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X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) NAME X - a portable, network-transparent window system SYNOPSIS The X Window System is a network transparent window system developed at MIT which runs on a wide range of computing and graphics machines. It should be relatively straightforward to build the MIT software distribution on most ANSI C and POSIX compliant systems. Commercial implementations are also available for a wide range of platforms. The X Consortium requests that the following names be used when referring to this software: X X Window System X Version 11 X Window System, Version 11 X11 _X _W_i_n_d_o_w _S_y_s_t_e_m is a trademark of the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology. DESCRIPTION X Window System servers run on computers with bitmap displays. The server distributes user input to and accepts output requests from various client programs through a variety of different interprocess communication channels. Although the most common case is for the client programs to be running on the same machine as the server, clients can be run transparently from other machines (including machines with different architectures and operating systems) as well. X supports overlapping hierarchical subwindows and text and graphics operations, on both monochrome and color displays. For a full explanation of the functions that are available, see the _X_l_i_b - _C _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _X _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e manual, the _X _W_i_n_d_o_w _S_y_s_t_e_m _P_r_o_t_o_c_o_l specification, the _X _T_o_o_l_k_i_t _I_n_t_r_i_n_s_i_c_s - _C _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e manual, and various toolkit documents. The number of programs that use _X is quite large. Programs provided in the core MIT distribution include: a terminal emulator (_x_t_e_r_m), a window manager (_t_w_m), a display manager (_x_d_m), a console redirect program (_x_c_o_n_s_o_l_e), mail managing utilities (_x_m_h and _x_b_i_f_f), a manual page browser (_x_m_a_n), a bitmap editor (_b_i_t_m_a_p), a resource editor (_e_d_i_t_r_e_s), a ditr- off previewer (_x_d_i_t_v_i_e_w), access control programs (_x_a_u_t_h and _x_h_o_s_t), user preference setting programs (_x_r_d_b, _x_c_m_s_d_b, _x_s_e_t, _x_s_e_t_r_o_o_t, _x_s_t_d_c_m_a_p, and _x_m_o_d_m_a_p), a load monitor (_x_l_o_a_d), clocks (_x_c_l_o_c_k and _o_c_l_o_c_k), a font displayer (_x_f_d), utilities for listing information about fonts, windows, and displays (_x_l_s_f_o_n_t_s, _x_f_o_n_t_s_e_l, _x_w_i_n_i_n_f_o, _x_l_s_c_l_i_e_n_t_s, X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 1 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) _x_d_p_y_i_n_f_o, and _x_p_r_o_p), a diagnostic for seeing what events are generated and when (_x_e_v), screen image manipulation utilities (_x_w_d, _x_w_u_d, _x_p_r, and _x_m_a_g), and various demos (_x_e_y_e_s, _i_c_o, _x_g_c, _x_1_1_p_e_r_f, etc.). Many other utilities, window managers, games, toolkits, etc. are included as user-contributed software in the MIT distri- bution, or are available using anonymous ftp on the Inter- net. See your site administrator for details. STARTING UP There are two main ways of getting the X server and an ini- tial set of client applications started. The particular method used depends on what operating system you are running and on whether or not you use other window systems in addi- tion to X. _x_d_m (the X Display Manager) If you want to always have X running on your display, your site administrator can set your machine up to use the X Display Manager _x_d_m. This program is typically started by the system at boot time and takes care of keeping the server running and getting users logged in. If you are running _x_d_m, you will see a window on the screen welcoming you to the system and asking for your username and password. Simply type them in as you would at a normal terminal, pressing the Return key after each. If you make a mistake, _x_d_m will display an error message and ask you to try again. After you have successfully logged in, _x_d_m will start up your X environment. By default, if you have an executable file named ._x_s_e_s_s_i_o_n in your home directory, _x_d_m will treat it as a program (or shell script) to run to start up your initial clients (such as terminal emulators, clocks, a window manager, user settings for things like the background, the speed of the pointer, etc.). Your site administrator can provide details. _x_i_n_i_t (run manually from the shell) Sites that support more than one window system might choose to use the _x_i_n_i_t program for starting X manu- ally. If this is true for your machine, your site administrator will probably have provided a program named "x11", "startx", or "xstart" that will do site-specific initialization (such as loading con- venient default resources, running a window manager, displaying a clock, and starting several terminal emulators) in a nice way. If not, you can build such a script using the _x_i_n_i_t program. This utility simply runs one user-specified program to start the X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 2 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) server, runs another to start up any desired clients, and then waits for either to finish. Since either or both of the user-specified programs may be a shell script, this gives substantial flexibility at the expense of a nice interface. For this rea- son, _x_i_n_i_t is not intended for end users. DISPLAY NAMES From the user's prospective, every X server has a _d_i_s_p_l_a_y _n_a_m_e of the form: _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e:_d_i_s_p_l_a_y_n_u_m_b_e_r._s_c_r_e_e_n_n_u_m_b_e_r This information is used by the application to determine how it should connect to the server and which screen it should use by default (on displays with multiple monitors): _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e The _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e specifies the name of the machine to which the display is physically connected. If the hostname is not given, the most efficient way of communicating to a server on the same machine will be used. _d_i_s_p_l_a_y_n_u_m_b_e_r The phrase "display" is usually used to refer to collection of monitors that share a common keyboard and pointer (mouse, tablet, etc.). Most worksta- tions tend to only have one keyboard, and therefore, only one display. Larger, multi-user systems, how- ever, will frequently have several displays so that more than one person can be doing graphics work at once. To avoid confusion, each display on a machine is assigned a _d_i_s_p_l_a_y _n_u_m_b_e_r (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is started. The display number must always be given in a display name. _s_c_r_e_e_n_n_u_m_b_e_r Some displays share a single keyboard and pointer among two or more monitors. Since each monitor has its own set of windows, each screen is assigned a _s_c_r_e_e_n _n_u_m_b_e_r (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is started. If the screen number is not given, then screen 0 will be used. On POSIX systems, the default display name is stored in your DISPLAY environment variable. This variable is set automat- ically by the _x_t_e_r_m terminal emulator. However, when you log into another machine on a network, you'll need to set DISPLAY by hand to point to your display. For example, X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 3 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) % setenv DISPLAY myws:0 $ DISPLAY=myws:0; export DISPLAY The _x_o_n script can be used to start an X program on a remote machine; it automatically sets the DISPLAY variable correctly. Finally, most X programs accept a command line option of -display _d_i_s_p_l_a_y_n_a_m_e to temporarily override the contents of DISPLAY. This is most commonly used to pop windows on another person's screen or as part of a "remote shell" com- mand to start an xterm pointing back to your display. For example, % xeyes -display joesws:0 -geometry 1000x1000+0+0 % rsh big xterm -display myws:0 -ls </dev/null & X servers listen for connections on a variety of different communications channels (network byte streams, shared memory, etc.). Since there can be more than one way of con- tacting a given server, The _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e part of the display name is used to determine the type of channel (also called a transport layer) to be used. X servers generally support the following types of connections: _l_o_c_a_l The hostname part of the display name should be the empty string. For example: :_0, :_1, and :_0._1. The most efficient local transport will be chosen. _T_C_P/_I_P The hostname part of the display name should be the server machine's IP address name. Full Internet names, abbreviated names, and IP addresses are all allowed. For example: _e_x_p_o._l_c_s._m_i_t._e_d_u:_0, _e_x_p_o:_0, _1_8._3_0._0._2_1_2:_0, _b_i_g_m_a_c_h_i_n_e:_1, and _h_y_d_r_a:_0._1. _D_E_C_n_e_t The hostname part of the display name should be the server machine's nodename followed by two colons instead of one. For example: _m_y_w_s::_0, _b_i_g::_1, and _h_y_d_r_a::_0._1. ACCESS CONTROL An X server can use several types of access control. Mechanisms provided in Release 5 are: Host Access Simple host-based access control. MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 Shared plain-text "cookies". XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 Secure DES based private-keys. SUN-DES-1 Based on Sun's secure rpc system. _X_d_m initializes access control for the server, and also places authorization information in a file accessible to the X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 4 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) user. Normally, the list of hosts from which connections are always accepted should be empty, so that only clients with are explicitly authorized can connect to the display. When you add entries to the host list (with _x_h_o_s_t), the server no longer performs any authorization on connections from those machines. Be careful with this. The file from which _X_l_i_b extracts authorization data can be specified with the environment variable XAUTHORITY, and defaults to the file .Xauthority in the home directory. _X_d_m uses $HOME/.Xauthority and will create it or merge in authorization records if it already exists when a user logs in. If you use several machines, and share a common home direc- tory across all of the machines by means of a network file system, then you never really have to worry about authoriza- tion files, the system should work correctly by default. Otherwise, as the authorization files are machine- independent, you can simply copy the files to share them. To manage authorization files, use _x_a_u_t_h. This program allows you to extract records and insert them into other files. Using this, you can send authorization to remote machines when you login, if the remote machine does not share a common home directory with your local machine. Note that authorization information transmitted ``in the clear'' through a network file system or using _f_t_p or _r_c_p can be ``stolen'' by a network eavesdropper, and as such may enable unauthorized access. In many environments this level of security is not a concern, but if it is, you need to know the exact semantics of the particular authorization data to know if this is actually a problem. For more information on access control, see the _X_s_e_c_u_r_i_t_y manual page. GEOMETRY SPECIFICATIONS One of the advantages of using window systems instead of hardwired terminals is that applications don't have to be restricted to a particular size or location on the screen. Although the layout of windows on a display is controlled by the window manager that the user is running (described below), most X programs accept a command line argument of the form -geometry _W_I_D_T_H_x_H_E_I_G_H_T+_X_O_F_F+_Y_O_F_F (where _W_I_D_T_H, _H_E_I_G_H_T, _X_O_F_F, and _Y_O_F_F are numbers) for specifying a pre- ferred size and location for this application's main window. The _W_I_D_T_H and _H_E_I_G_H_T parts of the geometry specification are usually measured in either pixels or characters, depending on the application. The _X_O_F_F and _Y_O_F_F parts are measured in pixels and are used to specify the distance of the window from the left or right and top and bottom edges of the X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 5 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) screen, respectively. Both types of offsets are measured from the indicated edge of the screen to the corresponding edge of the window. The X offset may be specified in the following ways: +_X_O_F_F The left edge of the window is to be placed _X_O_F_F pixels in from the left edge of the screen (i.e. the X coordinate of the window's origin will be _X_O_F_F). _X_O_F_F may be negative, in which case the window's left edge will be off the screen. -_X_O_F_F The right edge of the window is to be placed _X_O_F_F pixels in from the right edge of the screen. _X_O_F_F may be negative, in which case the window's right edge will be off the screen. The Y offset has similar meanings: +_Y_O_F_F The top edge of the window is to be _Y_O_F_F pixels below the top edge of the screen (i.e. the Y coordi- nate of the window's origin will be _Y_O_F_F). _Y_O_F_F may be negative, in which case the window's top edge will be off the screen. -_Y_O_F_F The bottom edge of the window is to be _Y_O_F_F pixels above the bottom edge of the screen. _Y_O_F_F may be negative, in which case the window's bottom edge will be off the screen. Offsets must be given as pairs; in other words, in order to specify either _X_O_F_F or _Y_O_F_F both must be present. Windows can be placed in the four corners of the screen using the following specifications: +_0+_0 upper left hand corner. -_0+_0 upper right hand corner. -_0-_0 lower right hand corner. +_0-_0 lower left hand corner. In the following examples, a terminal emulator will be placed in roughly the center of the screen and a load aver- age monitor, mailbox, and clock will be placed in the upper right hand corner: xterm -fn 6x10 -geometry 80x24+30+200 & xclock -geometry 48x48-0+0 & xload -geometry 48x48-96+0 & xbiff -geometry 48x48-48+0 & X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 6 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) WINDOW MANAGERS The layout of windows on the screen is controlled by special programs called _w_i_n_d_o_w _m_a_n_a_g_e_r_s. Although many window managers will honor geometry specifications as given, others may choose to ignore them (requiring the user to explicitly draw the window's region on the screen with the pointer, for example). Since window managers are regular (albeit complex) client programs, a variety of different user interfaces can be built. The MIT distribution comes with a window manager named _t_w_m which supports overlapping windows, popup menus, point-and-click or click-to-type input models, title bars, nice icons (and an icon manager for those who don't like separate icon windows). See the user-contributed software in the MIT distribution for other popular window managers. FONT NAMES Collections of characters for displaying text and symbols in X are known as _f_o_n_t_s. A font typically contains images that share a common appearance and look nice together (for exam- ple, a single size, boldness, slant, and character set). Similarly, collections of fonts that are based on a common type face (the variations are usually called roman, bold, italic, bold italic, oblique, and bold oblique) are called _f_a_m_i_l_i_e_s. Fonts come in various sizes. The X server supports _s_c_a_l_a_b_l_e fonts, meaning it is possible to create a font of arbitrary size from a single source for the font. The server supports scaling from _o_u_t_l_i_n_e fonts and _b_i_t_m_a_p fonts. Scaling from outline fonts usually produces significantly better results than scaling from bitmap fonts. An X server can obtain fonts from individual files stored in directories in the file system, or from one or more font servers, or from a mixtures of directories and font servers. The list of places the server looks when trying to find a font is controlled by its _f_o_n_t _p_a_t_h. Although most instal- lations will choose to have the server start up with all of the commonly used font directories in the font path, the font path can be changed at any time with the _x_s_e_t program. However, it is important to remember that the directory names are on the server's machine, not on the application's. The most common fonts use by X servers and font servers can be found in four directories: /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_f_o_n_t_s/_m_i_s_c This directory contains many miscellaneous bitmap fonts that are useful on all systems. It contains a X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 7 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) family of fixed-width fonts, a family of fixed-width fonts from Dale Schumacher, several Kana fonts from Sony Corporation, two JIS Kanji fonts, two Hangul fonts from Daewoo Electronics, two Hebrew fonts from Joseph Friedman, the standard cursor font, two cur- sor fonts from Digital Equipment Corporation, and cursor and glyph fonts from Sun Microsystems. It also has various font name aliases for the fonts, including fixed and variable. /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_f_o_n_t_s/_S_p_e_e_d_o This directory contains outline fonts for Bitstream's Speedo rasterizer. A single font face, in normal, bold, italic, and bold italic, is pro- vided, contributed by Bitstream, Inc. /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_f_o_n_t_s/_7_5_d_p_i This directory contains bitmap fonts contributed by Adobe Systems, Inc., Digital Equipment Corporation, Bitstream, Inc., Bigelow and Holmes, and Sun Microsystems, Inc. for 75 dots per inch displays. An integrated selection of sizes, styles, and weights are provided for each family. /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_f_o_n_t_s/_1_0_0_d_p_i This directory contains 100 dots per inch versions of some of the fonts in the _7_5_d_p_i directory. Bitmap font files are usually created by compiling a textual font description into binary form, using _b_d_f_t_o_p_c_f. Font databases are created by running the _m_k_f_o_n_t_d_i_r program in the directory containing the source or compiled versions of the fonts. Whenever fonts are added to a directory, _m_k_f_o_n_t_d_i_r should be rerun so that the server can find the new fonts. To make the server reread the font database, reset the font path with the _x_s_e_t program. For example, to add a font to a private directory, the following commands could be used: % cp newfont.pcf ~/myfonts % mkfontdir ~/myfonts % xset fp rehash The _x_f_o_n_t_s_e_l and _x_l_s_f_o_n_t_s programs can be used to browse through the fonts available on a server. Font names tend to be fairly long as they contain all of the information needed to uniquely identify individual fonts. However, the X server supports wildcarding of font names, so the full specification -_a_d_o_b_e-_c_o_u_r_i_e_r-_m_e_d_i_u_m-_r-_n_o_r_m_a_l--_1_0-_1_0_0-_7_5-_7_5-_m-_6_0-_i_s_o_8_8_5_9-_1 X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 8 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) might be abbreviated as: -*-_c_o_u_r_i_e_r-_m_e_d_i_u_m-_r-_n_o_r_m_a_l--*-_1_0_0-*-*-*-*-_i_s_o_8_8_5_9-_1 Because the shell also has special meanings for * and ?, wildcarded font names should be quoted: % xlsfonts -fn '-*-courier-medium-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*' The _x_l_s_f_o_n_t_s program can be used to list all of the fonts that match a given pattern. With no arguments, it lists all available fonts. This will usually list the same font at many different sizes. To see just the base scalable font names, try using one of the following patterns: -*-*-*-*-*-*-_0-_0-_0-_0-*-_0-*-* -*-*-*-*-*-*-_0-_0-_7_5-_7_5-*-_0-*-* -*-*-*-*-*-*-_0-_0-_1_0_0-_1_0_0-*-_0-*-* To convert one of the resulting names into a font at a specific size, replace one of the first two zeros with a nonzero value. The field containing the first zero is for the pixel size; replace it with a specific height in pixels to name a font at that size. Alternatively, the field con- taining the second zero is for the point size; replace it with a specific size in decipoints (there are 722.7 deci- points to the inch) to name a font at that size. The last zero is an average width field, measured in tenths of pix- els; some servers will anamorphically scale if this value is specified. FONT SERVER NAMES One of the following forms can be used to name a font server that accepts TCP connections: tcp/_h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e:_p_o_r_t tcp/_h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e:_p_o_r_t/_c_a_t_a_l_o_g_u_e_l_i_s_t The _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e specifies the name (or decimal numeric address) of the machine on which the font server is running. The _p_o_r_t is the decimal TCP port on which the font server is listening for connections. The _c_a_t_a_l_o_g_u_e_l_i_s_t specifies a list of catalogue names, with '+' as a separator. Examples: _t_c_p/_e_x_p_o._l_c_s._m_i_t._e_d_u:_7_0_0_0, _t_c_p/_1_8._3_0._0._2_1_2:_7_0_0_1/_a_l_l. One of the following forms can be used to name a font server that accepts DECnet connections: decnet/_n_o_d_e_n_a_m_e::font$_o_b_j_n_a_m_e decnet/_n_o_d_e_n_a_m_e::font$_o_b_j_n_a_m_e/_c_a_t_a_l_o_g_u_e_l_i_s_t X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 9 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) The _n_o_d_e_n_a_m_e specifies the name (or decimal numeric address) of the machine on which the font server is running. The _o_b_j_n_a_m_e is a normal, case-insensitive DECnet object name. The _c_a_t_a_l_o_g_u_e_l_i_s_t specifies a list of catalogue names, with '+' as a separator. Examples: _D_E_C_n_e_t/_S_R_V_N_O_D::_F_O_N_T$_D_E_F_A_U_L_T, _d_e_c_n_e_t/_4_4._7_0::_f_o_n_t$_s_p_e_c_i_a_l/_s_y_m_b_o_l_s. COLOR NAMES Most applications provide ways of tailoring (usually through resources or command line arguments) the colors of various elements in the text and graphics they display. A color can be specified either by an abstract color name, or by a numerical color specification. The numerical specification can identify a color in either device-dependent (RGB) or device-independent terms. Color strings are case- insensitive. X supports the use of abstract color names, for example, "red", "blue". A value for this abstract name is obtained by searching one or more color name databases. _X_l_i_b first searches zero or more client-side databases; the number, location, and content of these databases is implementation dependent. If the name is not found, the color is looked up in the X server's database. The text form of this database is commonly stored in the file /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_r_g_b._t_x_t. A numerical color specification consists of a color space name and a set of values in the following syntax: <_c_o_l_o_r__s_p_a_c_e__n_a_m_e>:<_v_a_l_u_e>/.../<_v_a_l_u_e> An RGB Device specification is identified by the prefix "rgb:" and has the following syntax: rgb:<_r_e_d>/<_g_r_e_e_n>/<_b_l_u_e> <_r_e_d>, <_g_r_e_e_n>, <_b_l_u_e> := _h | _h_h | _h_h_h | _h_h_h_h _h := single hexadecimal digits Note that _h indicates the value scaled in 4 bits, _h_h the value scaled in 8 bits, _h_h_h the value scaled in 12 bits, and _h_h_h_h the value scaled in 16 bits, respectively. These values are passed directly to the X server, and are assumed to be gamma corrected. The eight primary colors can be represented as: black rgb:0/0/0 red rgb:ffff/0/0 green rgb:0/ffff/0 blue rgb:0/0/ffff X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 10 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) yellow rgb:ffff/ffff/0 magenta rgb:ffff/0/ffff cyan rgb:0/ffff/ffff white rgb:ffff/ffff/ffff For backward compatibility, an older syntax for RGB Device is supported, but its continued use is not encouraged. The syntax is an initial sharp sign character followed by a numeric specification, in one of the following formats: #RGB (4 bits each) #RRGGBB (8 bits each) #RRRGGGBBB (12 bits each) #RRRRGGGGBBBB (16 bits each) The R, G, and B represent single hexadecimal digits. When fewer than 16 bits each are specified, they represent the most-significant bits of the value (unlike the "rgb:" syn- tax, in which values are scaled). For example, #3a7 is the same as #3000a0007000. An RGB intensity specification is identified by the prefix "rgbi:" and has the following syntax: rgbi:<_r_e_d>/<_g_r_e_e_n>/<_b_l_u_e> The red, green, and blue are floating point values between 0.0 and 1.0, inclusive. They represent linear intensity values, with 1.0 indicating full intensity, 0.5 half inten- sity, and so on. These values will be gamma corrected by _X_l_i_b before being sent to the X server. The input format for these values is an optional sign, a string of numbers possibly containing a decimal point, and an optional exponent field containing an E or e followed by a possibly signed integer string. The standard device-independent string specifications have the following syntax: CIEXYZ:<_X>/<_Y>/<_Z> (_n_o_n_e, 1, _n_o_n_e) CIEuvY:<_u>/<_v>/<_Y> (~.6, ~.6, 1) CIExyY:<_x>/<_y>/<_Y> (~.75, ~.85, 1) CIELab:<_L>/<_a>/<_b> (100, _n_o_n_e, _n_o_n_e) CIELuv:<_L>/<_u>/<_v> (100, _n_o_n_e, _n_o_n_e) TekHVC:<_H>/<_V>/<_C> (360, 100, 100) All of the values (C, H, V, X, Y, Z, a, b, u, v, y, x) are floating point values. Some of the values are constrained to be between zero and some upper bound; the upper bounds are given in parentheses above. The syntax for these values is an optional '+' or '-' sign, a string of digits possibly containing a decimal point, and an optional exponent field X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 11 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) consisting of an 'E' or 'e' followed by an optional '+' or '-' followed by a string of digits. For more information on device independent color, see the _X_l_i_b reference manual. KEYBOARDS The X keyboard model is broken into two layers: server- specific codes (called _k_e_y_c_o_d_e_s) which represent the physi- cal keys, and server-independent symbols (called _k_e_y_s_y_m_s) which represent the letters or words that appear on the keys. Two tables are kept in the server for converting key- codes to keysyms: _m_o_d_i_f_i_e_r _l_i_s_t Some keys (such as Shift, Control, and Caps Lock) are known as _m_o_d_i_f_i_e_r and are used to select dif- ferent symbols that are attached to a single key (such as Shift-a generates a capital A, and Control-l generates a control character ^L). The server keeps a list of keycodes corresponding to the various modifier keys. Whenever a key is pressed or released, the server generates an _e_v_e_n_t that con- tains the keycode of the indicated key as well as a mask that specifies which of the modifier keys are currently pressed. Most servers set up this list to initially contain the various shift, control, and shift lock keys on the keyboard. _k_e_y_m_a_p _t_a_b_l_e Applications translate event keycodes and modifier masks into keysyms using a _k_e_y_s_y_m _t_a_b_l_e which con- tains one row for each keycode and one column for various modifier states. This table is initialized by the server to correspond to normal typewriter conventions. The exact semantics of how the table is interpreted to produce keysyms depends on the particular program, libraries, and language input method used, but the following conventions for the first four keysyms in each row are generally adhered to: The first four elements of the list are split into two groups of keysyms. Group 1 contains the first and second keysyms; Group 2 contains the third and fourth keysyms. Within each group, if the first element is alphabetic and the the second element is the special keysym _N_o_S_y_m_b_o_l, then the group is treated as equivalent to a group in which the first element is the lowercase letter and the second element is the uppercase letter. X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 12 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) Switching between groups is controlled by the keysym named MODE SWITCH, by attaching that keysym to some key and attaching that key to any one of the modifiers Mod1 through Mod5. This modifier is called the ``group modifier.'' Group 1 is used when the group modifier is off, and Group 2 is used when the group modifier is on. Within a group, the modifier state determines which keysym to use. The first keysym is used when the Shift and Lock modifiers are off. The second keysym is used when the Shift modifier is on, when the Lock modifier is on and the second keysym is uppercase alphabetic, or when the Lock modifier is on and is interpreted as ShiftLock. Otherwise, when the Lock modifier is on and is interpreted as CapsLock, the state of the Shift modifier is applied first to select a keysym; but if that keysym is lowercase alphabetic, then the corresponding uppercase keysym is used instead. OPTIONS Most X programs attempt to use the same names for command line options and arguments. All applications written with the X Toolkit Intrinsics automatically accept the following options: -display _d_i_s_p_l_a_y This option specifies the name of the X server to use. -geometry _g_e_o_m_e_t_r_y This option specifies the initial size and location of the window. -bg _c_o_l_o_r, -background _c_o_l_o_r Either option specifies the color to use for the window background. -bd _c_o_l_o_r, -bordercolor _c_o_l_o_r Either option specifies the color to use for the window border. -bw _n_u_m_b_e_r, -borderwidth _n_u_m_b_e_r Either option specifies the width in pixels of the window border. -fg _c_o_l_o_r, -foreground _c_o_l_o_r Either option specifies the color to use for text or graphics. -fn _f_o_n_t, -font _f_o_n_t Either option specifies the font to use for display- ing text. X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 13 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) -iconic This option indicates that the user would prefer that the application's windows initially not be visible as if the windows had be immediately iconi- fied by the user. Window managers may choose not to honor the application's request. -name This option specifies the name under which resources for the application should be found. This option is useful in shell aliases to distinguish between invo- cations of an application, without resorting to creating links to alter the executable file name. -rv, -reverse Either option indicates that the program should simulate reverse video if possible, often by swap- ping the foreground and background colors. Not all programs honor this or implement it correctly. It is usually only used on monochrome displays. +rv This option indicates that the program should not simulate reverse video. This is used to override any defaults since reverse video doesn't always work properly. -selectionTimeout This option specifies the timeout in milliseconds within which two communicating applications must respond to one another for a selection request. -synchronous This option indicates that requests to the X server should be sent synchronously, instead of asynchro- nously. Since _X_l_i_b normally buffers requests to the server, errors do not necessarily get reported immediately after they occur. This option turns off the buffering so that the application can be debugged. It should never be used with a working program. -title _s_t_r_i_n_g This option specifies the title to be used for this window. This information is sometimes used by a window manager to provide some sort of header iden- tifying the window. -xnllanguage _l_a_n_g_u_a_g_e[__t_e_r_r_i_t_o_r_y][._c_o_d_e_s_e_t] This option specifies the language, territory, and codeset for use in resolving resource and other filenames. X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 14 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) -xrm _r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e_s_t_r_i_n_g This option specifies a resource name and value to override any defaults. It is also very useful for setting resources that don't have explicit command line arguments. RESOURCES To make the tailoring of applications to personal prefer- ences easier, X provides a mechanism for storing default values for program resources (e.g. background color, window title, etc.) Resources are specified as strings that are read in from various places when an application is run. Program components are named in a hierarchical fashion, with each node in the hierarchy identified by a class and an instance name. At the top level is the class and instance name of the application itself. By convention, the class name of the application is the same as the program name, but with the first letter capitalized (e.g. _B_i_t_m_a_p or _E_m_a_c_s) although some programs that begin with the letter ``x'' also capitalize the second letter for historical reasons. The precise syntax for resources is: ResourceLine = Comment | IncludeFile | ResourceSpec | <empty line> Comment = "!" {<any character except null or newline>} IncludeFile = "#" WhiteSpace "include" WhiteSpace FileName WhiteSpace FileName = <valid filename for operating system> ResourceSpec = WhiteSpace ResourceName WhiteSpace ":" WhiteSpace Value ResourceName = [Binding] {Component Binding} ComponentName Binding = "." | "*" WhiteSpace = {<space> | <horizontal tab>} Component = "?" | ComponentName ComponentName = NameChar {NameChar} NameChar = "a"-"z" | "A"-"Z" | "0"-"9" | "_" | "-" Value = {<any character except null or unescaped newline>} Elements separated by vertical bar (|) are alternatives. Curly braces ({...}) indicate zero or more repetitions of the enclosed elements. Square brackets ([...]) indicate that the enclosed element is optional. Quotes ("...") are used around literal characters. IncludeFile lines are interpreted by replacing the line with the contents of the specified file. The word "include" must be in lowercase. The filename is interpreted relative to the directory of the file in which the line occurs (for example, if the filename contains no directory or contains a relative directory specification). If a ResourceName contains a contiguous sequence of two or more Binding characters, the sequence will be replaced with single "." character if the sequence contains only "." X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 15 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) characters, otherwise the sequence will be replaced with a single "*" character. A resource database never contains more than one entry for a given ResourceName. If a resource file contains multiple lines with the same ResourceName, the last line in the file is used. Any whitespace character before or after the name or colon in a ResourceSpec are ignored. To allow a Value to begin with whitespace, the two-character sequence ``\_s_p_a_c_e'' (backslash followed by space) is recognized and replaced by a space character, and the two-character sequence ``\_t_a_b'' (backslash followed by horizontal tab) is recognized and replaced by a horizontal tab character. To allow a Value to contain embedded newline characters, the two-character sequence ``\n'' is recognized and replaced by a newline character. To allow a Value to be broken across multiple lines in a text file, the two-character sequence ``\_n_e_w_- _l_i_n_e'' (backslash followed by newline) is recognized and removed from the value. To allow a Value to contain arbi- trary character codes, the four-character sequence ``\_n_n_n'', where each _n is a digit character in the range of ``0''-``7'', is recognized and replaced with a single byte that contains the octal value specified by the sequence. Finally, the two-character sequence ``\\'' is recognized and replaced with a single backslash. When an application looks for the value of a resource, it specifies a complete path in the hierarchy, with both class and instance names. However, resource values are usually given with only partially specified names and classes, using pattern matching constructs. An asterisk (*) is a loose binding and is used to represent any number of intervening components, including none. A period (.) is a tight binding and is used to separate immediately adjacent components. A question mark (?) is used to match any single component name or class. A database entry cannot end in a loose binding; the final component (which cannot be "?") must be specified. The lookup algorithm searches the resource database for the entry that most closely matches (is most specific for) the full name and class being queried. When more than one data- base entry matches the full name and class, precedence rules are used to select just one. The full name and class are scanned from left to right (from highest level in the hierarchy to lowest), one component at a time. At each level, the corresponding component and/or binding of each matching entry is determined, and these matching components and bindings are compared according to precedence rules. Each of the rules is applied at each level, before moving to the next level, until a rule selects X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 16 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) a single entry over all others. The rules (in order of pre- cedence) are: 1. An entry that contains a matching component (whether name, class, or "?") takes precedence over entries that elide the level (that is, entries that match the level in a loose binding). 2. An entry with a matching name takes precedence over both entries with a matching class and entries that match using "?". An entry with a matching class takes precedence over entries that match using "?". 3. An entry preceded by a tight binding takes precedence over entries preceded by a loose binding. Programs based on the X Tookit Intrinsics obtain resources from the following sources (other programs usually support some subset of these sources): RESOURCE_MANAGER root window property Any global resources that should be available to clients on all machines should be stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property on the root window of the first screen using the _x_r_d_b program. This is fre- quently taken care of when the user starts up X through the display manager or _x_i_n_i_t. SCREEN_RESOURCES root window property Any resources specific to a given screen (e.g. colors) that should be available to clients on all machines should be stored in the SCREEN_RESOURCES property on the root window of that screen. The _x_r_d_b program will sort resources automatically and place them in RESOURCE_MANAGER or SCREEN_RESOURCES, as appropriate. application-specific files Directories named by the environment variable XUSER- FILESEARCHPATH or the environment variable XAPPLRES- DIR, plus directories in a standard place (usually under /usr/lib/X11/, but this can be overridden with the XFILESEARCHPATH environment variable) are searched for for application-specific resources. For example, application default resources are usu- ally kept in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/. See the _X _T_o_o_l_k_i_t _I_n_t_r_i_n_s_i_c_s - _C _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e manual for details. XENVIRONMENT Any user- and machine-specific resources may be specified by setting the XENVIRONMENT environment X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 17 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) variable to the name of a resource file to be loaded by all applications. If this variable is not defined, a file named $_H_O_M_E/.Xdefaults-_h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e is looked for instead, where _h_o_s_t_n_a_m_e is the name of the host where the application is executing. -xrm _r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e_s_t_r_i_n_g Resources can also be specified from the command line. The _r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e_s_t_r_i_n_g is a single resource name and value as shown above. Note that if the string contains characters interpreted by the shell (e.g., asterisk), they must be quoted. Any number of -xrm arguments may be given on the command line. Program resources are organized into groups called _c_l_a_s_s_e_s, so that collections of individual resources (each of which are called _i_n_s_t_a_n_c_e_s) can be set all at once. By conven- tion, the instance name of a resource begins with a lower- case letter and class name with an upper case letter. Mul- tiple word resources are concatenated with the first letter of the succeeding words capitalized. Applications written with the X Toolkit Intrinsics will have at least the follow- ing resources: background (class Background) This resource specifies the color to use for the window background. borderWidth (class BorderWidth) This resource specifies the width in pixels of the window border. borderColor (class BorderColor) This resource specifies the color to use for the window border. Most applications using the X Toolkit Intrinsics also have the resource foreground (class Foreground), specifying the color to use for text and graphics within the window. By combining class and instance specifications, application preferences can be set quickly and easily. Users of color displays will frequently want to set Background and Fore- ground classes to particular defaults. Specific color instances such as text cursors can then be overridden without having to define all of the related resources. For example, bitmap*Dashed: off XTerm*cursorColor: gold XTerm*multiScroll: on XTerm*jumpScroll: on X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 18 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) XTerm*reverseWrap: on XTerm*curses: on XTerm*Font: 6x10 XTerm*scrollBar: on XTerm*scrollbar*thickness: 5 XTerm*multiClickTime: 500 XTerm*charClass: 33:48,37:48,45-47:48,64:48 XTerm*cutNewline: off XTerm*cutToBeginningOfLine: off XTerm*titeInhibit: on XTerm*ttyModes: intr ^c erase ^? kill ^u XLoad*Background: gold XLoad*Foreground: red XLoad*highlight: black XLoad*borderWidth: 0 emacs*Geometry: 80x65-0-0 emacs*Background: rgb:5b/76/86 emacs*Foreground: white emacs*Cursor: white emacs*BorderColor: white emacs*Font: 6x10 xmag*geometry: -0-0 xmag*borderColor: white If these resources were stored in a file called ._X_r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e_s in your home directory, they could be added to any existing resources in the server with the following command: % xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xresources This is frequently how user-friendly startup scripts merge user-specific defaults into any site-wide defaults. All sites are encouraged to set up convenient ways of automati- cally loading resources. See the _X_l_i_b manual section _R_e_s_o_u_r_c_e _M_a_n_a_g_e_r _F_u_n_c_t_i_o_n_s for more information. EXAMPLES The following is a collection of sample command lines for some of the more frequently used commands. For more infor- mation on a particular command, please refer to that command's manual page. % xrdb $HOME/.Xresources % xmodmap -e "keysym BackSpace = Delete" % mkfontdir /usr/local/lib/X11/otherfonts % xset fp+ /usr/local/lib/X11/otherfonts % xmodmap $HOME/.keymap.km % xsetroot -solid 'rgbi:.8/.8/.8' % xset b 100 400 c 50 s 1800 r on % xset q % twm % xmag X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 19 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) % xclock -geometry 48x48-0+0 -bg blue -fg white % xeyes -geometry 48x48-48+0 % xbiff -update 20 % xlsfonts '*helvetica*' % xwininfo -root % xdpyinfo -display joesworkstation:0 % xhost -joesworkstation % xrefresh % xwd | xwud % bitmap companylogo.bm 32x32 % xcalc -bg blue -fg magenta % xterm -geometry 80x66-0-0 -name myxterm $* % xon filesysmachine xload DIAGNOSTICS A wide variety of error messages are generated from various programs. The default error handler in _X_l_i_b (also used by many toolkits) uses standard resources to construct diagnos- tic messages when errors occur. The defaults for these mes- sages are usually stored in /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_X_1_1/_X_E_r_r_o_r_D_B. If this file is not present, error messages will be rather terse and cryptic. When the X Toolkit Intrinsics encounter errors converting resource strings to the appropriate internal format, no error messages are usually printed. This is convenient when it is desirable to have one set of resources across a variety of displays (e.g. color vs. monochrome, lots of fonts vs. very few, etc.), although it can pose problems for trying to determine why an application might be failing. This behavior can be overridden by the setting the _S_t_r_i_n_g_C_o_n_v_e_r_s_i_o_n_s_W_a_r_n_i_n_g resource. To force the X Toolkit Intrinsics to always print string conversion error messages, the following resource should be placed in the file that gets loaded onto the RESOURCE_MANAGER property using the _x_r_d_b program (frequently called ._X_r_e_s_o_u_r_c_e_s or ._X_r_e_s in the user's home directory): *StringConversionWarnings: on To have conversion messages printed for just a particular application, the appropriate instance name can be placed before the asterisk: xterm*StringConversionWarnings: on SEE ALSO XConsortium(1), XStandards(1), Xsecurity(1), appres(1), auto_box(1), bdftopcf(1), beach_ball(1), bitmap(1), edi- tres(1), fs(1), fsinfo(1), fslsfonts(1), fstobdf(1), ico(1), imake(1), listres(1), lndir(1), makedepend(1), maze(1), X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 20 X(1) USER COMMANDS X(1) mkdirhier(1), mkfontdir(1), oclock(1), plbpex(1), puzzle(1), resize(1), showfont(1), showrgb(1), twm(1), viewres(1), x11perf(1), x11perfcomp(1), xauth(1), xbiff(1), xcalc(1), xclipboard(1), xclock(1), xcmsdb(1), xcmstest(1), xcon- sole(1), xcutsel(1), xditview(1), xdm(1), xdpr(1), xdpy- info(1), xedit(1), xev(1), xeyes(1), xfd(1), xfontsel(1), xgas(1), xgc(1), xhost(1), xinit(1), xkill(1), xload(1), xlogo(1), xlsatoms(1), xlsclients(1), xlsfonts(1), xmag(1), xman(1), xmh(1), xmkmf(1), xmodmap(1), xon(1), xpr(1), xprop(1), xrdb(1), xrefresh(1), xset(1), xsetroot(1), xstdcmap(1), xterm(1), xwd(1), xwininfo(1), xwud(1), Xserver(1), Xdec(1), XmacII(1), Xmips(1), Xqdss(1), Xqvss(1), Xsun(1), X386(1), kbd_mode(1), _X_l_i_b - _C _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _X _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e, and _X _T_o_o_l_k_i_t _I_n_t_r_i_n_s_i_c_s - _C _L_a_n_g_u_a_g_e _I_n_t_e_r_f_a_c_e COPYRIGHT The following copyright and permission notice outlines the rights and restrictions covering most parts of the core dis- tribution of the X Window System from MIT. Other parts have additional or different copyrights and permissions; see the individual source files. Copyright 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting docu- mentation, and that the name of MIT not be used in advertis- ing or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. MIT makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. TRADEMARKS X Window System is a trademark of MIT. AUTHORS A cast of thousands, literally. The MIT Release 5 distribu- tion is brought to you by the MIT X Consortium. The names of all people who made it a reality will be found in the individual documents and source files. The staff members at MIT responsible for this release are: Donna Converse (MIT X Consortium), Stephen Gildea (MIT X Consortium), Susan Hardy (MIT X Consortium), Jay Hersh (MIT X Consortium), Keith Packard (MIT X Consortium), David Sternlicht (MIT X Consor- tium), Bob Scheifler (MIT X Consortium), and Ralph Swick (Digital/MIT Project Athena). X Version 11 Last change: Release 5 21