ITP: rxvt-unicode-X

Charles Wilson cygwin@cwilson.fastmail.fm
Tue Mar 21 06:28:00 GMT 2006


Okay, so it doesn't actually support unicode on cygwin.  So why bother?

(1) bugfixes.  Upstream development of rxvt is dead.  cygwin's rxvt is 
moribund.  rxvt-unicode is actively maintained.

(2) Heck, eventually we might actually get unicode support assuming the 
proper stuff goes into newlib.  I dunno -- but I'm sure I'll be informed 
by cygwin's non-US userbase whenever it DOES become possible ...

(3) Pretty. xft support. Styled text[*].  Looks cool with inheritPixmap 
and xsri. (xft with antialias is a bit slower, but not too bad on a fast 
machine, and you can go back to non-antialias or plain old bitmap fonts 
if you're desperate).
[*] italic and boldItalic submodes don't seem to work yet.  But that's 
probably because I haven't researched the proper escape codes to 
actually *activate* I and BI.

(4) Lightweight.  Has an optional client-server mode where all client 
windows are part of the same process.  Yes, it does present a 
single-point-of-failure (but so does xwin!) -- but I haven't had a 
problem yet.

(5) no need for run.exe: the standalone urxvt-X and the server urxvtd-X 
will hide their console window themselves (using code borrowed from 
inetutils).  Actually, run.exe + urxvt + [-ls | loginShell=true | -e 
${SHELL} --login ] == 100% CPU for some reason, but ONLY that 
combination.  Any other combination is fine.

=====
AH! But your version is X-only.  What happened to my split-personality rxvt?

Well, IMO the split personality is a bad idea: the worst of both worlds. 
  rxvt is configured to support only the least common denominator 
options, those that BOTH modes can each support.  So, no xft support 
ever.  InheritPixmap is, err, at-your-own-risk.  Plus, the underlying 
W11 library is just as moribund as rxvt -- and the wrapper system means 
ALL library calls in EITHER mode must be handled by dlsym().

So, it's all part of my diabolical plan: to augment the dying rxvt with 
rxvt-unicode-X and rxvt*W, where at the X version is as featureful as 
possible, and the native version is at least as usable as the present 
rxvt(native).

I'm not there yet, and I'll need help to get there, but that's the plan, 
anyway.  The rxvt-unicode-common package provides stuff like man pages, 
terminfo and termcap entries (auto-added by postinstall if not present 
already), documentation, etc -- things that would be shared between 
rxvt-unicode-X and some future rxvt-unicode-W...

=====
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/ITP/rxvt-unicode-X-7.7-1-src.tar.bz2
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/ITP/rxvt-unicode-X-7.7-1.tar.bz2
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/ITP/rxvt-unicode-common-7.7-1.tar.bz2
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/ITP/rxvt-unicode-X.hint
http://cygutils.fruitbat.org/ITP/rxvt-unicode-common.hint

Fedora4, Mandriva2006, Debian

download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/4/i386/rxvt-unicode-7.5-1.fc4.i386.rpm
carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrakelinux/official/2006.0/i586/media/contrib/rxvt-unicode-5.6-1mdk.i586.rpm
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/rxvt-unicode
http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/rxvt-unicode

--
Chuck


---- rxvt-unicode-X.hint ----
sdesc: "An improved version of rxvt requiring an Xserver."
ldesc: "rxvt-unicode-X is an X-based version of rxvt-unicode, which is an
improved version of the venerable rxvt terminal emulator.  The upstream
codebase supports unicode as well as possessing numerous bugfixes
over the unmaintained rxvt code; however, on cygwin the unicode
support is non-functional."
category: Shells
requires: cygwin bash coreutils xorg-x11-bin-dlls libXft2 xorg-x11-xwin 
rxvt-unicode-common
-------------------------------

---- rxvt-unicode-common.hint ----
sdesc: "An improved version of rxvt requiring an Xserver."
ldesc: "rxvt-unicode-X is an X-based version of rxvt-unicode, which is an
improved version of the venerable rxvt terminal emulator.  The upstream
codebase supports unicode as well as possessing numerous bugfixes
over the unmaintained rxvt code; however, on cygwin the unicode
support is non-functional."
category: Shells
external-source: unicode-rxvt-X
requires: cygwin bash grep ncurses
----------------------------------



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