XTERM(1) XWIN 4 XTERM(1)
NAME
xterm - terminal emulator for X
SYNOPSIS
xterm [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...]
DESCRIPTION
xterm is a terminal emulator designed specifically for use in the OPEN
LOOK Interface or the XWIN Graphical Window System. It emulates the AT&T
6386 WGS system console. xterm also supports most of the DEC VT102 escape
sequences. The escape sequence ESC7 is part of xterm Tektronix mode
emulation to allow applications to programmatically switch from Tektronix
emulation to VT102 emulation. When running on a color console, xterm
honors the ANSI standard color escape sequences. Thus, curses-based
color applications can run under xterm.
Each invocation of xterm produces a separate X window, in which terminal
emulation is performed. This emulation allows non-X applications to be
run from within the X environment.
Although more than one X window may be displayed concurrently, only one X
window may accept keyboard input at a time. The window which is
currently accepting keyboard input is known as the "active" window. The
active window is selected by using the SELECT pointer button.
You can use mouseless operations to access the xterm menu and to operate
the scrollbar. You can also use mnemonics for all xterm menu options.
However, mouseless operations will not work for text selection.
OPTIONS
xterm accepts all of the following options:
-b positive integer
This option specifies the size of the inner border (the distance
between the outer edge of the characters and the window border)
in pixels. It can range between 3 and 40. The default is 3.
-cr color
This option specifies the color to use for text cursor. The
default is black.
-C This option allows console logging for SVR4.
-e program [arguments ...]
This option specifies the program (and its command line
arguments) to be run in the xterm window. The default is to
start the user's shell. This must be the last option on the
command line.
-fb font
This option specifies a font to be used when displaying bold
text. There is no default.
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It is the user's responsibility to select a bold font with the
same height and width as the normal font. If only one of the
normal or bold fonts is specified, it will be used as the normal
font and the bold font will be produced by overstriking this
font.
-j This option indicates that xterm should use jump scrolling. The
default is jump scrolling is used.
+j This option indicates that xterm should not use jump scrolling.
-l This option indicates that xterm should send all terminal output
to a log file as well as to the screen. This option can be
enabled or disabled using the Xterm property window. The default
is no logging.
+l This option indicates that xterm should not do logging.
-lf filename
This option specifies the name of the file to which the output
log described above is written. If file begins with a pipe
symbol (| ), the rest of the string is assumed to be a command to
be used as the endpoint of a pipe. The default filename is
"XtermLog.XXXXX" (where XXXXX is the process id of the parent
xterm process) and is created in the directory from which xterm
was started (or the user's home directory in the case of a login
window). Note that logging can be done in only one window at a
time.
-ls This option indicates that the shell that is started in the xterm
window be a login shell, i.e. the first character of argv[0] will
be a dash, indicating to a shell that it should read the user's
.login or .profile.
-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 Xterm property window. The default is
off.
+mb This option indicates that margin bell should not be rung.
-ms color
This option specifies the color to be used for the mouse pointer.
The default is black.
-n string
This option specifies the icon name for xterm's windows. The
default icon name is xterm.
-nb positive integer
This option specifies the number of characters from the right end
of a line at which the margin bell, if enabled, will ring. The
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default is 10.
-r This option indicates that reverse video should be simulated by
swapping the foreground and background colors. It is equivalent
to -rv. The default is no reverse video.
-rs This option specifies that a user can resize an xterm window
while a curses-based application is running.
+rs This option does not allow the user to resize an xterm window
while a curses-based application is running.
-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 option
can be turned on and off from the Xterm property window. The
default is off. Note that wraparound must be enabled for reverse
wraparound to work.
+rw This option indicates that reverse-wraparound should not be
allowed.
-sb This option brings Xterm up with a scrollbar.
+sb This option brings Xterm up without a scrollbar. The default is
with scrollbar.
-sl positive integer
This option specifies the number of lines to save that have been
scrolled off the top of the screen. The default is 64. The
maximum allowed is 256.
-t This option brings up xterm in Tektronix mode.
-T string
This option specifies the title for xterm's windows. It is
equivalent to -title. The default name is xterm.
-vb This option indicates that a visual bell is preferred over an
audible one. Instead of ringing the terminal bell whenever a
<CNTRL>-G is received, the window will be flashed. The default
is audible.
+vb This option indicates that a visual bell should not be used.
The following command line arguments are provided for
compatibility reasons. They may not be supported in the next
release as the X Toolkit provides standard options that
accomplish the same task.
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-w positive integer
This option specifies the width in pixels of the border
surrounding the window. It is equivalent to -bw. It can range
between 1 and 40. The default width is one pixel.
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 positive integer
This option specifies the width in pixels of the border
surrounding the window. It is equivalent to -w. The default
width is one pixel.
-display display
This option specifies the X server to contact; the default is
unix:0 and specifies the console device. 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 font is "lucidatypewriter." An appropriate
size will be chosen at startup based on screen resolution, to
give a 12-point font. In all cases where there is no
corresponding bold font, the regular font is used in its place.
The fonts xterm supports are: fixed, 6x10, 8x13, 8x13bold; see
/usr/X/lib/fonts/misc on SVR3.2 or
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc on SVR4 for more fonts.
-geometry geometry
This option specifies the preferred size and position of the
xterm window in characters.
This argument is specified as -geometry WxH+X+Y, with W = width
in columnar characters and H = number of rows. X and Y are always
measured in pixels with the upper left corner X pixels to the
right and Y pixels below the upper left corner of the screen
(origin (0,0)).
The maximum H is 128 and maximum W is 200.
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Note that if the window is larger than the screen, xterm will
automatically reduce its size to the size of the screen. Also
note that olwm may modify geometry requests if the resulting
window is totally off-screen.
``WxH'' can be omitted to obtain the default application size, or
``+X+Y'' can be omitted to obtain the default application
position (which is usually then left up to the window manager or
user to choose). The X and Y values may be negative to position
the window off the screen. In addition, if minus signs are used
instead of plus signs (e.g. WxH-X-Y), then (X,Y) represents the
location of the lower right hand corner of the window relative to
the lower right hand corner of the screen.
-i 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 executable file name.
-rv This option indicates that reverse video will be affected by
swapping the foreground and background colors. The default is no
reverse video.
-xrm resourcestring
This option specifies a resource string to be used. This is
especially useful for setting resources that do not have separate
command line options.
X DEFAULTS
The program understands all of the core X Toolkit resource names and
classes as well as:
name (class Name)
Specifies the application name under which resources are to be
obtained, rather than the default executable file name.
title (class Title)
Specifies a string that will be displayed in the header of the
window, if the window manager is running.
The following resources are private to xterm.
allowSendEvents (class AllowSendEvents)
Specifies whether or not synthetic key and button events
(generated using the X protocol SendEvent request) should be
interpreted or discarded. The default is "false," meaning that
they are discarded. Note that allowing such events creates a very
large security gap.
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background (class TextBackground)
Specifies the color to use for the background of the window. The
default is "white." The background will be the same color as the
"Text Background" color specified on the Workspace Manager's
Color Property Sheet. If you do not specify the background in
the .Xdefaults file, different values for Background and Text
Background will cause the xterm menus and text windows to have
different background colors.
boldFont (class Font)
Specifies the name of the bold font. There is no default.
borderColor (class BorderColor)
Specifies the color of the border surrounding the xterm text
window. The default is "black."
console (class Console)
Allows the user to turn on the command line option (-C) for SVR4
systems only. When xterm is invoked with the -C option, xterm
displays all console messages written to the log driver.
Messages written directly to /dev/console will not be picked up.
cursesResize (class CursesResize)
When "true," specifies that a user may resize the xterm window
while a curses-based application is running. When "false,"
specifies that a user may not resize the xterm window while a
curses-based application is running. The default is "false."
font (class Font)
Specifies the name of the normal font. The default is
"lucidatypewriter." See -fn for other supported fonts and more
information.
fontColor (class TextFontColor)
This dynamic resource 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."
geometry (class Geometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the VT102 window.
iconName (classIconName)
Specifies the icon name for xterm window. See -n option.
inputFocusColor (class Foreground)
This dynamic resource specifies the color to use for the text
cursor. The default is "black."
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internalBorder (class BorderWidth)
Specifies the number of pixels between the characters and the
window border. The default is 3.
jumpScroll (classJumpScroll)
Specifies if jump scrolling should be used. The default is
"true."
logFile (class Logfile)
Specifies the name of the file to which a terminal session is
logged. The default is "XtermLog.XXXXX" (where XXXXX is the
process id of the parent xterm process).
logging (class Logging)
Specifies whether or not a terminal session should be logged.
The default is "false." Note that logging can be done in only
one window at a time.
logInhibit (class LogInhibit)
Specifies whether or not terminal session logging should be
inhibited. The default is "false."
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 run when the user
types near the right margin. The default is "false."
nMarginBell (class Column)
Specifies the number of characters from the right margin at which
the margin bell should be run, when enabled. The default is 10
characters from the end of the line.
pointerColor (class Foreground)
Specifies the color of the pointer. The default is "black."
reverseVideo (class ReverseVideo)
Specifies whether or not reverse video should be affected. The
default is "false."
reverseWrap (class ReverseWrap)
Specifies whether or not reverse-wraparound should be enabled.
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 maximum is less than
256. The default is 64.
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scrollBar (class ScrollBar)
Specifies whether or not the scrollbar should be displayed. The
default is "false."
signalInhibit (class SignalInhibit
Specifies whether or not the entries in the "xterm X11" menu for
sending signals to xterm should be disallowed. The default is
"false."
tekInhibit (class TekInhibit)
Specifies whether or not Tektronix mode should be disallowed. The
default is "false."
tekStartup (class TekStartup)
Specifies whether or not xterm should start up in Tektronix mode.
The default is "false."
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 "off."
TERMINAL EMULATION
xterm VT102 emulation is fairly complete but does not support the
blinking character attribute nor the double-wide and double-size
character sets.
SCROLLBAR
The scrollbar represents the position and amount of text currently
displayed in the window relative to the amount of text actually saved.
As more text is saved (up to the maximum), the elevator moves to the
bottom of the scrollbar.
Pressing the SELECT pointer button on the middle portion of the elevator
and moving the mouse cursor up or down results in scrolling up or down
through the scrolling region.
Clicking SELECT on the up or down arrow (at each end of the elevator)
moves the visible text region up or down one line.
Pressing SELECT on the up or down arrow scrolls the visible text region
one line at the time until the SELECT is released or the margin of the
text buffer is reached.
Clicking SELECT on the top or bottom box of the scrollbar moves the
visible region to the top or bottom of the text buffer.
Clicking SELECT in the scroll region above or below the elevator moves
the visible region one page up or down.
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MENUS
xterm has two menus which can be accessed by pressing or clicking the
MENU button while on the Xterm window pane. The Xterm menus contain
commands which perform individual xterm functions. Choosing a button to
select any of the entries on the menus activates the indicated functions.
Notable entries in the command sections of the menus are the Interrupt,
Hangup, Terminate and Kill , which send the SIGINT, SIGHUP, SIGTERM and
SIGKILL signals, respectively, to the process group of the process
running under xterm (usually the shell). The Properties entry on the
Xterm menu causes a property window to display. This property window
sets various modes in the xterm emulation, among them auto wraparound,
auto linefeed, and reverse wrap.
ENVIRONMENT
xterm sets the environment variable TERM properly for the type of display
you are using. TERM=xterm on color displays and TERM=xtermm on
monochrome displays. Modifying corresponding terminfo entries will
produce undesirable and irrevocable damage to the X operating environment
and require reinstallation of the X package. xterm also uses and sets the
environment variable DISPLAY to specify which bitmap display terminal to
use. The environment variable WINDOWID is set to the X window id number
of the xterm window. If you run applications which use TERMCAP, use
TERMCAP=`infocmp -C`; export TERMCAP whenever creating or resizing a
window.
NOTES
If a user invokes the UNIX System exec command from an xterm window, it
is the xterm process which will disappear. This is correct behavior but
most likely not desirable. See exec SH(1) for more detail.
Applications which close stdin, stdout, and/or stderr may produce
unpredictable results and should be avoided.
If the display is monochrome and options in an .Xdefaults file or on a
command line specify background and foreground colors that would produce
black on black or white on white, xterm provides a default of black on
white.
xterm responds dynamically to changes in text foreground, text
background, and input focus color; these values can be changed via the
OPEN LOOK Workspcae Manager.
If the stty settings you use are not those used by xterm, you may need to
import your "stty" environment to xterm; e.g. interrupt, erase, and kill
characters. However, caution should be used in the redefinition of these
values. xterm does not inherit stty settings set prior to starting
xterm.
You should not attempt to modify the terminfo entries xterm, xtermm. This
will preclude the mouse from working with FMLI and require reinstallation
of the AT&T XWIN Graphical Windowing System.
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On the AT&T Intel-386 based product line, CONSEM can be set for better
performance, but this will provide a lesser degree of console emulation
support for certain ioctls (i.e. CONSEM=yes; export CONSEM).
If you exec an application that creates its own window (such as MS-DOS)
and then try to change the input focus to the xterm window which exec-ed
the application, the next attempt to input to that window will cause the
xterm window and the exec-ed process to die. This is due to the nature of
exec (see exec(2)). The recommendation is not to exec programs like MS-
DOS.
xterm may hang if you try to paste too much text at one time. It is both
producer and consumer for the pty and can deadlock. Should xterm hang,
the <return><ctrl-Z><return> sequence will return the prompt.
Variable-width fonts are not handled reasonably.
<ctrl-BREAK> does not work in an xterm window.
The -w option is not available for this release. Instead, use the -bw
option for the same function.
<Ctrl-G> (bell), <Ctrl-L> (vertical tab), and <Ctrl-k> (form feed) are
not available for use on 3B2s running UNIX SVR4.0.
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