xvt.1                      1.2                16/11/93 (UKC)
 
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 
replacement for 'xterm'(1) for users who do not require the more 
esoteric features 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 advantage 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' 
window.  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, 
'csh'(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 managers 
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 border.  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 explicitely.
 
-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 displayed or 
hidden at any time simply by holding down the CONTROL key on the keyboard 
and pressing any mouse button.  The visibility 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.  Executing an 
'xvt' with the '-msg' option has the same effect as running 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 character 
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 
preceeded 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 ar background 
color is set explicitely.
 
-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.

 
[ SNIP - TROFF table deleted - if you want it, get it from xvt.1 ]

 
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 
different 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 
window.
 
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 
automatically (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 
different 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 button 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 differences:
 
'xvt' respects TAB characters in selected text and does not automatically 
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.
 
Atari MiNT port by Craig Graham, University Of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1994-95.
