Xdefaults
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Xresources and Xdefaults are user-level configuration dotfiles, typically located at ~/.Xresources and ~/.Xdefaults. They can be used to set or override preferences for X and X applications. It can do many operations, including:
- defining terminal colours
- configuring terminal preferences
- setting DPI, antialiasing, hinting and other X font settings
- changing the Xcursor theme
- theming xscreensaver
- altering preferences on low-level X applications (xclock, xpdf, etc.)
When ~/.Xresources is present, it will be parsed by the xrdb (Xorg resource database) program automatically when Xorg is started, and you must re-run xrdb ~/.Xresources every time you change the file. If you don't use a Desktop Environment, you may need to add
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
to your xinitrc. Using ~/.Xresources stores the resources in the X server, so the file doesn't need to be reread over and over and it works for remote X clients too.
The older ~/.Xdefaults is read every time you start an X program such as xterm — but only if xrdb hasn't ever been used in the current X session. [1]
Contents
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Getting started
Creating .Xdefaults
The file ~/.Xdefaults does not exist by default. To create it, open a terminal and type the following as a normal user:
Being a plain-text file, you can edit your ~/.Xdefaults file with the text editor of your choice.
Default settings
To see the default settings for your installed X11 apps, look in /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/.
Xdefaults syntax
The basic syntax
The syntax of an Xdefaults file is as follows:
name.Class.resource: value
and here is a real world example:
xscreensaver.Dialog.headingFont: -*-fixed-bold-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
- name
- The name of the application, such xterm, xpdf, etc
- class
- The classification used to group resources together. Class names are typically uppercase.
- resource
- The name of the resource whose value is to be changed. Resources are typically lowercase with uppercase concatenation.
- value
- The actual value of the resource. This can be 1 of 3 types:
- Integer (whole numbers)
- Boolean (true/false, yes/no, on/off)
- String (a string of characters) (for example a word (white), a color (#ffffff), or a path (/usr/bin/firefox))
- delimiters
- A period (.) is used to signify each step down into the hierarchy -- in the above example we start at name, then descend into Class, and finally into the resource itself. A colon (:) is used to separate the resource declaration from the actual value.
Wildcard matching
The asterisk can be used as a wildcard, making it easy to write a single rule that can be applied to many different applications or elements.
Using the previous example, if you want to apply the same font to all programs (not just xscreensaver) that contain the class name Dialog which contains the resource name headingFont, you would write:
*Dialog.headingFont: -*-fixed-bold-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
If you want to apply this same rule to all programs that contain the resource headingFont regardless of its class, you would write:
*headingFont: -*-fixed-bold-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
Commenting
To add a comment to your Xdefaults file, simply prefix it with an exclamation point (!), for example:
! This is a comment placed above some Xft settings xft.dpi: 96 ! this is an inline comment
! The following rule will be ignored because it has been commented out !xft.antialias: true
Sample usage
The following samples should provide a good understanding of how application settings can be modified using an Xdefaults file. For full details, refer to the man page of the application in question.
File header
If desired, you can add a header to ~/.Xdefaults which not only explains the file's contents, but also instruct vim how to perform syntax highlighting and other formatting. For example:
! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ! file: ~/.Xdefaults ! author: Thayer Williams - http://cinderwick.ca ! modified: November 2008 ! vim:enc=utf-8:nu:ai:si:et:ts=4:sw=4:ft=xdefaults: ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This will instruct vim to use UTF-8 encoding, display line numbers, auto-indent, smart-indent, expand tabs to spaces, set tabs to equal 4 spaces, and set the autocommand Filetype to "xdefaults".
It is a good habit to get into, especially if you'd like to make your dotfiles available for public consumption.
Terminal colors
Most terminals, including xterm and urxvt, support at least 16 basic colors. The following is an example of a 16-color scheme.
The colors 0-7 are the 'normal' colors, while colors 8-15 are their 'bright' counterparts (used for highlighting, etc.)
! terminal colors ------------------------------------------------------------ ! tangoesque scheme *background: #111111 *foreground: #babdb6 ! Black (not tango) + DarkGrey *color0: #000000 *color8: #555753 ! DarkRed + Red *color1: #ff6565 *color9: #ff8d8d ! DarkGreen + Green *color2: #93d44f *color10: #c8e7a8 ! DarkYellow + Yellow *color3: #eab93d *color11: #ffc123 ! DarkBlue + Blue *color4: #204a87 *color12: #3465a4 ! DarkMangenta + Mangenta *color5: #ce5c00 *color13: #f57900 !DarkCyan + Cyan (both not tango) *color6: #89b6e2 *color14: #46a4ff ! LightGrey + White *color7: #cccccc *color15: #ffffff
For more examples of color schemes, see the #More resources section at the bottom of this article.
Desktop preferences
Xcursor settings
Set the theme and size of your mouse cursor:
! Xcursor -------------------------------------------------------------------- Xcursor.theme: Vanilla-DMZ-AA Xcursor.size: 22
Available themes reside in /usr/share/icons and local themes can be installed to ~/.icons.
Xft Font Settings
You can define basic font settings without the need of a fonts.conf file or Desktop Environment. Note however, the use of a desktop environment and/or fonts.conf can override these settings. Your best option is to use one or the other, but not both.
! Xft settings --------------------------------------------------------------- Xft.dpi: 96 Xft.antialias: true Xft.rgba: rgb Xft.hinting: true Xft.hintstyle: hintslight
xterm preferences
This will open Xterm in an 80x25 character window with a scroll-bar and scroll capability for the last 512 lines.
The specified Terminus facename is a popular and clean terminal font.
! xterm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- xterm*geometry: 80x25 xterm*faceName: terminusbold:pixelsize=14 !xterm*font: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xterm*dynamicColors: true xterm*utf8: 2 xterm*eightBitInput: true xterm*saveLines: 512 xterm*scrollTtyKeypress: true xterm*scrollTtyOutput: false xterm*scrollBar: true xterm*rightScrollBar: true xterm*jumpScroll: true xterm*multiScroll: true xterm*toolBar: false
urxvt preferences
Rxvt-unicode features an extensive list of options which can be configured via Xdefaults. Refer to the urxvt man page for details.
! rxvt-unicode --------------------------------------------------------------- ! font preference urxvt*font: -*-terminus-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* urxvt*boldFont: -*-terminus-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* !initial size urxvt*geometry: 120x35 !internal whitespace urxvt*internalBorder: 5 !fade text n% upon unfocus urxvt*fading: 20 !darken=(0 to 100) lighten=(-1 to -100) urxvt*shading: 30 !tint background with this color urxvt*tintColor: black !set to 32-bit for real transparency (compositing required) !urxvt*depth: 24 !save n lines of scrollback buffer urxvt*saveLines: 32767 !flash screen for attention urxvt*visualBell: true !jump to bottom (prompt) on keypress urxvt*scrollTtyKeypress: true !jump to bottom (prompt) when tty gets new lines urxvt*scrollWithBuffer: false !jump to bottom (prompt) on tty output urxvt*scrollTtyOutput: false !toggle scrollbar urxvt*scrollBar: false !scrollbar styles: rxvt, plain, next or xterm urxvt*scrollstyle: plain !scrollbar alignment urxvt*scrollBar_right: true urxvt*scrollColor: #777777 urxvt*cursorColor: #ffcc00 !enable pseudo-transparency (requires depth: 24 (see above)) urxvt*inheritPixmap: true !delimiters for double-click mouse selection urxvt*cutchars: "()*,<>[]{}|' !screen dump settings urxvt*print-pipe: cat > $(echo urxvt.dump.$(date +'%Y%M%d%H%m%S')) !secondary screen scroll (default enabled) urxvt*secondaryScroll: true !de-iconify (map) on receipt of a bell character urxvt*mapAlert: true !inhibit writing record into the system log file utmp urxvt*utmpInhibit: true !! BEGIN urlLauncher settings !! urxvt*perl-lib: /usr/lib/urxvt/perl/ urxvt*perl-ext-common: default,matcher urxvt*urlLauncher: /usr/bin/firefox urxvt*matcher.button: 1 !! END urlLauncher settings !! !transparent=0000 opaque=ffff urxvt*background: rgba:1111/1111/1111/dddd
aterm preferences
Sample settings for aterm (very similar to urxvt):
!aterm settings------------------------------------------------------------- aterm*background: black aterm*foreground: white aterm*transparent: true aterm*shading: 30 aterm*cursorColor: gray aterm*saveLines: 2000 !aterm*tinting: gray aterm*scrollBar: false !aterm*scrollBar_right: true aterm*transpscrollbar: true aterm*borderwidth: 0 aterm*font: -*-terminus-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* aterm*geometry: 80x25 !aterm*fading: 70
xpdf preferences
Some basic settings for xpdf, a lightweight PDF viewer:
! xpdf ----------------------------------------------------------------------- xpdf*enableFreetype: yes xpdf*antialias: yes xpdf*foreground: black xpdf*background: white xpdf*urlCommand: /usr/bin/firefox %s
Anything more detailed than the above you should be putting in ~/.xpdfrc instead. See xpdf man page for more information. Note: viKeys is deprecated.
lal clock
! lal clock ------------------------------------------------------------------ lal*font: Arial lal*fontsize: 12 lal*bold: true lal*color: #ffffff lal*width: 150 lal*format: %a %b %d %l:%M%P
xclock preferences
Some basic xclock settings. See xclock man page for all X resources.
! xclock --------------------------------------------------------------------- xclock*update: 1 xclock*analog: false xclock*Foreground: white xclock*background: black
x11-ssh-askpass
! x11-ssh-askpass ------------------------------------------------------------ x11-ssh-askpass*font: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* x11-ssh-askpass*background: #000000 x11-ssh-askpass*foreground: #ffffff x11-ssh-askpass.Button*background: #000000 x11-ssh-askpass.Indicator*foreground: #ff9900 x11-ssh-askpass.Indicator*background: #090909 x11-ssh-askpass*topShadowColor: #000000 x11-ssh-askpass*bottomShadowColor: #000000 x11-ssh-askpass.*borderWidth: 1
xscreensaver theming
A sample xscreensaver theme. For more information, refer to the xscreensaver man page.
! xscreensaver --------------------------------------------------------------- !font settings xscreensaver.Dialog.headingFont: -*-dina-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.Dialog.bodyFont: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.Dialog.labelFont: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.Dialog.unameFont: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.Dialog.buttonFont: -*-dina-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.Dialog.dateFont: -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* xscreensaver.passwd.passwdFont: -*-dina-bold-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-* !general dialog box (affects main hostname, username, password text) xscreensaver.Dialog.foreground: #ffffff xscreensaver.Dialog.background: #111111 xscreensaver.Dialog.topShadowColor: #111111 xscreensaver.Dialog.bottomShadowColor: #111111 xscreensaver.Dialog.Button.foreground: #666666 xscreensaver.Dialog.Button.background: #ffffff !username/password input box and date text colour xscreensaver.Dialog.text.foreground: #666666 xscreensaver.Dialog.text.background: #ffffff xscreensaver.Dialog.internalBorderWidth:24 xscreensaver.Dialog.borderWidth: 20 xscreensaver.Dialog.shadowThickness: 2 !timeout bar (background is actually determined by Dialog.text.background) xscreensaver.passwd.thermometer.foreground: #ff0000 xscreensaver.passwd.thermometer.background: #000000 xscreensaver.passwd.thermometer.width: 8 !datestamp format--see the strftime(3) manual page for details xscreensaver.dateFormat: %I:%M%P %a %b %d, %Y
xcalc preferences
Some xcalc settings to colorize and customize buttons.
!xcalc----------------------------------------------------------------------- xcalc*geometry: 200x275 xcalc.ti.bevel.background: #111111 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.DEG.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.DEG.foreground: LightSeaGreen xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.GRAD.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.GRAD.foreground: LightSeaGreen xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.RAD.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.RAD.foreground: LightSeaGreen xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.INV.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.INV.foreground: Red xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.LCD.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.LCD.foreground: LightSeaGreen xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.LCD.shadowWidth: 0 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.M.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.M.foreground: LightSeaGreen xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.P.background: #000000 xcalc.ti.bevel.screen.P.foreground: Yellow xcalc.ti.Command.foreground: White xcalc.ti.Command.background: #777777 xcalc.ti.button5.background: Orange3 xcalc.ti.button19.background: #611161 xcalc.ti.button18.background: #611161 xcalc.ti.button20.background: #611111 !uncomment to change label on division button !xcalc.ti.button20.label: / xcalc.ti.button25.background: #722222 xcalc.ti.button30.background: #833333 xcalc.ti.button35.background: #944444 xcalc.ti.button40.background: #a55555 xcalc.ti.button22.background: #222262 xcalc.ti.button23.background: #222262 xcalc.ti.button24.background: #222272 xcalc.ti.button27.background: #333373 xcalc.ti.button28.background: #333373 xcalc.ti.button29.background: #333373 xcalc.ti.button32.background: #444484 xcalc.ti.button33.background: #444484 xcalc.ti.button34.background: #444484 xcalc.ti.button37.background: #555595 xcalc.ti.button38.background: #555595 xcalc.ti.button39.background: #555595 XCalc*Cursor: hand2 XCalc*ShapeStyle: rectangle
Color scheme Commands
Fast BASH commands you can run right in your shell.
Enumerate Num Colors Supported per Terminal
This will let you discover all the terminals you have terminfo support for, and the number of colors each supports (8, 15, 16, 52, 64, 88, 256).
for T in `find /usr/share/terminfo -type f -printf '%f '`;do echo "$T `tput -T $T colors`";done|sort -nk2
Eterm-88color 88 rxvt-88color 88 xterm+88color 88 xterm-88color 88 Eterm-256color 256 gnome-256color 256 konsole-256color 256 putty-256color 256 rxvt-256color 256 screen-256color 256 screen-256color-bce 256 screen-256color-bce-s 256 screen-256color-s 256 xterm+256color 256 xterm-256color 256
Command Enumerating Terminal Capabilities
Useful to see what is supported by your terminal.
infocmp -1 | sed -nu 's/^[ \000\t]*//;s/[ \000\t]*$//;/[^ \t\000]\{1,\}/!d;/acsc/d;s/=.*,//p'|column -c80
bel cuu ich kb2 kf15 kf3 kf44 kf59 mc0 rmso smul blink cuu1 il kbs kf16 kf30 kf45 kf6 mc4 rmul tbc bold cvvis il1 kcbt kf17 kf31 kf46 kf60 mc5 rs1 u6 cbt dch ind kcub1 kf18 kf32 kf47 kf61 meml rs2 u7 civis dch1 indn kcud1 kf19 kf33 kf48 kf62 memu sc u8 clear dl initc kcuf1 kf2 kf34 kf49 kf63 op setab u9 cnorm dl1 invis kcuu1 kf20 kf35 kf5 kf7 rc setaf vpa
Command Showing 256 colors
Prints all 256 colors across the screen, very quick.
(x=`tput op` y=`printf %80s`;for i in {0..256};do o=00$i;echo -e ${o:${#o}-3:3} `tput setaf $i;tput setab $i`${y// /=}$x;done)
Command Showing tput Escapes
Replace 'tput op' with whatever tput you want to trace. op is the default foreground and background color.
( strace -s5000 -e write tput op 2>&2 2>&1 ) | tee -a /dev/stderr | grep -o '"[^"]*"'
033[\033[1;34m"\33[39;49m"\033[00m
Color scheme scripts
Any of the following scripts will display a chart of your current terminal color scheme. Handy for testing and whatnot.
Script #1
#!/bin/bash # # This file echoes a bunch of color codes to the # terminal to demonstrate what's available. Each # line is the color code of one forground color, # out of 17 (default + 16 escapes), followed by a # test use of that color on all nine background # colors (default + 8 escapes). # T='gYw' # The test text echo -e "\n 40m 41m 42m 43m\ 44m 45m 46m 47m"; for FGs in ' m' ' 1m' ' 30m' '1;30m' ' 31m' '1;31m' ' 32m' \ '1;32m' ' 33m' '1;33m' ' 34m' '1;34m' ' 35m' '1;35m' \ ' 36m' '1;36m' ' 37m' '1;37m'; do FG=${FGs// /} echo -en " $FGs \033[$FG $T " for BG in 40m 41m 42m 43m 44m 45m 46m 47m; do echo -en "$EINS \033[$FG\033[$BG $T \033[0m"; done echo; done echo
Script #2
#!/bin/bash # Original: http://frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/ # http://frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/data/colortable16.sh # Modified by Aaron Griffin # and further by Kazuo Teramoto FGNAMES=(' black ' ' red ' ' green ' ' yellow' ' blue ' 'magenta' ' cyan ' ' white ') BGNAMES=('DFT' 'BLK' 'RED' 'GRN' 'YEL' 'BLU' 'MAG' 'CYN' 'WHT') echo " ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐" for b in {0..8}; do ((b>0)) && bg=$((b+39)) echo -en "\033[0m ${BGNAMES[b]} │ " for f in {0..7}; do echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[$((f+30))m ${FGNAMES[f]} " done echo -en "\033[0m │" echo -en "\033[0m\n\033[0m │ " for f in {0..7}; do echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[1;$((f+30))m ${FGNAMES[f]} " done echo -en "\033[0m │" echo -e "\033[0m" ((b<8)) && echo " ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤" done echo " └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘"
Script #3
#!/bin/bash # Original: http://frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/ # http://frexx.de/xterm-256-notes/data/colortable16.sh # Modified by Aaron Griffin # and further by Kazuo Teramoto FGNAMES=(' black ' ' red ' ' green ' ' yellow' ' blue ' 'magenta' ' cyan ' ' white ') BGNAMES=('DFT' 'BLK' 'RED' 'GRN' 'YEL' 'BLU' 'MAG' 'CYN' 'WHT') echo " ----------------------------------------------------------------------------" for b in $(seq 0 8); do if [ "$b" -gt 0 ]; then bg=$(($b+39)) fi echo -en "\033[0m ${BGNAMES[$b]} : " for f in $(seq 0 7); do echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[$(($f+30))m ${FGNAMES[$f]} " done echo -en "\033[0m :" echo -en "\033[0m\n\033[0m : " for f in $(seq 0 7); do echo -en "\033[${bg}m\033[1;$(($f+30))m ${FGNAMES[$f]} " done echo -en "\033[0m :" echo -e "\033[0m" if [ "$b" -lt 8 ]; then echo " ----------------------------------------------------------------------------" fi done echo " ----------------------------------------------------------------------------"
Script #4
#!/usr/bin/env lua function cl(e) return string.format('\27[%sm', e) end function print_fg(bg, pre) for fg = 30,37 do fg = pre..fg io.write(cl(bg), cl(fg), string.format(' %6s ', fg), cl(0)) end end for bg = 40,47 do io.write(cl(0), ' ', bg, ' ') print_fg(bg, '') io.write('\n ') print_fg(bg, '1;') io.write('\n\n') end -- Andres P
Contributed .Xdefaults
Check out these links for some real world examples of Xdefaults, contributed by fellow community members:
- http://dotfiles.org/~buttons/.Xdefaults
- http://code.suckless.org/hg/dextra/file/513faba2591f/dolby/Xdefaults
- http://github.com/stxza/arch-linux-configs/tree/master/.Xdefaults
- http://github.com/jelly/dotfiles/tree/master/.Xdefaults
- http://bitbucket.jasonwryan.com/eeepc/src/tip/.Xdefaults
A good place to start making your own is the default colors:
*color0: black *color1: red3 *color2: green3 *color3: yellow3 *color4: blue2 *color5: magenta3 *color6: cyan3 *color7: gray90 *color8: gray50 *color9: red *color10: green *color11: yellow *color12: rgb:5c/5c/ff *color13: magenta *color14: cyan *color15: white
More resources
- Terminal Color Schemes- a gallery of terminal color schemes by our very own Aaron Griffin
- Using the Xdefaults File - An in-depth article on how X interprets the Xdefaults file
- Rxvt-unicode Configuration Tutorial - lots of information for urxvt users
- Available Colors and their names - listing of available colors and their color names for xterm and other X-applications.