xterm
XTERM(1) XTERM(1)
NAME
xterm - terminal emulator for X
SYNOPSIS
xterm [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...] [shell]
DESCRIPTION
The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It
provides DEC VT102/VT220 (VTxxx) and Tektronix 4014 compatible termi-
nals for programs that cannot use the window system directly. If the
underlying operating system supports terminal resizing capabilities
(for example, the SIGWINCH signal in systems derived from 4.3bsd),
xterm will use the facilities to notify programs running in the window
whenever it is resized.
The VTxxx and Tektronix 4014 terminals each have their own window so
that you can edit text in one and look at graphics in the other at the
same time. To maintain the correct aspect ratio (height/width), Tek-
tronix graphics will be restricted to the largest box with a 4014’s
aspect ratio that will fit in the window. This box is located in the
upper left area of the window.
Although both windows may be displayed at the same time, one of them is
considered the ‘‘active’’ window for receiving keyboard input and ter-
minal output. This is the window that contains the text cursor. The
active window can be chosen through escape sequences, the ‘‘VT
Options’’ menu in the VTxxx window, and the ‘‘Tek Options’’ menu in the
4014 window.
EMULATIONS
The VT102 emulation is fairly complete, but does not support autore-
peat. Double-size characters are displayed properly if your font
server supports scalable fonts. The VT220 emulation does not support
soft fonts, it is otherwise complete. Termcap(5) entries that work
with xterm include an optional platform-specific entry, ‘‘xterm,’’
‘‘vt102,’’ ‘‘vt100’’ and ‘‘ansi,’’ and ‘‘dumb.’’ xterm automatically
searches the termcap file in this order for these entries and then sets
the ‘‘TERM’’ and the ‘‘TERMCAP’’ environment variables. You may also
use ‘‘vt220,’’ but must set the terminal emulation level with the
decTerminalID resource. (The ‘‘TERMCAP’’ environment variable is not
set if xterm is linked against a terminfo library, since the requisite
information is not provided by the termcap emulation of terminfo
libraries).
Many of the special xterm features may be modified under program con-
trol through a set of escape sequences different from the standard
VT102 escape sequences. (See the Xterm Control Sequences document.)
The Tektronix 4014 emulation is also fairly good. It supports 12-bit
graphics addressing, scaled to the window size. Four different font
sizes and five different lines types are supported. There is no write-
through or defocused mode support. The Tektronix text and graphics
commands are recorded internally by xterm and may be written to a file
by sending the COPY escape sequence (or through the Tektronix menu; see
below). The name of the file will be ‘‘COPYyyyy-MM-dd.hh:mm:ss’’,
where yyyy, MM, dd, hh, mm and ss are the year, month, day, hour,
minute and second when the COPY was performed (the file is created in
the directory xterm is started in, or the home directory for a login
xterm).
Not all of the features described in this manual are necessarily avail-
able in this version of xterm. Some (e.g., the non-VT220 extensions)
are available only if they were compiled in, though the most commonly-
used are in the default configuration.
OTHER FEATURES
Xterm automatically highlights the text cursor when the pointer enters
the window (selected) and unhighlights it when the pointer leaves the
window (unselected). If the window is the focus window, then the text
cursor is highlighted no matter where the pointer is.
In VT102 mode, there are escape sequences to activate and deactivate an
alternate screen buffer, which is the same size as the display area of
the window. When activated, the current screen is saved and replaced
with the alternate screen. Saving of lines scrolled off the top of the
window is disabled until the normal screen is restored. The termcap(5)
entry for xterm allows the visual editor vi(1) to switch to the alter-
nate screen for editing and to restore the screen on exit. A popup
menu entry makes it simple to switch between the normal and alternate
screens for cut and paste.
In either VT102 or Tektronix mode, there are escape sequences to change
the name of the windows. Additionally, in VT102 mode, xterm implements
the window-manipulation control sequences from dtterm, such as resizing
the window, setting its location on the screen.
Xterm allows character-based applications to receive mouse events (cur-
rently button-press and release events, and button-motion events) as
keyboard control sequences. See Xterm Control Sequences for details.
OPTIONS
The xterm terminal emulator accepts all of the standard X Toolkit com-
mand line options as well as the following. If the option begins with
a ‘+’ instead of a ‘-’, the option is restored to its default value.
The -version and -help options are interpreted even if xterm cannot
open the display, and are useful for testing and configuration scripts:
-version
This causes xterm to print a version number to the standard
output.
-help This causes xterm to print out a verbose message describing its
options. The message is written to the standard error.
One parameter (after all options) may be given. That overrides xterm’s
built-in choice of shell program. Normally xterm checks the SHELL
variable. If that is not set, xterm tries to use the shell program
specified in the password file. If that is not set, xterm uses
/bin/sh. If the parameter names an executable file, xterm uses that
instead. The parameter must be an absolute path, or name a file found
on the user’s PATH (and thereby construct an absolute path). The -e
option cannot be used with this parameter since it uses all parameters
following the option.
The other options are used to control the appearance and behavior. Not
all options are necessarily configured into your copy of xterm:
-132 Normally, the VT102 DECCOLM escape sequence that switches
between 80 and 132 column mode is ignored. This option causes
the DECCOLM escape sequence to be recognized, and the xterm
window will resize appropriately.
-ah This option indicates that xterm should always highlight the
text cursor. By default, xterm will display a hollow text cur-
sor whenever the focus is lost or the pointer leaves the win-
dow.
+ah This option indicates that xterm should do text cursor high-
lighting based on focus.
-ai This option disables active icon support if that feature was
compiled into xterm. This is equivalent to setting the vt100
resource activeIcon to ‘‘false’’.
+ai This option enables active icon support if that feature was
compiled into xterm. This is equivalent to setting the vt100
resource activeIcon to ‘‘true’’.
-aw This option indicates that auto-wraparound should be allowed.
This allows the cursor to automatically wrap to the beginning
of the next line when when it is at the rightmost position of a
line and text is output.
+aw This option indicates that auto-wraparound should not be
allowed.
-b number
This option specifies the size of the inner border (the dis-
tance between the outer edge of the characters and the window
border) in pixels. That is the vt100 internalBorder resource.
The default is 2.
+bc turn off text cursor blinking. This overrides the cursorBlink
resource.
-bc turn on text cursor blinking. This overrides the cursorBlink
resource.
-bcf milliseconds
set the amount of time text cursor is off when blinking via the
cursorOffTime resource.
-bcn milliseconds
set the amount of time text cursor is on when blinking via the
cursorOffTime resource.
-bdc Set the vt100 resource colorBDMode to ‘‘false’’, disabling the
display of characters with bold attribute as color
+bdc Set the vt100 resource colorBDMode to ‘‘true’’, enabling the
display of characters with bold attribute as color rather than
bold
-cb Set the vt100 resource cutToBeginningOfLine to ‘‘false’’.
+cb Set the vt100 resource cutToBeginningOfLine to ‘‘true’’.
-cc characterclassrange:value[,...]
This sets classes indicated by the given ranges for using in
selecting by words. See the section specifying character
classes. and discussion of the charClass resource.
-cjk_width
Set the cjkWidth resource to ‘‘true’’. When turned on, charac-
ters with East Asian Ambiguous (A) category in UTR 11 have a
column width of 2. Otherwise, they have a column width of 1.
This may be useful for some legacy CJK text terminal-based pro-
grams assuming box drawings and others to have a column width
of 2. It also has to be turned on when you specify a TrueType
CJK double-width (bi-width/monospace) font either with -fa at
the command line or faceName resource. The default is
‘‘false’’
+cjk_width
Reset the cjkWidth resource.
-class string
This option allows you to override xterm’s resource class.
Normally it is ‘‘XTerm’’, but can be set to another class such
as ‘‘UXTerm’’ to override selected resources.
-cm This option disables recognition of ANSI color-change escape
sequences. It sets the colorMode resource to ‘‘false’’.
+cm This option enables recognition of ANSI color-change escape
sequences. This is the same as the vt100 resource colorMode.
-cn This option indicates that newlines should not be cut in line-
mode selections. It sets the cutNewline resource to ‘‘false’’.
+cn This option indicates that newlines should be cut in line-mode
selections. It sets the cutNewline resource to ‘‘true’’.
-cr color
This option specifies the color to use for text cursor. The
default is to use the same foreground color that is used for
text. It sets the cursorColor resource according to the param-
eter.
-cu This option indicates that xterm should work around a bug in
the more(1) program that causes it to incorrectly display lines
that are exactly the width of the window and are followed by a
line beginning with a tab (the leading tabs are not displayed).
This option is so named because it was originally thought to be
a bug in the curses(3x) cursor motion package.
+cu This option indicates that xterm should not work around the
more(1) bug mentioned above.
-dc This option disables the escape sequence to change dynamic col-
ors: the vt100 foreground and background colors, its text cur-
sor color, the pointer cursor foreground and background colors,
the Tektronix emulator foreground and background colors, its
text cursor color and highlight color. The option sets the
dynamicColors option to ‘‘false’’.
+dc This option enables the escape sequence to change dynamic col-
ors. The option sets the dynamicColors option to ‘‘true’’.
-e program [ arguments ... ]
This option specifies the program (and its command line argu-
ments) to be run in the xterm window. It also sets the window
title and icon name to be the basename of the program being
executed if neither -T nor -n are given on the command line.
This must be the last option on the command line.
-en encoding
This option determines the encoding on which xterm runs. It
sets the locale resource. Encodings other than UTF-8 are sup-
ported by using luit. The -lc option should be used instead of
-en for systems with locale support.
-fb font
This option specifies a font to be used when displaying bold
text. This font must be the same height and width as the nor-
mal font. If only one of the normal or bold fonts is speci-
fied, it will be used as the normal font and the bold font will
be produced by overstriking this font. The default is to do
overstriking of the normal font. See also the discussion of
boldFont and boldMode resources.
-fa pattern
This option sets the pattern for fonts selected from the
FreeType library if support for that library was compiled into
xterm. This corresponds to the faceName resource. When a CJK
double-width font is specified, you also need to turn on the
cjkWidth resource.
-fbb This option indicates that xterm should compare normal and bold
fonts bounding boxes to ensure they are compatible. It sets
the freeBoldBox resource to ‘‘false’’.
+fbb This option indicates that xterm should not compare normal and
bold fonts bounding boxes to ensure they are compatible. It
sets the freeBoldBox resource to ‘‘true’’.
-fbx This option indicates that xterm should not assume that the
normal and bold fonts have VT100 line-drawing characters. If
any are missing, xterm will draw the characters directly. It
sets the forceBoxChars resource to ‘‘false’’.
+fbx This option indicates that xterm should assume that the normal
and bold fonts have VT100 line-drawing characters. It sets the
forceBoxChars resource to ‘‘true’’.
-fd pattern
This option sets the pattern for double-width fonts selected
from the FreeType library if support for that library was com-
piled into xterm. This corresponds to the faceNameDoublesize
resource.
-fi font
This option sets the font for active icons if that feature was
compiled into xterm. See also the discussion of the iconFont
resource.
-fs size
This option sets the pointsize for fonts selected from the
FreeType library if support for that library was compiled into
xterm. This corresponds to the faceSize resource.
-fw font
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying wide
text. By default, it will attempt to use a font twice as wide
as the font that will be used to draw normal text. If no dou-
blewidth font is found, it will improvise, by stretching the
normal font. This corresponds to the wideFont resource.
-fwb font
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying bold
wide text. By default, it will attempt to use a font twice as
wide as the font that will be used to draw bold text. If no
doublewidth font is found, it will improvise, by stretching the
bold font. This corresponds to the wideBoldFont resource.
-fx font
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying the
preedit string in the "OverTheSpot" input method. See also the
discussion of the ximFont resource.
-hc color
This option specifies the color to use for the background of
selected or otherwise highlighted text. If not specified,
reverse video is used. See the discussion of the highlight-
Color resource.
-hf This option indicates that HP Function Key escape codes should
be generated for function keys. It sets the hpFunctionKeys
resource to ‘‘true’’.
+hf This option indicates that HP Function Key escape codes should
not be generated for function keys. It sets the hpFunctionKeys
resource to ‘‘false’’.
-hold Turn on the hold resource, i.e., xterm will not immediately
destroy its window when the shell command completes. It will
wait until you use the window manager to destroy/kill the win-
dow, or if you use the menu entries that send a signal, e.g.,
HUP or KILL.
+hold Turn off the hold resource, i.e., xterm will immediately
destroy its window when the shell command completes.
-ie Turn on the ptyInitialErase resource, i.e., use the pseudo-ter-
minal’s sense of the stty erase value.
+ie Turn off the ptyInitialErase resource, i.e., set the stty erase
value using the kb string from the termcap entry as a refer-
ence, if available.
-im Turn on the useInsertMode resource, which forces use of insert
mode by adding appropriate entries to the TERMCAP environment
variable.
+im Turn off the useInsertMode resource.
-into windowId
Given an X window identifier (a decimal integer), xterm will
reparent its top-level shell widget to that window. This is
used to embed xterm within other applications.
-j This option indicates that xterm should do jump scrolling. It
corresponds to the jumpScroll resource. Normally, text is
scrolled one line at a time; this option allows xterm to move
multiple lines at a time so that it does not fall as far
behind. Its use is strongly recommended since it makes xterm
much faster when scanning through large amounts of text. The
VT100 escape sequences for enabling and disabling smooth scroll
as well as the ‘‘VT Options’’ menu can be used to turn this
feature on or off.
+j This option indicates that xterm should not do jump scrolling.
-k8 This option sets the allowC1Printable resource. When
allowC1Printable is set, xterm overrides the mapping of C1 con-
trol characters (code 128-159) to treat them as printable.
+k8 This option resets the allowC1Printable resource.
-kt keyboardtype
This option sets the keyboardType resource. Possible values
include: ‘‘hp’’, ‘‘sco’’, ‘‘sun’’ and ‘‘vt220’’. The default
value ‘‘unknown’’, causes the corresponding resource to be
ignored.
-l Turn logging on. Normally logging is not supported, due to
security concerns. Some versions of xterm may have logging
enabled. The logfile is written to the directory from which
xterm is invoked. The filename is generated, of the form
XtermLog.XXXXXX
or
Xterm.log.hostname.yyyy.mm.dd.hh.mm.ss.XXXXXX
depending on how xterm was built.
+l Turn logging off.
-lc Turn on support of various encodings according to the users’
locale setting, i.e., LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG environment
variables. This is achieved by turning on UTF-8 mode and by
invoking luit for conversion between locale encodings and
UTF-8. (luit is not invoked in UTF-8 locales.) This corre-
sponds to the locale resource.
The actual list of encodings which are supported is determined
by luit. Consult the luit manual page for further details.
See also the discussion of the -u8 option which supports UTF-8
locales.
+lc Turn off support of automatic selection of locale encodings.
Conventional 8bit mode or, in UTF-8 locales or with -u8 option,
UTF-8 mode will be used.
-lcc path
File name for the encoding converter from/to locale encodings
and UTF-8 which is used with -lc option or locale resource.
This corresponds to the localeFilter resource.
-leftbar
Force scrollbar to the left side of VT100 screen. This is the
default, unless you have set the rightScrollBar resource.
-lf filename
Specify the log-filename. See the -l option.
-ls This option indicates that the shell that is started in the
xterm window will be a login shell (i.e., the first character
of argv[0] will be a dash, indicating to the shell that it
should read the user’s .login or .profile).
The -ls flag and the loginShell resource are ignored if -e is
also given, because xterm does not know how to make the shell
start the given command after whatever it does when it is a
login shell - the user’s shell of choice need not be a Bourne
shell after all. Also, xterm -e is supposed to provide a con-
sistent functionality for other applications that need to start
text-mode programs in a window, and if loginShell were not
ignored, the result of ~/.profile might interfere with that.
If you do want the effect of -ls and -e simultaneously, you may
get away with something like
xterm -e /bin/bash -l -c "my command here"
Finally, -ls is not completely ignored, because xterm -ls -e
does write a /etc/wtmp entry (if configured to do so), whereas
xterm -e does not.
+ls This option indicates that the shell that is started should not
be a login shell (i.e., it will be a normal ‘‘subshell’’).
-mb This option indicates that xterm should ring a margin bell when
the user types near the right end of a line. This option can
be turned on and off from the ‘‘VT Options’’ menu.
+mb This option indicates that margin bell should not be rung.
-mc milliseconds
This option specifies the maximum time between multi-click
selections.
-mesg Turn off the messages resource, i.e., disallow write access to
the terminal.
+mesg Turn on the messages resource, i.e., allow write access to the
terminal.
-mk_width
Set the mkWidth resource to ‘‘true’’. This makes xterm use a
built-in version of the wide-character width calculation. The
default is ‘‘false’’
+mk_width
Reset the mkWidth resource.
-ms color
This option specifies the color to be used for the pointer cur-
sor. The default is to use the foreground color. This sets
the pointerColor resource.
-nb number
This option specifies the number of characters from the right
end of a line at which the margin bell, if enabled, will ring.
The default is 10.
-nul This option disables the display of underlining.
+nul This option enables the display of underlining.
-pc This option enables the PC-style use of bold colors (see bold-
Colors resource).
+pc This option disables the PC-style use of bold colors.
-pob This option indicates that the window should be raised whenever
a Control-G is received.
+pob This option indicates that the window should not be raised
whenever a Control-G is received.
-rightbar
Force scrollbar to the right side of VT100 screen.
-rvc This option disables the display of characters with reverse
attribute as color.
+rvc This option enables the display of characters with reverse
attribute as color.
-rw This option indicates that reverse-wraparound should be
allowed. This allows the cursor to back up from the leftmost
column of one line to the rightmost column of the previous
line. This is very useful for editing long shell command lines
and is encouraged. This option can be turned on and off from
the ‘‘VT Options’’ menu.
+rw This option indicates that reverse-wraparound should not be
allowed.
-s This option indicates that xterm may scroll asynchronously,
meaning that the screen does not have to be kept completely up
to date while scrolling. This allows xterm to run faster when
network latencies are very high and is typically useful when
running across a very large internet or many gateways.
+s This option indicates that xterm should scroll synchronously.
-samename
Does not send title and icon name change requests when the
request would have no effect: the name is not changed. This
has the advantage of preventing flicker and the disadvantage of
requiring an extra round trip to the server to find out the
previous value. In practice this should never be a problem.
+samename
Always send title and icon name change requests.
-sb This option indicates that some number of lines that are
scrolled off the top of the window should be saved and that a
scrollbar should be displayed so that those lines can be
viewed. This option may be turned on and off from the ‘‘VT
Options’’ menu.
+sb This option indicates that a scrollbar should not be displayed.
-sf This option indicates that Sun Function Key escape codes should
be generated for function keys.
+sf This option indicates that the standard escape codes should be
generated for function keys.
-si This option indicates that output to a window should not auto-
matically reposition the screen to the bottom of the scrolling
region. This option can be turned on and off from the ‘‘VT
Options’’ menu.
+si This option indicates that output to a window should cause it
to scroll to the bottom.
-sk This option indicates that pressing a key while using the
scrollbar to review previous lines of text should cause the
window to be repositioned automatically in the normal position
at the bottom of the scroll region.
+sk This option indicates that pressing a key while using the
scrollbar should not cause the window to be repositioned.
-sl number
This option specifies the number of lines to save that have
been scrolled off the top of the screen. This corresponds to
the saveLines resource. The default is 64.
-sm This option, corresponding to the sessionMgt resource, indi-
cates that xterm should set up session manager callbacks.
+sm This option indicates that xterm should not set up session man-
ager callbacks.
-sp This option indicates that Sun/PC keyboard should be assumed,
providing mapping for keypad ‘+’ to ‘,’, and CTRL-F1 to F13,
CTRL-F2 to F14, etc.
+sp This option indicates that the standard escape codes should be
generated for keypad and function keys.
-t This option indicates that xterm should start in Tektronix
mode, rather than in VT102 mode. Switching between the two
windows is done using the ‘‘Options’’ menus. Termcap(5)
entries that work with xterm ‘‘tek4014,’’ ‘‘tek4015,’’
‘‘tek4012’’, ‘‘tek4013’’ and ‘‘tek4010,’’ and ‘‘dumb.’’ xterm
automatically searches the termcap file in this order for these
entries and then sets the ‘‘TERM’’ and the ‘‘TERMCAP’’ environ-
ment variables.
+t This option indicates that xterm should start in VT102 mode.
-tb This option, corresponding to the toolBar resource, indicates
that xterm should display a toolbar (or menubar) at the top of
its window. The buttons in the toolbar correspond to the popup
menus, e.g., control/left/mouse for "Main Options".
+tb This option indicates that xterm should not set up a toolbar.
-ti term_id
Specify the name used by xterm to select the correct response
to terminal ID queries. It also specifies the emulation level,
used to determine the type of response to a DA control
sequence. Valid values include vt52, vt100, vt101, vt102, and
vt220 (the "vt" is optional). The default is vt100. The
term_id argument specifies the terminal ID to use. (This is
the same as the decTerminalID resource).
-tm string
This option specifies a series of terminal setting keywords
followed by the characters that should be bound to those func-
tions, similar to the stty program. The keywords and their
values are described in detail in the ttyModes resource.
-tn name
This option specifies the name of the terminal type to be set
in the TERM environment variable. It corresponds to the
termName resource. This terminal type must exist in the termi-
nal database (termcap or terminfo, depending on how xterm is
built) and should have li# and co# entries. If the terminal
type is not found, xterm uses the built-in list ‘‘xterm’’,
‘‘vt102’’, etc.
-u8 This option sets the utf8 resource. When utf8 is set, xterm
interprets incoming data as UTF-8. This sets the wideChars
resource as a side-effect, but the UTF-8 mode set by this
option prevents it from being turned off. If you must turn it
on and off, use the wideChars resource.
This option and the utf8 resource are overridden by the -lc and
-en options and locale resource. That is, if xterm has been
compiled to support luit, and the locale resource is not
‘‘false’’ this option is ignored. We recommend using the -lc
option or the ‘‘locale: true’’ resource in UTF-8 locales when
your operating system supports locale, or -en UTF-8 option or
the ‘‘locale: UTF-8’’ resource when your operating system does
not support locale.
+u8 This option resets the utf8 resource.
-ulc This option disables the display of characters with underline
attribute as color rather than with underlining.
+ulc This option enables the display of characters with underline
attribute as color rather than with underlining.
-ut This option indicates that xterm should not write a record into
the the system utmp log file.
+ut This option indicates that xterm should write a record into the
system utmp log file.
-vb This option indicates that a visual bell is preferred over an
audible one. Instead of ringing the terminal bell whenever a
Control-G is received, the window will be flashed.
+vb This option indicates that a visual bell should not be used.
-wc This option sets the wideChars resource. When wideChars is
set, xterm maintains internal structures for 16-bit characters.
If you do not set this resource to ‘‘true’’, xterm will ignore
the escape sequence which turns UTF-8 mode on and off. The
default is ‘‘false’’.
+wc This option resets the wideChars resource.
-wf This option indicates that xterm should wait for the window to
be mapped the first time before starting the subprocess so that
the initial terminal size settings and environment variables
are correct. It is the application’s responsibility to catch
subsequent terminal size changes.
+wf This option indicates that xterm should not wait before start-
ing the subprocess.
-ziconbeep percent
Same as zIconBeep resource. If percent is non-zero, xterms
that produce output while iconified will cause an XBell sound
at the given volume and have "***" prepended to their icon
titles. Most window managers will detect this change immedi-
ately, showing you which window has the output. (A similar
feature was in x10 xterm.)
-C This option indicates that this window should receive console
output. This is not supported on all systems. To obtain con-
sole output, you must be the owner of the console device, and
you must have read and write permission for it. If you are
running X under xdm on the console screen you may need to have
the session startup and reset programs explicitly change the
ownership of the console device in order to get this option to
work.
-Sccn This option allows xterm to be used as an input and output
channel for an existing program and is sometimes used in spe-
cialized applications. The option value specifies the last few
letters of the name of a pseudo-terminal to use in slave mode,
plus the number of the inherited file descriptor. If the
option contains a ‘‘/’’ character, that delimits the characters
used for the pseudo-terminal name from the file descriptor.
Otherwise, exactly two characters are used from the option for
the pseudo-terminal name, the remainder is the file descriptor.
Examples:
-S123/45
-Sab34
Note that xterm does not close any file descriptor which it did
not open for its own use. It is possible (though probably not
portable) to have an application which passes an open file
descriptor down to xterm past the initialization or the -S
option to a process running in the xterm.
The following command line arguments are provided for compatibility
with older versions. They may not be supported in the next release as
the X Toolkit provides standard options that accomplish the same task.
%geom This option specifies the preferred size and position of the
Tektronix window. It is shorthand for specifying the ‘‘*tekGe-
ometry’’ resource.
#geom This option specifies the preferred position of the icon win-
dow. It is shorthand for specifying the ‘‘*iconGeometry’’
resource.
-T string
This option specifies the title for xterm’s windows. It is
equivalent to -title.
-n string
This option specifies the icon name for xterm’s windows. It is
shorthand for specifying the ‘‘*iconName’’ resource. Note that
this is not the same as the toolkit option -name (see below).
The default icon name is the application name.
-r This option indicates that reverse video should be simulated by
swapping the foreground and background colors. It is equiva-
lent to -rv.
-w number
This option specifies the width in pixels of the border sur-
rounding the window. It is equivalent to -borderwidth or -bw.
The following standard X Toolkit command line arguments are commonly
used with xterm:
-bd color
This option specifies the color to use for the border of the
window. The default is ‘‘black.’’
-bg color
This option specifies the color to use for the background of
the window. The default is ‘‘white.’’
-bw number
This option specifies the width in pixels of the border sur-
rounding the window.
-display display
This option specifies the X server to contact; see X(1).
-fg color
This option specifies the color to use for displaying text.
The default is ‘‘black.’’
-fn font
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying normal
text. The default is fixed.
-font font
This is the same as -fn.
-geometry geometry
This option specifies the preferred size and position of the
VT102 window; see X(1).
-iconic This option indicates that xterm should ask the window manager
to start it as an icon rather than as the normal window.
-name name
This option specifies the application name under which
resources are to be obtained, rather than the default exe-
cutable file name. Name should not contain ‘‘.’’ or ‘‘*’’
characters.
-rv This option indicates that reverse video should be simulated by
swapping the foreground and background colors.
+rv Disable the simulation of reverse video by swapping foreground
and background colors.
-title string
This option specifies the window title string, which may be
displayed by window managers if the user so chooses. The
default title is the command line specified after the -e
option, if any, otherwise the application name.
-xrm resourcestring
This option specifies a resource string to be used. This is
especially useful for setting resources that do not have sepa-
rate command line options.
RESOURCES
The program understands all of the core X Toolkit resource names and
classes. Application specific resources (e.g., "XTerm.NAME") follow:
backarrowKeyIsErase (class BackarrowKeyIsErase)
Tie the VTxxx backarrowKey and ptyInitialErase resources
together by setting the DECBKM state according to whether the
initial value of stty erase is a backspace (8) or delete (127)
character. The default is ‘‘false’’, which disables this fea-
ture.
hold (class Hold)
If true, xterm will not immediately destroy its window when the
shell command completes. It will wait until you use the window
manager to destroy/kill the window, or if you use the menu
entries that send a signal, e.g., HUP or KILL. You may scroll
back, select text, etc., to perform most graphical operations.
Resizing the display will lose data, however, since this
involves interaction with the shell which is no longer running.
hpFunctionKeys (class HpFunctionKeys)
Specifies whether or not HP Function Key escape codes should be
generated for function keys instead of standard escape
sequences. See also the keyboardType resource.
iconGeometry (class IconGeometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the application
when iconified. It is not necessarily obeyed by all window
managers.
iconName (class IconName)
Specifies the icon name. The default is the application name.
keyboardType (class KeyboardType)
Enables one (or none) of the various keyboard-type resources:
hpFunctionKeys, scoFunctionKeys, sunFunctionKeys and sunKey-
board. The resource’s value should be one of the corresponding
strings hp, sco, sun or vt220. The individual resources are
provided for legacy support; this resource is simpler to use.
maxBufSize (class MaxBufSize)
Specify the maximum size of the input buffer. The default is
32768. You cannot set this to a value less than the minBufSize
resource. It will be increased as needed to make that value
evenly divide this one.
On some systems you may want to increase one or both of the
maxBufSize and minBufSize resource values to achieve better
performance if the operating system prefers larger buffer
sizes.
messages (class Messages)
Specifies whether write access to the terminal is allowed ini-
tially. See mesg(1). The default is ‘‘true’’.
minBufSize (class MinBufSize)
Specify the minimum size of the input buffer, i.e., the amount
of data that xterm requests on each read. The default is 4096.
You cannot set this to a value less than 64.
ptyHandshake (class PtyHandshake)
If ‘‘true’’, xterm will perform handshaking during initializa-
tion to ensure that the parent and child processes update the
utmp and stty state. Platforms with newer pseudo-terminal
interfaces do not require this feature; normally it is not con-
figured. The default is ‘‘true’’.
ptyInitialErase (class PtyInitialErase)
If ‘‘true’’, xterm will use the pseudo-terminal’s sense of the
stty erase value. If ‘‘false’’, xterm will set the stty erase
value to match its own configuration, using the kb string from
the termcap entry as a reference, if available. In either
case, the result is applied to the TERMCAP variable which xterm
sets. The default is ‘‘false’’.
sameName (class SameName)
If the value of this resource is ‘‘true’’, xterm does not send
title and icon name change requests when the request would have
no effect: the name is not changed. This has the advantage of
preventing flicker and the disadvantage of requiring an extra
round trip to the server to find out the previous value. In
practice this should never be a problem. The default is
‘‘true’’.
scoFunctionKeys (class ScoFunctionKeys)
Specifies whether or not SCP Function Key escape codes should
be generated for function keys instead of standard escape
sequences. See also the keyboardType resource.
sessionMgt (class SessionMgt)
If the value of this resource is ‘‘true’’, xterm sets up ses-
sion manager callbacks for XtNdieCallback and XtNsaveCallback.
The default is ‘‘true’’.
sunFunctionKeys (class SunFunctionKeys)
Specifies whether or not Sun Function Key escape codes should
be generated for function keys instead of standard escape
sequences. See also the keyboardType resource.
sunKeyboard (class SunKeyboard)
Specifies whether or not Sun/PC keyboard layout should be
assumed rather than DEC VT220. This causes the keypad ‘+’ to
be mapped to ‘,’. and CTRL F1-F12 to F11-F20, depending on the
setting of the ctrlFKeys resource. so xterm emulates a DEC
VT220 more accurately. Otherwise (the default, with sunKey-
board set to ‘‘false’’), xterm uses PC-style bindings for the
function keys and keypad.
PC-style bindings use the Shift, Alt, Control and Meta keys as
modifiers for function-keys and keypad (see the document Xterm
Control Sequences for details). The PC-style bindings are
analogous to PCTerm, but not the same thing. Normally these
bindings do not conflict with the use of the Meta key as
described for the eightBitInput resource. If they do, note
that the PC-style bindings are evaluated first. See also the
keyboardType resource.
termName (class TermName)
Specifies the terminal type name to be set in the TERM environ-
ment variable.
title (class Title)
Specifies a string that may be used by the window manager when
displaying this application.
toolBar (class ToolBar)
Specifies whether or not the toolbar should be displayed. The
default is ‘‘true.’’
ttyModes (class TtyModes)
Specifies a string containing terminal setting keywords and the
characters to which they may be bound. Allowable keywords
include: brk, dsusp, eof, eol, eol2, erase, erase2, flush,
intr, kill, lnext, quit, rprnt, start, status, stop, susp,
swtch and weras. Control characters may be specified as ^char
(e.g., ^c or ^u) and ^? may be used to indicate delete (127).
Use ^- to denote undef. Use \034 to represent ^\, since a lit-
eral backslash in an X resource escapes the next character.
This is very useful for overriding the default terminal set-
tings without having to do an stty every time an xterm is
started. Note, however, that the stty program on a given host
may use different keywords; xterm’s table is built-in.
useInsertMode (class UseInsertMode)
Force use of insert mode by adding appropriate entries to the
TERMCAP environment variable. This is useful if the system
termcap is broken. The default is ‘‘false.’’
utmpDisplayId (class UtmpDisplayId)
Specifies whether or not xterm should try to record the display
identifier (display number and screen number) as well as the
hostname in the system utmp log file. The default is ‘‘true.’’
utmpInhibit (class UtmpInhibit)
Specifies whether or not xterm should try to record the user’s
terminal in the system utmp log file. If true, xterm will not
try. The default is ‘‘false.’’
waitForMap (class WaitForMap)
Specifies whether or not xterm should wait for the initial win-
dow map before starting the subprocess. The default is
‘‘false.’’
zIconBeep (class ZIconBeep)
Same as -ziconbeep command line argument. If the value of this
resource is non-zero, xterms that produce output while iconi-
fied will cause an XBell sound at the given volume and have
"***" prepended to their icon titles. Most window managers
will detect this change immediately, showing you which window
has the output. (A similar feature was in x10 xterm.) The
default is ‘‘false.’’
The following resources are specified as part of the vt100 widget
(class VT100): These are specified by patterns such as
"XTerm.vt100.NAME":
activeIcon (class ActiveIcon)
Specifies whether or not active icon windows are to be used
when the xterm window is iconified, if this feature is compiled
into xterm. The active icon is a miniature representation of
the content of the window and will update as the content
changes. Not all window managers necessarily support applica-
tion icon windows. Some window managers will allow you to
enter keystrokes into the active icon window. The default is
‘‘false.’’
allowC1Printable (class AllowC1Printable)
If true, overrides the mapping of C1 controls (codes 128-159)
to make them be treated as if they were printable characters.
Although this corresponds to no particular standard, some users
insist it is a VT100. The default is ‘‘false.’’
allowSendEvents (class AllowSendEvents)
Specifies whether or not synthetic key and button events (gen-
erated using the X protocol SendEvent request) should be inter-
preted or discarded. The default is ‘‘false’’ meaning they are
discarded. Note that allowing such events creates a very large
security hole. The default is ‘‘false.’’
allowWindowOps (class AllowWindowOps)
Specifies whether extended window control sequences (as used in
dtterm) for should be allowed. The default is ‘‘true.’’
alwaysHighlight (class AlwaysHighlight)
Specifies whether or not xterm should always display a high-
lighted text cursor. By default (if this resource is false), a
hollow text cursor is displayed whenever the pointer moves out
of the window or the window loses the input focus. The default
is ‘‘false.’’
alwaysUseMods (class AlwaysUseMods)
Override the numLock resource, telling xterm to use the Alt and
Meta modifiers to construct parameters for function key
sequences even if those modifiers appear in the translations
resource. The default is ‘‘false.’’
answerbackString (class AnswerbackString)
Specifies the string that xterm sends in response to an ENQ
(control/E) character from the host. The default is a blank
string, i.e., ‘‘’’. A hardware VT100 implements this feature
as a setup option.
appcursorDefault (class AppcursorDefault)
If ‘‘true,’’ the cursor keys are initially in application mode.
This is the same as the VT102 private DECCKM mode, The default
is ‘‘false.’’
appkeypadDefault (class AppkeypadDefault)
If ‘‘true,’’ the keypad keys are initially in application mode.
The default is ‘‘false.’’
autoWrap (class AutoWrap)
Specifies whether or not auto-wraparound should be enabled.
This is the same as the VT102 DECAWM. The default is ‘‘true.’’
awaitInput (class AwaitInput)
Specifies whether or not the xterm uses a 50 millisecond time-
out to await input (i.e., to support the Xaw3d arrow scroll-
bar). The default is ‘‘false.’’
backarrowKey (class BackarrowKey)
Specifies whether the backarrow key transmits a backspace (8)
or delete (127) character. This corresponds to the DECBKM con-
trol sequence. The default (backspace) is ‘‘true.’’ Pressing
the control key toggles this behavior.
background (class Background)
Specifies the color to use for the background of the window.
The default is ‘‘white.’’
bellOnReset (class BellOnReset)
Specifies whether to sound a bell when doing a hard reset. The
default is ‘‘true.’’
bellSuppressTime (class BellSuppressTime)
Number of milliseconds after a bell command is sent during
which additional bells will be suppressed. Default is 200. If
set non-zero, additional bells will also be suppressed until
the server reports that processing of the first bell has been
completed; this feature is most useful with the visible bell.
boldColors (class ColorMode)
Specifies whether to combine bold attribute with colors like
the IBM PC, i.e., map colors 0 through 7 to colors 8 through
15. These normally are the brighter versions of the first 8
colors, hence bold. The default is ‘‘true.’’
boldFont (class BoldFont)
Specifies the name of the bold font to use instead of over-
striking. There is no default for this resource.
boldMode (class BoldMode)
This specifies whether or not text with the bold attribute
should be overstruck to simulate bold fonts if the resolved
bold font is the same as the normal font. It may be desirable
to disable bold fonts when color is being used for the bold
attribute. Note that xterm has one bold font which you may set
explicitly. It attempts to match a bold font for the other
font selections (font1 through font6). If the normal and bold
fonts are distinct, this resource has no effect. The default
is ‘‘true.’’
Although xterm attempts to match a bold font for other font
selections, the font server may not cooperate. Since X11R6,
bitmap fonts have been scaled. The font server claims to pro-
vide the bold font that xterm requests, but the result is not
always readable. XFree86 provides a feature which can be used
to suppress the scaling. In the X server’s configuration file
(e.g., "/etc/X11/XFree86"), you can add ":unscaled" to the end
of the directory specification for the "misc" fonts, which
comprise the fixed-pitch fonts that are used by xterm. For
example
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
would become
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"
Depending on your configuration, the font server may have its
own configuration file. The same ":unscaled" can be added to
its configuration file at the end of the directory specifica-
tion for "misc".
brokenLinuxOSC (class BrokenLinuxOSC)
If true, xterm applies a workaround to ignore malformed control
sequences that a Linux script might send. Compare the palette
control sequences documented in console_codes with ECMA-48.
The default is ‘‘true.’’
brokenSelections (class BrokenSelections)
If true, xterm in 8-bit mode will interpret STRING selections
as carrying text in the current locale’s encoding. Normally
STRING selections carry ISO-8859-1 encoded text. Setting this
resource to ‘‘true’’ violates the ICCCM; it may, however, be
useful for interacting with some broken X clients. The default
is ‘‘false.’’
brokenStringTerm (class BrokenStringTerm)
provides a work-around for some ISDN routers which start an
application control string without completing it. Set this to
‘‘true’’ if xterm appears to freeze when connecting. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
c132 (class C132)
Specifies whether or not the VT102 DECCOLM escape sequence,
used to switch between 80 and 132 columns, should be honored.
The default is ‘‘false.’’
cacheDoublesize (class CacheDoublesize)
Specifies the maximum number of double-sized fonts which are
cached by xterm. The default (8) may be too large for some X
terminals with limited memory. Set this to zero to disable
doublesize fonts altogether.
charClass (class CharClass)
Specifies comma-separated lists of character class bindings of
the form [low-]high:value. These are used in determining which
sets of characters should be treated the same when doing cut
and paste. See the CHARACTER CLASSES section.
cjkWidth (class CjkWidth)
Specifies whether xterm should follow the traditional East
Asian width convention. When turned on, characters with East
Asian Ambiguous (A) category in UTR 11 have a column width of
2. You may have to set this option to ‘‘true’’ if you have
some old East Asian terminal based programs that assume that
line-drawing characters have a column width of 2. The default
is ‘‘false.’’
color0 (class Color0)
color1 (class Color1)
color2 (class Color2)
color3 (class Color3)
color4 (class Color4)
color5 (class Color5)
color6 (class Color6)
color7 (class Color7)
These specify the colors for the ISO 6429 extension. The
defaults are, respectively, black, red3, green3, yellow3, a
customizable dark blue, magenta3, cyan3, and gray90. The
default shades of color are chosen to allow the colors 8-15 to
be used as brighter versions.
color8 (class Color8)
color9 (class Color9)
color10 (class Color10)
color11 (class Color11)
color12 (class Color12)
color13 (class Color13)
color14 (class Color14)
color15 (class Color15)
These specify the colors for the ISO 6429 extension if the bold
attribute is also enabled. The default resource values are
respectively, gray30, red, green, yellow, a customizable light
blue, magenta, cyan, and white.
color16 (class Color16)
through
color255 (class Color255)
These specify the colors for the 256-color extension. The
default resource values are for colors 16 through 231 to make a
6x6x6 color cube, and colors 232 through 255 to make a
grayscale ramp.
colorAttrMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether colorBD, colorBL, colorRV, and colorUL should
override ANSI colors. If not, these are displayed only when no
ANSI colors have been set for the corresponding position. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
colorBD (class ColorBD)
This specifies the color to use to display bold characters if
the ‘‘colorBDMode’’ resource is enabled. The default is
‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
colorBDMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether characters with the bold attribute should be
displayed in color or as bold characters. Note that setting
colorMode off disables all colors, including bold. The default
is ‘‘false.’’
colorBL (class ColorBL)
This specifies the color to use to display blink characters if
the ‘‘colorBLMode’’ resource is enabled. The default is
‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
colorBLMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether characters with the blink attribute should be
displayed in color. Note that setting colorMode off disables
all colors, including this. The default is ‘‘false.’’
colorMode (class ColorMode)
Specifies whether or not recognition of ANSI (ISO 6429) color
change escape sequences should be enabled. The default is
‘‘true.’’
colorRV (class ColorRV)
This specifies the color to use to display reverse characters
if the ‘‘colorRVMode’’ resource is enabled. The default is
‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
colorRVMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether characters with the reverse attribute should
be displayed in color. Note that setting colorMode off dis-
ables all colors, including this. The default is ‘‘false.’’
colorUL (class ColorUL)
This specifies the color to use to display underlined charac-
ters if the ‘‘colorULMode’’ resource is enabled. The default
is ‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
colorULMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether characters with the underline attribute
should be displayed in color or as underlined characters. Note
that setting colorMode off disables all colors, including
underlining. The default is ‘‘false.’’
ctrlFKeys (class CtrlFKeys)
In VT220 keyboard mode (see sunKeyboard resource), specifies
the amount by which to shift F1-F12 given a control modifier
(CTRL). This allows you to generate key symbols for F10-F20 on
a Sun/PC keyboard. The default is ‘‘10’’, which means that
CTRL F1 generates the key symbol for F11.
curses (class Curses)
Specifies whether or not the last column bug in more(1) should
be worked around. See the -cu option for details. The default
is ‘‘false.’’
cursorBlink (class CursorBlink)
Specifies whether to make the cursor blink. The default is
‘‘false.’’
cursorColor (class CursorColor)
Specifies the color to use for the text cursor. The default is
‘‘black.’’
cursorOffTime (class CursorOffTime)
Specifies the duration of the "off" part of the cursor blink
cycle-time in milliseconds. The same timer is used for text
blinking. The default is 300.
cursorOnTime (class CursorOnTime)
Specifies the duration of the "on" part of the cursor blink
cycle-time, in milliseconds. The same timer is used for text
blinking. The default is 600.
cutNewline (class CutNewline)
If ‘‘false’’, triple clicking to select a line does not include
the Newline at the end of the line. If ‘‘true’’, the Newline
is selected. The default is ‘‘true.’’
cutToBeginningOfLine (class CutToBeginningOfLine)
If ‘‘false’’, triple clicking to select a line selects only
from the current word forward. If ‘‘true’’, the entire line is
selected. The default is ‘‘true.’’
decTerminalID (class DecTerminalID)
Specifies the emulation level (100=VT100, 220=VT220, etc.),
used to determine the type of response to a DA control
sequence. Leading non-digit characters are ignored, e.g.,
"vt100" and "100" are the same. The default is 100.
deleteIsDEL (class DeleteIsDEL)
Specifies whether the Delete key on the editing keypad should
send DEL (127) or the VT220-style Remove escape sequence. The
default is ‘‘false,’’ for the latter.
dynamicColors (class DynamicColors)
Specifies whether or not escape sequences to change colors
assigned to different attributes are recognized.
eightBitControl (class EightBitControl)
Specifies whether or not control sequences sent by the terminal
should be eight-bit characters or escape sequences. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
eightBitInput (class EightBitInput)
If ‘‘true’’, Meta characters (a single-byte character combined
with the keys modifier key) input from the keyboard are
presented as a single character with the eighth bit turned on.
The terminal is put into 8-bit mode. If ‘‘false’’, Meta char-
acters are converted into a two-character sequence with the
character itself preceded by ESC. On startup, xterm tries to
put the terminal into 7-bit mode. The metaSendsEscape resource
may override this. The default is ‘‘true.’’
Generally keyboards do not have a key labeled "Meta", but "Alt"
keys are common, and they are conventionally used for "Meta".
If they were synonymous, it would have been reasonable to name
this resource "altSendsEscape", reversing its sense. For more
background on this, see the meta function in curses.
Note that the Alt key is not necessarily the same as the Meta
modifier. xmodmap lists your key modifiers. X defines modi-
fiers for shift, (caps) lock and control, as well as 5 addi-
tional modifiers which are generally used to configure key mod-
ifiers. xterm inspects the same information to find the modi-
fier associated with either Meta key (left or right), and uses
that key as the Meta modifier. It also looks for the NumLock
key, to recognize the modifier which is associated with that.
If your xmodmap configuration uses the same keycodes for Alt-
and Meta-keys, xterm will only see the Alt-key definitions,
since those are tested before Meta-keys. NumLock is tested
first. It is important to keep these keys distinct; otherwise
some of xterm’s functionality is not available.
eightBitOutput (class EightBitOutput)
Specifies whether or not eight-bit characters sent from the
host should be accepted as is or stripped when printed. The
default is ‘‘true,’’ which means that they are accepted as is.
faceName (class FaceName)
Specify the pattern for fonts selected from the FreeType
library if support for that library was compiled into xterm.
There is no default. If not specified, or if there is no match
for both normal and bold fonts, xterm uses the font and related
resources.
faceNameDoublesize (class FaceNameDoublesize)
Specify an double-width font for cases where an application
requires this, e.g., in CJK applications. There is no default.
If the application uses double-wide characters and this
resource is not given, xterm will use a scaled version of the
font given by faceName.
faceSize (class FaceSize)
Specify the pointsize for fonts selected from the FreeType
library if support for that library was compiled into xterm.
The default is ‘‘14.’’
font (class Font)
Specifies the name of the normal font. The default is
‘‘fixed.’’
See the discussion of the locale resource, which describes how
this font may be overridden.
NOTE: some resource files use patterns such as
*font: fixed
which are overly broad, affecting both
xterm.vt100.font
and
xterm.vt100..utf8fonts.font
which is probably not what you intended.
font1 (class Font1)
Specifies the name of the first alternative font.
font2 (class Font2)
Specifies the name of the second alternative font.
font3 (class Font3)
Specifies the name of the third alternative font.
font4 (class Font4)
Specifies the name of the fourth alternative font.
font5 (class Font5)
Specifies the name of the fifth alternative font.
font6 (class Font6)
Specifies the name of the sixth alternative font.
fontDoublesize (class FontDoublesize)
Specifies whether xterm should attempt to use font scaling to
draw doublesize characters. Some older font servers cannot do
this properly, will return misleading font metrics. The
default is ‘‘true’’. If disabled, xterm will simulate double-
size characters by drawing normal characters with spaces
between them.
forceBoxChars (class ForceBoxChars)
Specifies whether xterm should assume the normal and bold fonts
have VT100 line-drawing characters. The fixed-pitch fonts used
by xterm normally have the VT100 line-drawing glyphs in cells
1-31. Other fixed-pitch fonts may be more attractive, but lack
these glyphs. If ‘‘false’’, xterm will check for missing
glyphs in cells 1-31 and make line-drawing characters directly.
If ‘‘true’’, xterm uses whatever is in cells 1-31 without
checking. The default is ‘‘false.’’
foreground (class Foreground)
Specifies the color to use for displaying text in the window.
Setting the class name instead of the instance name is an easy
way to have everything that would normally appear in the text
color change color. The default is ‘‘black.’’
freeBoldBox (class freeBoldBox)
Specifies whether xterm should assume the bounding boxes for
normal and bold fonts are compatible. If ‘‘false’’, xterm com-
pares them and will reject choices of bold fonts that do not
match the size of the normal font. The default is ‘‘false’’,
which means that the comparison is performed.
geometry (class Geometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the VT102 window.
There is no default for this resource.
highlightColor (class HighlightColor)
Specifies the color to use for the background of selected or
otherwise highlighted text. If not specified, reverse video is
used. The default is ‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
highlightSelection (class HighlightSelection)
If ‘‘false’’, selecting with the mouse highlights all positions
on the screen between the beginning of the selection and the
current position. If ‘‘true’’, xterm highlights only the posi-
tions that contain text that can be selected. The default is
‘‘false.’’
Depending on the way your applications write to the screen,
there may be trailing blanks on a line. Xterm stores data as
it is shown on the screen. Erasing the display changes the
internal state of each cell so it is not considered a blank for
the purpose of selection. Blanks written since the last erase
are selectable. If you do not wish to have trailing blanks in
a selection, use the trimSelection resource.
hpLowerleftBugCompat (class HpLowerleftBugCompat)
Specifies whether to work around a bug in HP’s xdb, which
ignores termcap and always sends ESC F to move to the lower
left corner. ‘‘true’’ causes xterm to interpret ESC F as a
request to move to the lower left corner of the screen. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
i18nSelections (class I18nSelections)
If false, xterm will never request the targets COMPOUND_TEXT or
TEXT. The default is ‘‘true.’’ It may be set to false in order
to work around ICCCM violations by other X clients.
iconBorderColor (class BorderColor)
Specifies the border color for the active icon window if this
feature is compiled into xterm. Not all window managers will
make the icon border visible.
iconBorderWidth (class BorderWidth)
Specifies the border width for the active icon window if this
feature is compiled into xterm. The default is 2. Not all
window managers will make the border visible.
iconFont (class IconFont)
Specifies the font for the miniature active icon window, if
this feature is compiled into xterm. The default is "nil2".
internalBorder (class BorderWidth)
Specifies the number of pixels between the characters and the
window border. The default is 2.
italicULMode (class ColorAttrMode)
Specifies whether characters with the underline attribute
should be displayed in an italic font or as underlined charac-
ters.
jumpScroll (class JumpScroll)
Specifies whether or not jump scroll should be used. This cor-
responds to the VT102 DECSCLM private mode. The default is
‘‘true.’’
keyboardDialect (class KeyboardDialect)
Specifies the initial keyboard dialect, as well as the default
value when the terminal is reset. The value given is the same
as the final character in the control sequences which change
character sets. The default is ‘‘B’’, which corresponds to US
ASCII.
nameKeymap (class NameKeymap)
See the discussion of the keymap() action.
limitResize (class LimitResize)
Limits resizing of the screen via control sequence to a given
multiple of the display dimensions. The default is ‘‘1’’.
locale (class Locale)
Specifies how to use luit, an encoding converter between UTF-8
and locale encodings. The resource value (ignoring case) may
be:
true
xterm will use the encoding specified by the users’
LC_CTYPE locale (i.e., LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, or LANG variables)
as far as possible. This is realized by always enabling
UTF-8 mode and invoking luit in non-UTF-8 locales.
medium
xterm will follow users’ LC_CTYPE locale only for UTF-8,
east Asian, and Thai locales, where the encodings were not
supported by conventional 8bit mode with changing fonts.
For other locales, xterm will use conventional 8bit mode.
checkfont
If mini-luit is compiled-in, xterm will check if a Unicode
font has been specified. If so, it checks if the character
encoding for the current locale is POSIX, Latin-1 or
Latin-9, uses the appropriate mapping to support those with
the Unicode font. For other encodings, xterm assumes that
UTF-8 encoding is required.
false
xterm will use conventional 8bit mode or UTF-8 mode accord-
ing to utf8 resource or -u8 option.
Any other value, e.g., ‘‘UTF-8’’ or ‘‘ISO8859-2’’, is assumed
to be an encoding name; luit will be invoked to support the
encoding. The actual list of supported encodings depends on
luit. The default is ‘‘medium’’.
Regardless of your locale and encoding, you need an ISO-10646-1
font to display the result. Your configuration may not include
this font, or locale-support by xterm may not be needed. At
startup, xterm uses a mechanism equivalent to the load-vt-
fonts(utf8Fonts, Utf8Fonts) action to load font name subre-
sources of the VT100 widget. That is, resource patterns such
as "*vt100.utf8Fonts.font" will be loaded, and (if this
resource is enabled), override the normal fonts. If no subre-
sources are found, the normal fonts such as "*vt100.font",
etc., are used. The resource files distributed with xterm use
ISO-10646-1 fonts, but do not rely on them unless you are using
the locale mechanism.
localeFilter (class LocaleFilter)
Specifies the file name for the encoding converter from/to
locale encodings and UTF-8 which is used with the -lc option or
locale resource. The help message shown by ‘‘xterm -help’’
lists the default value, which depends on your system configu-
ration.
loginShell (class LoginShell)
Specifies whether or not the shell to be run in the window
should be started as a login shell. The default is ‘‘false.’’
marginBell (class MarginBell)
Specifies whether or not the bell should be rung when the user
types near the right margin. The default is ‘‘false.’’
metaSendsEscape (class MetaSendsEscape)
If ‘‘true’’, Meta characters (a character combined with the
Meta modifier key) are converted into a two-character sequence
with the character itself preceded by ESC. This applies as
well to function key control sequences, unless xterm sees that
Meta is used in your key translations. If ‘‘false’’, Meta
characters input from the keyboard are handled according to the
eightBitInput resource. The default is ‘‘false.’’
mkWidth (class MkWidth)
Specifies whether xterm should use a built-in version of the
wide character width calculation. The default is ‘‘false.’’
modifyCursorKeys (class ModifyCursorKeys)
Tells how to handle the special case where Control-, Shift-,
Alt- or Meta-modifiers are used to add a parameter to the
escape sequence returned by a cursor-key. Set it to 0 to use
the old/obsolete behavior. Set it to 1 to prefix modified
sequences with CSI. Set it to 2 to force the modifier to be
the second parameter. Set it to 3 to mark the sequence with a
’>’ to hint that it is private. The default is ‘‘2’’.
multiClickTime (class MultiClickTime)
Specifies the maximum time in milliseconds between multi-click
select events. The default is 250 milliseconds.
multiScroll (class MultiScroll)
Specifies whether or not scrolling should be done asyn-
chronously. The default is ‘‘false.’’
nMarginBell (class Column)
Specifies the number of characters from the right margin at
which the margin bell should be rung, when enabled.
numLock (class NumLock)
If ‘‘true’’, xterm checks if NumLock is used as a modifier (see
xmodmap(1)). If so, this modifier is used to simplify the
logic when implementing special NumLock for the sunKeyboard
resource. Also (when sunKeyboard is false), similar logic is
used to find the modifier associated with the left and right
Alt keys. The default is ‘‘true.’’
oldXtermFKeys (class OldXtermFKeys)
If ‘‘true’’, xterm will use old-style control sequences for
function keys F1 to F4, for compatibility with X Consortium
xterm. Otherwise, it uses the VT100-style codes for PF1 to
PF4. The default is ‘‘false.’’
pointerColor (class PointerColor)
Specifies the foreground color of the pointer. The default is
‘‘XtDefaultForeground.’’
pointerColorBackground (class PointerColorBackground)
Specifies the background color of the pointer. The default is
‘‘XtDefaultBackground.’’
pointerShape (class Cursor)
Specifies the name of the shape of the pointer. The default is
‘‘xterm.’’
popOnBell (class PopOnBell)
Specifies whether the window whould be raised when Control-G is
received. The default is ‘‘false.’’
printAttributes (class PrintAttributes)
Specifies whether to print graphic attributes along with the
text. A real DEC VTxxx terminal will print the underline,
highlighting codes but your printer may not handle these. A
‘‘0’’ disables the attributes. A ‘‘1’’ prints the normal set
of attributes (bold, underline, inverse and blink) as
VT100-style control sequences. A ‘‘2’’ prints ANSI color
attributes as well. The default is ‘‘1.’’
printerAutoClose (class PrinterAutoClose)
If ‘‘true’’, xterm will close the printer (a pipe) when the
application switches the printer offline with a Media Copy com-
mand. The default is ‘‘false.’’
printerCommand (class PrinterCommand)
Specifies a shell command to which xterm will open a pipe when
the first MC (Media Copy) command is initiated. The default is
a blank string. If the resource value is given as a blank
string, the printer is disabled.
printerControlMode (class PrinterControlMode)
Specifies the printer control mode. A ‘‘1’’ selects autoprint
mode, which causes xterm to print a line from the screen when
you move the cursor off that line with a line feed, form feed
or vertical tab character, or an autowrap occurs. Autoprint
mode is overridden by printer controller mode (a ‘‘2’’), which
causes all of the output to be directed to the printer. The
default is ‘‘0.’’
printerExtent (class PrinterExtent)
Controls whether a print page function will print the entire
page (true), or only the the portion within the scrolling mar-
gins (false). The default is ‘‘false.’’
printerFormFeed (class PrinterFormFeed)
Controls whether a form feed is sent to the printer at the end
of a print page function. The default is ‘‘false.’’
renderFont (class RenderFont)
If xterm is built with the Xft library, this controls whether
the faceName resource is used. The default is ‘‘true.’’
resizeGravity (class ResizeGravity)
Affects the behavior when the window is resized to be taller or
shorter. NorthWest specifies that the top line of text on the
screen stay fixed. If the window is made shorter, lines are
dropped from the bottom; if the window is made taller, blank
lines are added at the bottom. This is compatible with the
behavior in R4. SouthWest (the default) specifies that the
bottom line of text on the screen stay fixed. If the window is
made taller, additional saved lines will be scrolled down onto
the screen; if the window is made shorter, lines will be
scrolled off the top of the screen, and the top saved lines
will be dropped.
reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo)
Specifies whether or not reverse video should be simulated.
The default is ‘‘false.’’
reverseWrap (class ReverseWrap)
Specifies whether or not reverse-wraparound should be enabled.
This corresponds to xterm’s private mode 45. The default is
‘‘false.’’
rightScrollBar (class RightScrollBar)
Specifies whether or not the scrollbar should be displayed on
the right rather than the left. The default is ‘‘false.’’
saveLines (class SaveLines)
Specifies the number of lines to save beyond the top of the
screen when a scrollbar is turned on. The default is 64.
scrollBar (class ScrollBar)
Specifies whether or not the scrollbar should be displayed.
The default is ‘‘false.’’
scrollBarBorder (class ScrollBarBorder)
Specifies the width of the scrollbar border. Note that this is
drawn to overlap the border of the xterm window. Modifying the
scrollbar’s border affects only the line between the VT100 wid-
get and the scrollbar. The default value is 1.
scrollKey (class ScrollCond)
Specifies whether or not pressing a key should automatically
cause the scrollbar to go to the bottom of the scrolling
region. This corresponds to xterm’s private mode 1011. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
scrollLines (class ScrollLines)
Specifies the number of lines that the scroll-back and scroll-
forw actions should use as a default. The default value is 1.
scrollTtyOutput (class ScrollCond)
Specifies whether or not output to the terminal should automat-
ically cause the scrollbar to go to the bottom of the scrolling
region. The default is ‘‘true.’’
shiftFonts (class ShiftFonts)
Specifies whether to enable the actions larger-vt-font() and
smaller-vt-font(), which are normally bound to the shifted
KP_Add and KP_Subtract. The default is ‘‘true.’’
showBlinkAsBold (class ShowBlinkAsBold)
Tells xterm whether to display text with blink-attribute the
same as bold. If xterm has not been configured to support
blinking text, the default is ‘‘true.’’, which corresponds to
older versions of xterm, otherwise the default is ‘‘false.’’
showMissingGlyphs (class ShowMissingGlyphs)
Tells xterm whether to display a box outlining places where a
character has been used that the font does not represent. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
signalInhibit (class SignalInhibit)
Specifies whether or not the entries in the ‘‘Main Options’’
menu for sending signals to xterm should be disallowed. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
tekGeometry (class Geometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the Tektronix win-
dow. There is no default for this resource.
tekInhibit (class TekInhibit)
Specifies whether or not the escape sequence to enter Tektronix
mode should be ignored. The default is ‘‘false.’’
tekSmall (class TekSmall)
Specifies whether or not the Tektronix mode window should start
in its smallest size if no explicit geometry is given. This is
useful when running xterm on displays with small screens. The
default is ‘‘false.’’
tekStartup (class TekStartup)
Specifies whether or not xterm should start up in Tektronix
mode. The default is ‘‘false.’’
tiXtraScroll (class TiXtraScroll)
Specifies whether xterm should scroll to a new page when pro-
cessing the ti termcap entry, i.e., the private modes 47, 1047
or 1049. This is only in effect if titeInhibit is ‘‘true’’,
because the intent of this option is to provide a picture of
the full-screen application’s display on the scrollback without
wiping out the text that would be shown before the application
was initialized. The default for this resource is ‘‘false.’’
titeInhibit (class TiteInhibit)
Specifies whether or not xterm should remove ti and te termcap
entries (used to switch between alternate screens on startup of
many screen-oriented programs) from the TERMCAP string. If
set, xterm also ignores the escape sequence to switch to the
alternate screen. Xterm supports terminfo in a different way,
supporting composite control sequences (also known as private
modes) 1047, 1048 and 1049 which have the same effect as the
original 47 control sequence. The default for this resource is
‘‘false.’’
translations (class Translations)
Specifies the key and button bindings for menus, selections,
‘‘programmed strings,’’ etc. The translations resource, which
provides much of xterm’s configurability, is a feature of the X
Toolkit Intrinsics library (Xt). See the ACTIONS section.
trimSelection (class TrimSelection)
If you set highlightSelection, you can see the text which is
selected, including any trailing spaces. Clearing the screen
(or a line) resets it to a state containing no spaces. Some
lines may contain trailing spaces when an application writes
them to the screen. However, you may not wish to paste lines
with trailing spaces. If this resource is true, xterm will
trim trailing spaces from text which is selected. It does not
affect spaces which result in a wrapped line, nor will it trim
the trailing newline from your selection. The default is
‘‘false.’’
underLine (class UnderLine)
This specifies whether or not text with the underline attribute
should be underlined. It may be desirable to disable underlin-
ing when color is being used for the underline attribute. The
default is ‘‘true.’’
utf8 (class Utf8)
This specifies whether xterm will run in UTF-8 mode. If you
set this resource, xterm also sets the wideChars resource as a
side-effect. The resource is an integer, expected to range
from 0 to 3:
0 UTF-8 mode is initially off. The command-line option
+u8 sets the resource to this value. Escape sequences
for turning UTF-8 mode on/off are allowed.
1 UTF-8 mode is initially on. Escape sequences for turn-
ing UTF-8 mode on/off are allowed.
2 The command-line option -u8 sets the resource to this
value. Escape sequences for turning UTF-8 mode on/off
are ignored.
3 This is the default value of the resource. It is
changed during initialization depending on whether the
locale resource was set, to 0 or 2. See the locale
resource for additional discussion of non-UTF-8 locales.
If you want to set the value of utf8, it should be in this
range. Other nonzero values are treated the same as ‘‘1’’,
i.e., UTF-8 mode is initially on, and escape sequences for
turning UTF-8 mode on/off are allowed.
utf8Fonts (class Utf8Fonts)
See the discussion of the locale resource.
veryBoldColors (class VeryBoldColors)
Specifies whether to combine video attributes with colors spec-
ified by colorBD, colorBL, colorRV and colorUL. The resource
value is the sum of values for each attribute:
1 for reverse,
2 for underline,
4 for bold and
8 for blink.
The default is ‘‘0.’’
visualBell (class VisualBell)
Specifies whether or not a visible bell (i.e., flashing) should
be used instead of an audible bell when Control-G is received.
The default is ‘‘false.’’
visualBellDelay (class VisualBellDelay)
Number of milliseconds to delay when displaying a visual bell.
Default is 100. If set to zero, no visual bell is displayed.
This is useful for very slow displays, e.g., an LCD display on
a laptop.
vt100Graphics (class VT100Graphics)
This specifies whether xterm will interpret VT100 graphic char-
acter escape sequences while in UTF-8 mode. The default is
‘‘true’’, to provide support for various legacy applications.
wideBoldFont (class WideBoldFont)
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying bold
wide text. By default, it will attempt to use a font twice as
wide as the font that will be used to draw bold text. If no
doublewidth font is found, it will improvise, by stretching the
bold font.
wideChars (class WideChars)
Specifies if xterm should respond to control sequences that
process 16-bit characters. The default is ‘‘false.’’
wideFont (class WideFont)
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying wide
text. By default, it will attempt to use a font twice as wide
as the font that will be used to draw normal text. If no dou-
blewidth font is found, it will improvise, by stretching the
normal font.
ximFont (class XimFont)
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying the
preedit string in the "OverTheSpot" input method.
In "OverTheSpot" preedit type, the preedit (preconversion)
string is displayed at the position of the cursor. It is the
XIM server’s responsibility to display the preedit string. The
XIM client must inform the XIM server of the cursor position.
For best results, the preedit string must be displayed with a
proper font. Therefore, xterm informs the XIM server of the
proper font. The font is be supplied by a "fontset", whose
default value is "*". This matches every font, the X library
automatically chooses fonts with proper charsets. The ximFont
resource is provided to override this default font setting.
The following resources are specified as part of the tek4014 widget
(class Tek4014). These are specified by patterns such as
"XTerm.tek4014.NAME":
font2 (class Font)
Specifies font number 2 to use in the Tektronix window.
font3 (class Font)
Specifies font number 3 to use in the Tektronix window.
fontLarge (class Font)
Specifies the large font to use in the Tektronix window.
fontSmall (class Font)
Specifies the small font to use in the Tektronix window.
ginTerminator (class GinTerminator)
Specifies what character(s) should follow a GIN report or sta-
tus report. The possibilities are ‘‘none,’’ which sends no
terminating characters, ‘‘CRonly,’’ which sends CR, and
‘‘CR&EOT,’’ which sends both CR and EOT. The default is
‘‘none.’’
height (class Height)
Specifies the height of the Tektronix window in pixels.
initialFont (class InitialFont)
Specifies which of the four Tektronix fonts to use initially.
Values are the same as for the set-tek-text action. The
default is ‘‘large.’’
width (class Width)
Specifies the width of the Tektronix window in pixels.
The resources that may be specified for the various menus are described
in the documentation for the Athena SimpleMenu widget. The name and
classes of the entries in each of the menus are listed below.
Resources named "lineN" where N is a number are separators with class
SmeLine.
The mainMenu has the following entries:
toolbar (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-toolbar(toggle) action.
securekbd (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the secure() action.
allowsends (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the allow-send-events(toggle) action.
redraw (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the redraw() action.
logging (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the logging(toggle) action.
print (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the print() action.
print-redir (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the print-redir() action.
8-bit-control (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-8-bit-control(toggle) action.
backarrow key (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-backarrow(toggle) action.
num-lock (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-num-lock(toggle) action.
alt-esc (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the alt-sends-escape(toggle) action.
meta-esc (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the meta-sends-escape(toggle) action.
delete-is-del (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the delete-is-del(toggle) action.
oldFunctionKeys (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the old-function-keys(toggle) action.
hpFunctionKeys (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the hp-function-keys(toggle) action.
scoFunctionKeys (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the sco-function-keys(toggle) action.
sunFunctionKeys (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the sun-function-keys(toggle) action.
sunKeyboard (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the sunKeyboard(toggle) action.
suspend (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(tstp) action on systems that
support job control.
continue (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(cont) action on systems that
support job control.
interrupt (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(int) action.
hangup (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(hup) action.
terminate (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(term) action.
kill (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the send-signal(kill) action.
quit (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the quit() action.
The vtMenu has the following entries:
scrollbar (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-scrollbar(toggle) action.
jumpscroll (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-jumpscroll(toggle) action.
reversevideo (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-reverse-video(toggle) action.
autowrap (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-autowrap(toggle) action.
reversewrap (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-reversewrap(toggle) action.
autolinefeed (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-autolinefeed(toggle) action.
appcursor (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-appcursor(toggle) action.
appkeypad (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-appkeypad(toggle) action.
scrollkey (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-scroll-on-key(toggle) action.
scrollttyoutput (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-scroll-on-tty-output(toggle) action.
allow132 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-allow132(toggle) action.
cursesemul (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-cursesemul(toggle) action.
visualbell (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-visualbell(toggle) action.
poponbell (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-poponbell(toggle) action.
marginbell (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-marginbell(toggle) action.
cursorblink (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-cursorblink(toggle) action.
titeInhibit (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-titeInhibit(toggle) action.
activeicon (class SmeBSB)
This entry toggles active icons on and off if this feature was
compiled into xterm. It is enabled only if xterm was started
with the command line option +ai or the activeIcon resource is
set to ‘‘True.’’
softreset (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the soft-reset() action.
hardreset (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the hard-reset() action.
clearsavedlines (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the clear-saved-lines() action.
tekshow (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-visibility(tek,toggle) action.
tekmode (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-terminal-type(tek) action.
vthide (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-visibility(vt,off) action.
altscreen (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-altscreen(toggle) action.
The fontMenu has the following entries:
fontdefault (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(d) action.
font1 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(1) action.
font2 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(2) action.
font3 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(3) action.
font4 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(4) action.
font5 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(5) action.
font6 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(6) action.
fontescape (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(e) action.
fontsel (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-vt-font(s) action.
font-linedrawing (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-font-linedrawing(s) action.
font-doublesize (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-font-doublesize(s) action.
render-font (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-render-font(s) action.
utf8-mode (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-utf8-mode(s) action.
The tekMenu has the following entries:
tektextlarge (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-tek-text(l) action.
tektext2 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-tek-text(2) action.
tektext3 (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-tek-text(3) action.
tektextsmall (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-tek-text(s) action.
tekpage (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the tek-page() action.
tekreset (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the tek-reset() action.
tekcopy (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the tek-copy() action.
vtshow (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-visibility(vt,toggle) action.
vtmode (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-terminal-type(vt) action.
tekhide (class SmeBSB)
This entry invokes the set-visibility(tek,toggle) action.
The following resources are useful when specified for the Athena
Scrollbar widget:
thickness (class Thickness)
Specifies the width in pixels of the scrollbar.
background (class Background)
Specifies the color to use for the background of the scrollbar.
foreground (class Foreground)
Specifies the color to use for the foreground of the scrollbar.
The ‘‘thumb’’ of the scrollbar is a simple checkerboard pattern
alternating pixels for foreground and background color.
POINTER USAGE
Once the VT102 window is created, xterm allows you to select text and
copy it within the same or other windows.
The selection functions are invoked when the pointer buttons are used
with no modifiers, and when they are used with the ‘‘shift’’ key. The
assignment of the functions described below to keys and buttons may be
changed through the resource database; see ACTIONS below.
Pointer button one (usually left) is used to save text into the cut
buffer. Move the cursor to beginning of the text, and then hold the
button down while moving the cursor to the end of the region and
releasing the button. The selected text is highlighted and is saved in
the global cut buffer and made the PRIMARY selection when the button is
released. Double-clicking selects by words. Triple-clicking selects
by lines. Quadruple-clicking goes back to characters, etc. Multiple-
click is determined by the time from button up to button down, so you
can change the selection unit in the middle of a selection. Logical
words and lines selected by double- or triple-clicking may wrap across
more than one screen line if lines were wrapped by xterm itself rather
than by the application running in the window. If the key/button bind-
ings specify that an X selection is to be made, xterm will leave the
selected text highlighted for as long as it is the selection owner.
Pointer button two (usually middle) ‘types’ (pastes) the text from the
PRIMARY selection, if any, otherwise from the cut buffer, inserting it
as keyboard input.
Pointer button three (usually right) extends the current selection.
(Without loss of generality, you can swap ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘left’’ every-
where in the rest of this paragraph.) If pressed while closer to the
right edge of the selection than the left, it extends/contracts the
right edge of the selection. If you contract the selection past the
left edge of the selection, xterm assumes you really meant the left
edge, restores the original selection, then extends/contracts the left
edge of the selection. Extension starts in the selection unit mode
that the last selection or extension was performed in; you can multi-
ple-click to cycle through them.
By cutting and pasting pieces of text without trailing new lines, you
can take text from several places in different windows and form a com-
mand to the shell, for example, or take output from a program and
insert it into your favorite editor. Since cut buffers are globally
shared among different applications, you may regard each as a ‘file’
whose contents you know. The terminal emulator and other text programs
should be treating it as if it were a text file, i.e., the text is
delimited by new lines.
The scroll region displays the position and amount of text currently
showing in the window (highlighted) relative to the amount of text
actually saved. As more text is saved (up to the maximum), the size of
the highlighted area decreases.
Clicking button one with the pointer in the scroll region moves the
adjacent line to the top of the display window.
Clicking button three moves the top line of the display window down to
the pointer position.
Clicking button two moves the display to a position in the saved text
that corresponds to the pointer’s position in the scrollbar.
Unlike the VT102 window, the Tektronix window does not allow the copy-
ing of text. It does allow Tektronix GIN mode, and in this mode the
cursor will change from an arrow to a cross. Pressing any key will
send that key and the current coordinate of the cross cursor. Pressing
button one, two, or three will return the letters ‘l’, ‘m’, and ‘r’,
respectively. If the ‘shift’ key is pressed when a pointer button is
pressed, the corresponding upper case letter is sent. To distinguish a
pointer button from a key, the high bit of the character is set (but
this is bit is normally stripped unless the terminal mode is RAW; see
tty(4) for details).
MENUS
Xterm has four menus, named mainMenu, vtMenu, fontMenu, and tekMenu.
Each menu pops up under the correct combinations of key and button
presses. Each menu is divided into sections, separated by a horizontal
line. Some menu entries correspond to modes that can be altered. A
check mark appears next to a mode that is currently active. Selecting
one of these modes toggles its state. Other menu entries are commands;
selecting one of these performs the indicated function.
All of the menu entries correspond to X actions. In the list below,
the menu label is shown followed by the action’s name in parenthesis.
The xterm mainMenu pops up when the ‘‘control’’ key and pointer button
one are pressed in a window. This menu contains items that apply to
both the VT102 and Tektronix windows. There are several sections:
Commands for managing X events:
Toolbar
Clicking on the "Toolbar" menu entry hides the toolbar if
it is visible, and shows it if it is not.
Secure Keyboard (securekbd)
The Secure Keyboard mode is helpful when typing in pass-
words or other sensitive data in an unsecure environment;
see SECURITY below (but read the limitations carefully).
Allow SendEvents (allowsends )
Specifies whether or not synthetic key and button events
generated using the X protocol SendEvent request should
be interpreted or discarded. This corresponds to the
allowSendEvents resource.
Redraw Window (redraw)
Forces the X display to repaint; useful in some environ-
ments.
Commands for capturing output:
Log to File (logging)
Captures text sent to the screen in a logfile, as in the
-l logging option.
Print Window (print)
Sends the text of the current window to the program given
in the printerCommand resource.
Redirect to Printer (print-redir)
This sets the printerControlMode to 0 or 2. You can use
this to turn the printer on as if an application had sent
the appropriate control sequence. It is also useful for
switching the printer off if an application turns it on
without resetting the print control mode.
Modes for setting keyboard style:
8-Bit Controls (8-bit-control)
Enabled for VT220 emulation, this controls whether xterm
will send 8-bit control sequences rather than using 7-bit
(ASCII) controls, e.g., sending a byte in the range
128-159 rather than the escape character followed by a
second byte. Xterm always interprets both 8-bit and