echo -n "^[[36l"
This helps satisfy some of the Backspace discrepancies that occur, but if
you use Backspace = ^?, make sure that the termcap/terminfo value properly
reflects that.
The Delete key (which one would expect to emit ^?) is a another casualty of
the ill-defined Backspace problem. To avoid confusion between the Backspace
and Delete keys, the Delete key has been assigned an escape sequence to
match the vt100 for Execute (ESC[3~) and is in the supplied
termcap/terminfo.
Some other Backspace problems:
some editors use termcap/terminfo,
some editors (vim I'm told) expect Backspace = ^H,
GNU Emacs (and Emacs-like editors) use ^H for help.
Perhaps someday this will all be resolved in a consistent manner ... and
maybe xterm will have Home/End values too!
-----
Q: Why doesn't the Backspace key work on my Linux machine?
A: The XFree86 server has a notorious problem of mapping the Backspace key as
Delete in order to match the Linux console.
The correct way to fix this:
0 - Complain to your Linux distributer and the XFree86 team, maybe they'll
fix it.
1 - Use xmodmap to correct the Backspace mapping
! ~/.Xmodmap
! a correctly-mapped BackSpace
keycode 22 = BackSpace
*** Make sure the keycode above matches the physical Backspace key on
your machine!! (use xev) ***
This will also fix the BackSpace problem with Motif applications, such as
``why doesn't Backspace work for Netscape?''
Finally, you can also remap the mrxvt key-binding at run-time (next
question).
-----
Q: I don't like the key-bindings. How do I change them?
A: You can use the "macro" feature of mrxvt (available from version 0.5.0
onwards). See the man page for details. For instance, if you want the
application keypad keys to work like the regular cursor / home / end keys,
then you can use something like:
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Left: Str \eOD
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Right: Str \eOC
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Up: Str \eOA
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Down: Str \eOB
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Prior: Str \e[5~
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Next: Str \e[6~
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Home: Str \e[7~
Mrxvt.macro.KP_End: Str \e[8~
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Insert: Str \e[2~
Mrxvt.macro.KP_Delete: Str \e[3~
You can also use the macro feature to correct the notorious backspace
problem, but it is better you fix that by complaining to your Linux vendor
:).
-----
Q: I'm using keyboard model XXX that has extra Prior/Next/Insert keys. How do
I make use of them? For example, the Sun Keyboard type 4 has the following
mappings that mrxvt doesn't recognize.
KP_Insert == Insert
F22 == Print
F27 == Home
F29 == Prior
F33 == End
F35 == Next
A: Rather than have mrxvt try to accomodate all the various possible keyboard
mappings, it is better to use `xmodmap' to remap the keys as required for
your particular machine, or the use "macro" feature of mrxvt in your
~/.mrxvtrc.
-----
Q: How do I distinguish if I'm running mrxvt or a regular xterm? I need this to
decide about setting colors etc.
A: mrxvt always exports the variable "COLORTERM", so you can check and see if
that is set. It also exports the variable "MRXVT_TABTITLE". Note that
several programs, JED, slrn, Midnight Commander automatically check this
variable to decide whether or not to use color.
-----
Q: How do I set the correct, full IP address for the DISPLAY variable?
A: If you've compiled mrxvt with DISPLAY_IS_IP then it is possible to use the
following shell script snippets to correctly set the display. If your
version of mrxvt wasn't also compiled with ESCZ_ANSWER (as assumed in these
snippets) then the COLORTERM variable can be used to distinguish mrxvt from
a regular xterm.
Courtesy of Chuck Blake with the following shell script
snippets:
# Bourne/Korn/POSIX family of shells:
# assume an xterm if we don't know
[ ${TERM:-foo} = foo ] && TERM=xterm
if [ ${TERM:-foo} = xterm ]; then
# see if enhanced mrxvt or not
stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15
echo -n '^[Z'
read term_id
stty icanon echo
if [ ""${term_id} = '^[[?1;2C' -a ${DISPLAY:-foo} = foo ]; then
# query the mrxvt we are in for the DISPLAY string
echo -n '^[[7n'
# set it in our local shell
read DISPLAY
fi
fi
csh/tcsh family of shells:
# if term is unset, we are probably in an xterm
if ( !(${?TERM}) ) then
TERM = xterm
endif
if ( ${TERM} =~ xterm ) then
# see if enhanced mrxvt or not
stty -icanon -echo min 0 time 15
echo -n '^[Z'
set term_id=$<
stty icanon echo
if ( ""${term_id} == "^[[?1;2C" && ${?DISPLAY} == 0 ) then
# query the mrxvt we're in for the DISPLAY string
echo -n '^[[7n'
# set it in our local shell
setenv DISPLAY "$<"
endif
endif
-----
Q: Where is the CVS repository of mrxvt?
A: From mrxvt-0.5.1, we have abandoned CVS, and now exclusively use Subversion.
To check out from the subversion repository use
svn checkout https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/materm/mrxvt05b
-----
Q: I find a bug, or I would like to see a new feature in mrxvt, how to report
it?
A: You can go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/materm and report the bug
using tracker system. Alternately, you can email the mrxvt developer mailing
list at materm-devel@lists.sourceforge.net. Please use the SourceForge bug
tracker system for feature requests, or MAJOR bugs. Report minor bugs on the
materm-devel mailing list. If in doubt, post to the devel mailing list, and
you might be asked to file a feature request / bug report in addition.
Please describe the bug as clearly as possible, so that we can replicate it.
We can not (and WILL not) fix bugs we can not reproduce! Be sure to test if
your bug is still present in the current version (from Subversion) of mrxvt.
If the bug is still present in the subversion repository, then please report
the system you are running mrxvt on, AND steps to reproduce the bug.
Again, we can and will NOT fix bugs we can not reproduce. Tell us how to
reproduce the bug, or your report will get (silently) ignored!
--
vim: set ts=8 tw=80:
EOF
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