Rxvt (acronym for our extended virtual terminal) is a

terminal emulator A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...

for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

, and in the form of a

Cygwin Cygwin ( ) is a POSIX-compatible programming and runtime environment that runs natively on Microsoft Windows. Under Cygwin, source code designed for Unix-like operating systems may be compiled with minimal modification and executed. The Cygwin in ...

port, for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

History

Rxvt was originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who took over maintenance for several years. It is intended to be a slimmed-down alternate for

xterm In computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. It allows users to run programs which require a command-line interface. If no particular program is specified, xterm runs the user's shell. An X display can show ...

, omitting some of its little-used features, like

Tektronix 4014 The Tektronix 4010 series was a family of text-and-graphics computer terminals based on storage tube, storage-tube technology created by Tektronix. Several members of the family were introduced during the 1970s, the best known being the 11-inch 40 ...

emulation and

toolkit A toolkit is an assembly of tools; set of basic building units for user interfaces. The word toolkit may refer to: * Abstract Window Toolkit * Accessibility Toolkit * Adventure Game Toolkit * B-Toolkit * Battlefield Mod Development Toolkit * Ch ...

-style configurability. The latter refers to the Xt resource mechanism, e.g., for binding keys. Rxvt is an extended version of the older xvt terminal emulator by John Bovey of the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

. The name originally stood for "Rob's xvt" (with XVT stands for 'X Virtual Terminal'), but was later re-dubbed "our xvt" (pronounced like the letters r-x-v-t).

Features

Urxvt-vim-modemu-panda-bitstreamverasansmono

Aside from features such as those controlled by resource files, rxvt's terminal emulation differs from

in two important ways: *It emulates a

VT102 The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was one of the first terminals to support ANSI escape codes for cursor control and other tasks, and added a number of extended codes for special f ...

, rather than a

VT220 The VT220 is a computer terminal introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in November 1983. The VT240 added monochrome ReGIS vector graphics support to the base model, while the VT241 did the same in color. The 200 series replaced the s ...

. That means that it handles 8-bit data differently, does not implement the C1 controls that xterm does. xterm does implement a switch "-k8" to suppress that functionality; rxvt does not provide an option to emulate a VT220. *The strings sent for function keys are different. xterm sends strings that are encoded using the same rules as the ANSI/ISO escape sequences. Rxvt's do not, though they provide comparable flexibility in this area. Newer versions of rxvt have primitive support for

pseudo-transparency ''Pseudo-transparency'' is a term used for X Window System clients that simulate the appearance of translucency or transparency by manipulating the same pixmap that has been drawn on the root window, or by instructing the X Server that the Backgr ...

. The rxvt distribution also includes an analog clock program called rclock. Very old distributions included a copy of

vttest Vttest is an application that is used to demonstrate features of VT100 and related terminals, or emulations thereof, such as xterm. The program was originally written in 1986 by Per Lindberg. It has been maintained and extended since 1996 by Th ...

, but dropped that in 1996 with version 2.18.

Forks

* aterm (from rxvt 2.4.8) created for use with the AfterStep window manager (no longer maintained) *

Eterm Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a compositing window manager for the X Window System. Since version 20, Enlightenment is also a Wayland compositor. Enlightenment developers have referred to it as "the original eye-candy window manager ...

(from rxvt 2.21) created for use with Enlightenment *

mrxvt The mrxvt program is a terminal emulator for X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 compatible terminals. mrxvt is based on rxvt version 2.7.11 CVS (in 2004), and features most of functionality of rxvt. Unlike rxvt, it provides multiple tabs ...

(from rxvt 2.7.11) created for multiple tabs and additional features (latest version released in 2008-09-10) * urxvt (rxvt-unicode) (from rxvt 2.7.11)urxvt(1) - Linux man page
/ref> * Wterm,
/ref> designed for

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of proprieta ...

style

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction ...

s such as

Window Maker Window Maker is a free and open-source window manager for the X Window System, allowing graphical applications to be run on Unix-like operating-systems. It is designed to emulate NeXTSTEP's GUI as an OpenStep-compatible environment. Window Maker ...

Wterm_-_The_Lightweight_Feature-Rich
_Terminal_Emulator_for_X.html" ;"title="Feature-Rich">Wterm - The Lightweight Feature-Rich">Wterm_-_The_Lightweight_Feature-Rich
_Terminal_Emulator_for_X/ref>

_See_also

*List_of_terminal_emulators.html" ;"title="Feature-Rich
Terminal Emulator for X">Feature-Rich">Wterm - The Lightweight Feature-Rich
Terminal Emulator for X/ref>

References

External links

* * {{Terminal emulators X Window programs Free terminal emulators