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. $ echo $(tput smkx) >/dev/tty
  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 were done using punched cards, or hardcopy
  78. terminals (basically a typewritter machine connected with
  79. the computer using a serial port). Due to this, ascii defines
  80. DELETE as 7F, because in the puched cards, it means all the
  81. holes of the card punched, so it is a kind of 'phisical
  82. delete'. In the same way, BACKSPACE key was a non destructive
  83. back space, as in typewriter machines. So, if you wanted
  84. to delete a character, you had to BACKSPACE and then DELETE.
  85. Other use of BACKSPACE was accented characters, for example
  86. 'a BACKSPACE `'. The VT100 had no BACKSPACE key, it was
  87. generated using the CONTROL key as another control character
  88. (CONTROL key sets to 0 b7 b6 b5, so it converts H (code
  89. 0x48) into BACKSPACE (code 0x08)), but it had a DELETE key
  90. in a similar position where BACKSPACE key is located today
  91. in common PC keyboards. All the terminal emulators emulated
  92. correctly the difference between these keys, and backspace
  93. key generated a BACKSPACE (^H) and delete key generated a
  94. DELETE (^?).
  95. But the problem arised when Linus Torvald wrote Linux, and
  96. he did that the virtual terminal (the terminal emulator
  97. integrated in the kernel) returns a DELETE when backspace
  98. was pressed, due to the fact of the key in that position
  99. in VT100 was a delete key. This created a lot of problems
  100. (you can see it in [1] and [2]), and how Linux became the
  101. king, a lot of terminal emulators today generate a DELETE
  102. when backspace key is pressed in order to avoid problems
  103. with linux. It causes that the only way of generating a
  104. BACKSPACE in these systems is using CONTROL + H. I also
  105. think that emacs had an important point here because CONTROL
  106. + H prefix is used in emacs in some commands (help commands).
  107. From point of view of the kernel, you can change the key
  108. for deleting a previous character with stty erase. When you
  109. connect a real terminal into a machine you describe the
  110. type of terminal, so getty configure the correct value of
  111. stty erase for this terminal, but in the case of terminal
  112. emulators you don't have any getty that can set the correct
  113. value of stty erase, so you always get the default value.
  114. So it means that in case of changing the value of the
  115. backspace keyboard, you have to add a 'stty erase ^H' into
  116. your profile. Of course, other solution can be that st
  117. itself modify the value of stty erase. I have usually the
  118. inverse problem, when I connect with non Unix machines, and
  119. I have to press control + h to get a BACKSPACE, or the
  120. inverse, when a user connects to my unix machines from a
  121. different system with a correct backspace key.
  122. [1] http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html
  123. [2] http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-5.html