XVT(1)                                                                  XVT(1)



NAME
       xvt - VT100 emulator for the X window system

SYNOPSIS
       xvt [ options ]

DESCRIPTION
       Xvt  is  a VT100 terminal emulator for X.  It is intended as a replace-
       ment for xterm(1) for users who do not require the more  esoteric  fea-
       tures of xterm.  Specifically xvt does not implement the Tektronix 4014
       emulation, session logging and toolkit  style  configurability.   As  a
       result, xvt uses much less swap space than xterm - a significant advan-
       tage on a machine serving many X sessions.

OPTIONS
       The options supported by xvt (which, with the exception of -msg, are  a
       subset  of  those  supported  by xterm) are listed below.  Most command
       line arguments have X resource equivalents and these are listed in  the
       following table.

       -e command [ arguments ]
              Run  the command with its command line arguments in the xvt win-
              dow.  If this option is used, it must be the last on the command
              line.   If  there is no -e option then the default is to run the
              program specified by the SHELL environment variable or,  failing
              that,  sh(1).  This option also causes the window title and icon
              name to be set to the name of the program being executed if  the
              are not overwritten by a more specific option.

       -display display-name
              Attempt  to  open the xvt window on the named X display.  In the
              absence if this option, the display  specified  by  the  DISPLAY
              environment variable is used.

       -geometry window-geometry
              Create the window with the specified X window geometry.

       -background color
              Use the specified color as the window's background color.

       -bg color
              Same as -background.

       -foreground color
              Use the specified colour as the window's foreground color.

       -fg color
              Same as -foreground.

       -cr color
              Set the color used for the text cursor.

       -bw number
              Set  the window border width to number pixels.  Many window man-
              agers ignore existing window borders and construct their own and
              so,  if you are using such a window manager, this option will be
              ignored.

       -bd color
              Set the border color.  As with border width,  this  option  will
              usually  be  disregarded with respect to the window's outer bor-
              der.  It does, however, set the color of the line separating the
              scroll bar from the main part of the window.

       -font fontname
              Set the main text font used by xvt.

       -fn fontname
              Same as -font.

       -fb fontname
              Set  the  font used for the vt100 bold rendition style.  If this
              option is not set then xvt will render in bold  by  overprinting
              the normal font.

       -name name
              Set  the name that is used when looking up X resource values for
              this instance of xvt.  This option also sets the icon  name  and
              window title unless they are set explicitly.

       -title text
              Set the string that is displayed in the window's title bar if it
              has one.

       -T text
              Same as -title

       -n text
              Set the name that will be used to label  the  window's  icon  or
              displayed  in an icon manager window.  This option also sets the
              window's title unless it is set expicitely.

       -sl number
              Set an upper bound for the number of lines that  will  be  saved
              when they have scrolled off the top of the window.

       -sb    Start  up with the scrollbar visible.  The scrollbar can be dis-
              played or hidden at any time simply by holding down the  CONTROL
              key on the keyboard and pressing any mouse button.  The visibil-
              ity of the scrollbar does not determine whether scrolled text is
              saved  or  not - as with xterm, text scrolled off the top of the
              window is always saved up  to  the  current  maximum  number  of
              lines.

       -rw    Enable  reverse  wrapping  of  the  cursor so that, for example,
              lines typed to a shell that are longer than  the  width  of  the
              screen  can  be  edited.   This is the same as the xterm reverse
              wrap option.

       -cc string
              Input or modify the character classes that are used to determine
              what  is  a word when a double click is used to select a word of
              displayed text.  This is identical to the same option in xterm -
              see  the  xterm  manual  page for a description of the syntax of
              string.

       -iconic
              Start up with the window already iconized.

       -msg   Enable messages  to  the  terminal  window  from  programs  like
              write(1).  By default, xvt windows have messages disabled.  Exe-
              cuting an xvt with the -msg option has the same effect  as  run-
              ning it normally and then executing the command mesg y to enable
              messages.

       -8     Treat characters as having eight bits -  this  is  the  default.
              When  in  eight  bit mode, xvt displays eight bit characters and
              pressing a keyboard key with the Meta key  held  down  generates
              the character code with the MSB set.

       -7     Treat characters as having seven bits.  In this mode, each char-
              acter is stripped to seven  bits  before  it  is  displayed  and
              pressing  a  keybaord key with the Meta key held down causes the
              normal character to be preceded by the Escape character.

       -ls    Run a login shell.  This option causes xvt to execute its  shell
              with  a  name  beginning  with  `-'.  In the case of csh(1) this
              results in the .login and .logout files being interpreted at the
              start and end of the session.

       -sf    Enable  Sun  function key escape codes.  The default is standard
              xterm compatible function codes.

       -rv    Run in reverse video - that  is,  exchange  the  foreground  and
              background  colors.   This  option  has  no effect if either the
              foreground or background color is set explicitly.

       -C     Connect this terminal to the system  console.   This  option  is
              only  implemented  for  SunOS  4 and for a user who has read and
              write access to /dev/console.

       -console
              Same as -C.

X RESOURCES
       Almost all the command line options have X  resource  counterparts  and
       these  are  listed  in  the  following table.  Like xterm, xvt uses the
       class name XTerm and so resource options set for XTerm  will  work  for
       both xterm and xvt windows.


       center  tab(/) ; cb s s c c s c c c l l l .  Command line options and X
       resources _ /X resource Command line/Instance/Class  =  -background  or
       -bg/background/Background    -bd/borderColor/BorderColor    -bw/border-
       Width/BorderWidth -C or -console/-/-  -cc/charClass/CharClass  -cr/cur-
       sorColor/CursorColor -display/-/- -e/-/- -fb/boldFont/BoldFont -font or
       -fn/font/Font -foreground or -fg/foreground/Foreground -geometry/geome-
       try/Geometry  -iconic/iconic/Iconic -ls/loginShell/LoginShell -msg/mes-
       sages/Messages -n/iconName/IconName -name/-/- -rv/reverseVideo/Reverse-
       Video  -rw/reverseWrap/ReverseWrap -sb/scrollBar/ScrollBar -sf/sunFunc-
       tionKeys/SunFunctionKeys     -sl/saveLines/SaveLines     -title      or
       -T/title/Title -8 (on) and -7 (off)/eightBitInput/EightBitInput

NAMES TITLES AND ICON NAMES
       One  occasionally  confusing  aspect of xvt and other X applications is
       the collection of names that an application window  can  have  and  the
       relationship between the names and the command line options used to set
       them.  This section attempts to make the situation a bit clearer in the
       case of xvt.

       In  fact,  each terminal window has three names, its resource name, its
       title and its icon name.  These three names are distinct and have  dif-
       ferent  functions,  although  they  usually  have  the same value.  The
       resource name is the command name used to identify X  resource  options
       in  the  resources database, The title is the text that is displayed in
       the title bar, if there is one, and the icon  name  is  the  name  that
       appears  in the window's icon or represents it in the icon manager win-
       dow.

       The rule about which option sets which name is that -name  and  -e  set
       both the title and the icon name in addition to their main function and
       -n sets the title as well as the icon name.  Conflicts are resolved  by
       giving  the  options  priorities  which  are,  in increasing order, -e,
       -name, -n and -title.  Hence, for example, -e only sets  the  title  if
       none of the other options is used.

THE SCROLL BAR
       Lines of text that scroll off the top of the xvt window are saved auto-
       matically (up to  a  preset  maximum  number)  and  can  be  viewed  by
       scrolling  them back into the window with the scrollbar.  The scrollbar
       itself can be displayed or hidden by clicking any mouse button  in  the
       window  while holding down the CONTROL key on the keyboard.  When using
       the scrollbar, the left and right mouse buttons are used for  scrolling
       by  a  few lines at a time and the middle button is used for continuous
       scrolling.  To use the middle button, press it in the  scroll  bar  and
       hold  it  down.   the  central  shaded  part of the scrollbar will then
       attach itself to the cursor and can be slid up or down to show  differ-
       ent parts of the sequence of saved lines.  When scrolling with the left
       and right buttons, the left button is used to scroll up and  the  right
       is  used  to scroll down.  Assuming that there are enough hidden lines,
       the distance scrolled with either button is  equal  to  the  number  of
       lines  between  the  cursor and the top of the window.  Hence, pressing
       the left cursor opposite a line of text will result in that line  being
       moved  to  be  the top of the window and pressing the right button will
       cause the top line to be moved down so that it is opposite the  cursor.

TEXT SELECTION AND INSERTION
       Xvt  uses  the  same  kind of text selection and insertion mechanism as
       xterm.  Pressing and releasing the middle mouse button in an xvt window
       causes  the  current  text  selection  to be inserted as if it had been
       typed on the keyboard.  For the insertion to take place, both the  but-
       ton press and the button release need to be done with the cursor in the
       xvt window.

       The left and right mouse buttons are used to select text, with the left
       button  being used to start a selection and the right button being used
       to modify an existing selection.  Any  continuous  block  of  displayed
       text  can  be  selected.  If both ends of the text block are visible in
       the window then the easiest way to select it is to position the  cursor
       at one end and press the left mouse button, then drag the cursor to the
       other end with the button held down before releasing  the  button.   If
       the  block  is  larger than the window then you must first use the left
       mouse button to select one end, then use the scroll bar to  scroll  the
       other  end  into  view and finally use the right mouse button to extend
       the selection.  The effect of pressing the right  mouse  button  is  to
       move  the  nearest  end  of the current selection to the current cursor
       position.

       The other way to make selections in xvt is to  use  double  and  triple
       clicks  of  the  left mouse button with a double click selecting a word
       and a triple click selecting a whole line.  For this purpose, a word is
       a  sequence  of  characters  in  the same class.  The default character
       classes are:

       +  the upper and lower case letters, digits and '_' (underscore) all in
          one class;

       +  the white space characters all in one class;

       +  each of the remaining punctuation characters in a class by itself.

       If  you  want to change the character classes so that, for example, you
       can select a UNIX pathname or a mail address in one double click,  then
       you  can  do so by using the -cc command line option or the charClass X
       resource.  Multiple clicking can be combined with dragging to select  a
       sequence of consecutive words or lines.

       Although  xvt  essentially mimics the behaviour of xterm in its support
       of text selection and insertion, there are a couple  of  minor  differ-
       ences:

       +  xvt  respects TAB characters in selected text and does not automati-
          cally convert them into spaces as does xterm;

       +  xvt will let you abort a text insertion if you realise you have made
          a mistake before releasing the middle mouse button.

BUGS
       Pasting very large quantities of text does not work.

AUTHOR
       John Bovey, University of Kent, 1992 and 1993.



3rd Berkeley Distribution      10 February 1992                         XVT(1)
