My build of suckless st terminal
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  1. ## Why does st not handle utmp entries?
  2. Use the excellent tool of [utmp](http://git.suckless.org/utmp/) for this task.
  3. ## Some _random program_ complains that st is unknown/not recognised/unsupported/whatever!
  4. It means that st doesn’t have any terminfo entry on your system. Chances are
  5. you did not `make install`. If you just want to test it without installing it,
  6. you can manualy run `tic -s st.info`.
  7. ## Nothing works, and nothing is said about an unknown terminal!
  8. * Some programs just assume they’re running in xterm i.e. they don’t rely on
  9. terminfo. What you see is the current state of the “xterm compliance”.
  10. * Some programs don’t complain about the lacking st description and default to
  11. another terminal. In that case see the question about terminfo.
  12. ## I get some weird glitches/visual bug on _random program_!
  13. Try launching it with a different TERM: $ TERM=xterm myapp. toe(1) will give
  14. you a list of available terminals, but you’ll most likely switch between xterm,
  15. st or st-256color. The default value for TERM can be changed in config.h
  16. (TNAME).
  17. ## How do I scroll back up?
  18. Using a terminal multiplexer.
  19. * `st -e tmux` using C-b [
  20. * `st -e screen` using C-a ESC
  21. ## Why doesn't the Del key work in some programs?
  22. Taken from the terminfo manpage:
  23. If the terminal has a keypad that transmits codes when the keys
  24. are pressed, this information can be given. Note that it is not
  25. possible to handle terminals where the keypad only works in
  26. local (this applies, for example, to the unshifted HP 2621 keys).
  27. If the keypad can be set to transmit or not transmit, give these
  28. codes as smkx and rmkx. Otherwise the keypad is assumed to
  29. always transmit.
  30. In the st case smkx=E[?1hE= and rmkx=E[?1lE>, so it is mandatory that
  31. applications which want to test against keypad keys send these
  32. sequences.
  33. But buggy applications (like bash and irssi, for example) don't do this. A fast
  34. solution for them is to use the following command:
  35. $ printf '\033[?1h\033=' >/dev/tty
  36. or
  37. $ tput smkx
  38. In the case of bash, readline is used. Readline has a different note in its
  39. manpage about this issue:
  40. enable-keypad (Off)
  41. When set to On, readline will try to enable the
  42. application keypad when it is called. Some systems
  43. need this to enable arrow keys.
  44. Adding this option to your .inputrc will fix the keypad problem for all
  45. applications using readline.
  46. If you are using zsh, then read the zsh FAQ
  47. <http://zsh.sourceforge.net/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l25>:
  48. It should be noted that the O / [ confusion can occur with other keys
  49. such as Home and End. Some systems let you query the key sequences
  50. sent by these keys from the system's terminal database, terminfo.
  51. Unfortunately, the key sequences given there typically apply to the
  52. mode that is not the one zsh uses by default (it's the "application"
  53. mode rather than the "raw" mode). Explaining the use of terminfo is
  54. outside of the scope of this FAQ, but if you wish to use the key
  55. sequences given there you can tell the line editor to turn on
  56. "application" mode when it starts and turn it off when it stops:
  57. function zle-line-init () { echoti smkx }
  58. function zle-line-finish () { echoti rmkx }
  59. zle -N zle-line-init
  60. zle -N zle-line-finish
  61. Putting these lines into your .zshrc will fix the problems.
  62. ## How can I use meta in 8bit mode?
  63. St supports meta in 8bit mode, but the default terminfo entry doesn't
  64. use this capability. If you want it, you have to use the 'st-meta' value
  65. in TERM.
  66. ## I cannot compile st in OpenBSD
  67. OpenBSD lacks of librt, despite it begin mandatory in POSIX
  68. <http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/c99.html#tag_20_11_13>.
  69. If you want to compile st for OpenBSD you have to remove -lrt from config.mk, and
  70. st will compile without any loss of functionality, because all the functions are
  71. included in libc on this platform.
  72. ## Backspace key does not work
  73. This is an issue that was discussed in suckless mailing list
  74. <http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1404/20697.html>:
  75. Well, I am going to comment why I want to change the behaviour
  76. of this key. When ASCII was defined in 1968, communication
  77. with computers was done using punched cards, or hardcopy
  78. terminals (basically a typewriter machine connected with the
  79. computer using a serial port). ASCII defines DELETE as 7F,
  80. because, in punched-card terms, it means all the holes of the
  81. card punched; it is thus a kind of 'physical delete'. In the
  82. same way, the BACKSPACE key was a non-destructive backspace,
  83. as on a typewriter. So, if you wanted to delete a character,
  84. you had to BACKSPACE and then DELETE. Another use of BACKSPACE
  85. was to type accented characters, for example 'a BACKSPACE `'.
  86. The VT100 had no BACKSPACE key; it was generated using the
  87. CONTROL key as another control character (CONTROL key sets to
  88. 0 b7 b6 b5, so it converts H (code 0x48) into BACKSPACE (code
  89. 0x08)), but it had a DELETE key in a similar position where
  90. the BACKSPACE key is located today on common PC keyboards.
  91. All the terminal emulators emulated the difference between
  92. these keys correctly: the backspace key generated a BACKSPACE
  93. (^H) and delete key generated a DELETE (^?).
  94. But a problem arose when Linus Torvalds wrote Linux. Unlike
  95. earlier terminals, the Linux virtual terminal (the terminal
  96. emulator integrated in the kernel) returned a DELETE when
  97. backspace was pressed, due to the VT100 having a DELETE key in
  98. the same position. This created a lot of problems (see [1]
  99. and [2]). Since Linux has become the king, a lot of terminal
  100. emulators today generate a DELETE when the backspace key is
  101. pressed in order to avoid problems with Linux. The result is
  102. that the only way of generating a BACKSPACE on these systems
  103. is by using CONTROL + H. (I also think that emacs had an
  104. important point here because the CONTROL + H prefix is used
  105. in emacs in some commands (help commands).)
  106. From point of view of the kernel, you can change the key
  107. for deleting a previous character with stty erase. When you
  108. connect a real terminal into a machine you describe the type
  109. of terminal, so getty configures the correct value of stty
  110. erase for this terminal. In the case of terminal emulators,
  111. however, you don't have any getty that can set the correct
  112. value of stty erase, so you always get the default value.
  113. For this reason, it is necessary to add 'stty erase ^H' to your
  114. profile if you have changed the value of the backspace key.
  115. Of course, another solution is for st itself to modify the
  116. value of stty erase. I usually have the inverse problem:
  117. when I connect to non-Unix machines, I have to press CONTROL +
  118. h to get a BACKSPACE. The inverse problem occurs when a user
  119. connects to my Unix machines from a different system with a
  120. correct backspace key.
  121. [1] http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html
  122. [2] http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-5.html
  123. ## But I really want a wrong backspace key and a wrong delete key
  124. If you really want emulate the errors of another terminal emulators
  125. and have a backspace key that generates a DELETE and a delete key
  126. that generates BACKSPACE, then you can apply the patch
  127. found in [1], but please do not tell me it.
  128. [1] http://st.suckless.org/patches/delkey