Provided by: rxvt-unicode-256color_9.19-1_amd64 
NAME
rxvt-unicode - (ouR XVT, unicode), a VT102 emulator for the X window system
SYNOPSIS
urxvt [options] [-e command [ args ]]
DESCRIPTION
rxvt-unicode, version 9.19, 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 frills: 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]
-visual visualID
Compile frills: Use the given visual (see e.g. "xdpyinfo" for possible visual ids).
-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.
-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.
-icon file
Compile pixbuf: 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.
-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. app-defaults file in $XAPPLRESDIR
2. $HOME/.Xdefaults
3. RESOURCE_MANAGER property on root-window of screen 0
4. SCREEN_RESOURCES property on root-window of 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 COLOURS 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.
underlineColor: colour
If set, use the specified colour as the colour for the underline itself. If unset, use
the foreground colour.
highlightColor: colour
If set, use the specified colour as the background for highlighted characters. If
unset, use reverse video.
highlightTextColor: colour
If set and highlightColor is set, use the specified colour as the foreground for
highlighted characters.
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 COLOURS 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.
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.
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.
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 fewer 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.
thickness: number
Set the scrollbar width in pixels.
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 (i.e. try to show the
same 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, with control, 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 further details.
You can define a range of keysyms in one shot by loading the "keysym-list" perl
extension and 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<|abc|>
The above line is equivalent to the following three lines:
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x61: \033<a>
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x62: \033<b>
URxvt.keysym.Meta-Control-0x63: \033<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 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 perl extensions, urxvt will first look in these directories, then in
$URXVT_PERL_LIB, $HOME/.urxvt/ext and lastly in /usr/lib/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").
url-launcher: 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: boolean
Turn on/off ISO 14755 (default enabled).
iso14755_52: boolean
Turn on/off ISO 14755 5.2 mode (default enabled).
BACKGROUND IMAGE OPTIONS AND RESOURCES
-pixmap file[;oplist]
backgroundPixmap: file[;oplist]
Compile pixbuf: Use the specified image file as the window's background and also
optionally specify a colon separated list of operations to modify it. Note that you
may need to quote the ";" character when using the command line option, as ";" is
usually a metacharacter in shells. Supported operations are:
WxH+X+Y
sets scale and position. "W" / "H" specify the horizontal/vertical scale
(percent), and "X" / "Y" locate the image centre (percent). A scale of 0 disables
scaling.
op=tile
enables tiling
op=keep-aspect
maintain the image aspect ratio when scaling
op=root-align
use the position of the terminal window relative to the root window as the image
offset, simulating a root window background
The default scale and position setting is "100x100+50+50". Alternatively, a
predefined set of templates can be used to achieve the most common setups:
style=tiled
the image is tiled with no scaling. Equivalent to 0x0+0+0:op=tile
style=aspect-stretched
the image is scaled to fill the whole window maintaining the aspect ratio and
centered. Equivalent to 100x100+50+50:op=keep-aspect
style=stretched
the image is scaled to fill the whole window. Equivalent to 100x100
style=centered
the image is centered with no scaling. Equivalent to 0x0+50+50
style=root-tiled
the image is tiled with no scaling and using 'root' positioning. Equivalent to
0x0:op=tile:op=root-align
If multiple templates are specified the last one wins. Note that a template overrides
all the scale, position and operations settings.
If used in conjunction with pseudo-transparency, the specified pixmap will be blended
over the transparent background using alpha-blending.
-tr|+tr
transparent: boolean
Turn on/off pseudo-transparency by using the root pixmap as background.
-ip (inheritPixmap) is still accepted as an obsolete alias but will be removed in
future versions.
-tint colour
tintColor: colour
Tint the transparent background with the given colour. Note that a black tint yields a
completely black image while a white tint yields the image unchanged.
-sh number
shading: number
Darken (0 .. 99) or lighten (101 .. 200) the transparent background. A value of 100
means no shading.
-blr HxV
blurRadius: HxV
Apply gaussian blur with the specified radius to the transparent background. If a
single number is specified, the vertical and horizontal radii are considered to be the
same. Setting one of the radii to 1 and the other to a large number creates
interesting effects on some backgrounds. The maximum radius value is 128. An
horizontal or vertical radius of 0 disables blurring.
path: path
Specify the colon-delimited search path for finding background image files.
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 STAMP
urxvt 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.
COLOURS AND GRAPHICS
In addition to the default foreground and background colours, urxvt can display up to
88/256 colours: 8 ANSI colours plus high-intensity (potentially bold/blink) versions of
the same, and 72 (or 240 in 256 colour mode) colours arranged in an 4x4x4 (or 6x6x6)
colour RGB cube plus a 8 (24) colour greyscale ramp.
Here is a list of the ANSI 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.
The following text gives values for the standard 88 colour mode (and values for the 256
colour mode in parentheses).
The RGB cube uses indices 16..79 (16..231) using the following formulas:
index_88 = (r * 4 + g) * 4 + b + 16 # r, g, b = 0..3
index_256 = (r * 16 + g) * 16 + b + 16 # r, g, b = 0..15
The grayscale ramp uses indices 80..87 (232..239), from 10% to 90% in 10% steps (1/26 to
25/26 in 1/26 steps) - black and white are already part of the RGB cube.
Together, all those colours implement the 88 (256) colour xterm colours. Only the first 16
can be changed using resources currently, the rest can only be changed via command
sequences ("escape codes").
Applications are advised to use terminfo or command sequences to discover number and RGB
values of all colours (yes, you can query this...).
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 its own alpha channel management:
You can prefix any colour with an opaqueness percentage enclosed in brackets, i.e.
"[percent]", where "percent" is a decimal percentage (0-100) that specifies the opacity of
the colour, 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.
ENVIRONMENT
urxvt 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 [sic]
The unix domain socket path used by urxvtc(1) and urxvtd(1).
Default $HOME/.urxvt/urxvtd-<nodename>.
URXVT_PERL_LIB
Additional :-separated library search path for perl extensions. Will be searched after
-perl-lib but before ~/.urxvt/ext and the system library directory.
URXVT_PERL_VERBOSITY
See urxvtperl(3).
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 application-specific X resource files are located.
XENVIRONMENT
If set and accessible, gives the name of a X resource file to be loaded by urxvt.
FILES
/etc/X11/rgb.txt
Colour names.
SEE ALSO
urxvt(7), urxvtc(1), urxvtd(1), urxvt-extensions(1), urxvtperl(3), 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 <emanuele.giaquinta@gmail.com>
pty/utmp code rewrite, image code improvements, many random hacks and bugfixes.