1 ## Why does st not handle utmp entries?
3 Use the excellent tool of [utmp](https://git.suckless.org/utmp/) for this task.
5 ## Some _random program_ complains that st is unknown/not recognised/unsupported/whatever!
7 It means that st doesn’t have any terminfo entry on your system. Chances are
8 you did not `make install`. If you just want to test it without installing it,
9 you can manually run `tic -sx st.info`.
11 ## Nothing works, and nothing is said about an unknown terminal!
13 * Some programs just assume they’re running in xterm i.e. they don’t rely on
14 terminfo. What you see is the current state of the “xterm compliance”.
15 * Some programs don’t complain about the lacking st description and default to
16 another terminal. In that case see the question about terminfo.
18 ## How do I scroll back up?
20 Using a terminal multiplexer.
22 * `st -e tmux` using C-b [
23 * `st -e screen` using C-a ESC
25 ## Why doesn't the Del key work in some programs?
27 Taken from the terminfo manpage:
29 If the terminal has a keypad that transmits codes when the keys
30 are pressed, this information can be given. Note that it is not
31 possible to handle terminals where the keypad only works in
32 local (this applies, for example, to the unshifted HP 2621 keys).
33 If the keypad can be set to transmit or not transmit, give these
34 codes as smkx and rmkx. Otherwise the keypad is assumed to
37 In the st case smkx=E[?1hE= and rmkx=E[?1lE>, so it is mandatory that
38 applications which want to test against keypad keys send these
41 But buggy applications (like bash and irssi, for example) don't do this. A fast
42 solution for them is to use the following command:
44 $ printf '\033[?1h\033=' >/dev/tty
49 In the case of bash, readline is used. Readline has a different note in its
50 manpage about this issue:
53 When set to On, readline will try to enable the
54 application keypad when it is called. Some systems
55 need this to enable arrow keys.
57 Adding this option to your .inputrc will fix the keypad problem for all
58 applications using readline.
60 If you are using zsh, then read the zsh FAQ
61 <http://zsh.sourceforge.net/FAQ/zshfaq03.html#l25>:
63 It should be noted that the O / [ confusion can occur with other keys
64 such as Home and End. Some systems let you query the key sequences
65 sent by these keys from the system's terminal database, terminfo.
66 Unfortunately, the key sequences given there typically apply to the
67 mode that is not the one zsh uses by default (it's the "application"
68 mode rather than the "raw" mode). Explaining the use of terminfo is
69 outside of the scope of this FAQ, but if you wish to use the key
70 sequences given there you can tell the line editor to turn on
71 "application" mode when it starts and turn it off when it stops:
73 function zle-line-init () { echoti smkx }
74 function zle-line-finish () { echoti rmkx }
76 zle -N zle-line-finish
78 Putting these lines into your .zshrc will fix the problems.
80 ## How can I use meta in 8bit mode?
82 St supports meta in 8bit mode, but the default terminfo entry doesn't
83 use this capability. If you want it, you have to use the 'st-meta' value
86 ## I cannot compile st in OpenBSD
88 OpenBSD lacks librt, despite it being mandatory in POSIX
89 <http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/c99.html#tag_20_11_13>.
90 If you want to compile st for OpenBSD you have to remove -lrt from config.mk, and
91 st will compile without any loss of functionality, because all the functions are
92 included in libc on this platform.
96 St is emulating the Linux way of handling backspace being delete and delete being
99 This is an issue that was discussed in suckless mailing list
100 <https://lists.suckless.org/dev/1404/20697.html>. Here is why some old grumpy
101 terminal users wants its backspace to be how he feels it:
103 Well, I am going to comment why I want to change the behaviour
104 of this key. When ASCII was defined in 1968, communication
105 with computers was done using punched cards, or hardcopy
106 terminals (basically a typewriter machine connected with the
107 computer using a serial port). ASCII defines DELETE as 7F,
108 because, in punched-card terms, it means all the holes of the
109 card punched; it is thus a kind of 'physical delete'. In the
110 same way, the BACKSPACE key was a non-destructive backspace,
111 as on a typewriter. So, if you wanted to delete a character,
112 you had to BACKSPACE and then DELETE. Another use of BACKSPACE
113 was to type accented characters, for example 'a BACKSPACE `'.
114 The VT100 had no BACKSPACE key; it was generated using the
115 CONTROL key as another control character (CONTROL key sets to
116 0 b7 b6 b5, so it converts H (code 0x48) into BACKSPACE (code
117 0x08)), but it had a DELETE key in a similar position where
118 the BACKSPACE key is located today on common PC keyboards.
119 All the terminal emulators emulated the difference between
120 these keys correctly: the backspace key generated a BACKSPACE
121 (^H) and delete key generated a DELETE (^?).
123 But a problem arose when Linus Torvalds wrote Linux. Unlike
124 earlier terminals, the Linux virtual terminal (the terminal
125 emulator integrated in the kernel) returned a DELETE when
126 backspace was pressed, due to the VT100 having a DELETE key in
127 the same position. This created a lot of problems (see [1]
128 and [2]). Since Linux has become the king, a lot of terminal
129 emulators today generate a DELETE when the backspace key is
130 pressed in order to avoid problems with Linux. The result is
131 that the only way of generating a BACKSPACE on these systems
132 is by using CONTROL + H. (I also think that emacs had an
133 important point here because the CONTROL + H prefix is used
134 in emacs in some commands (help commands).)
136 From point of view of the kernel, you can change the key
137 for deleting a previous character with stty erase. When you
138 connect a real terminal into a machine you describe the type
139 of terminal, so getty configures the correct value of stty
140 erase for this terminal. In the case of terminal emulators,
141 however, you don't have any getty that can set the correct
142 value of stty erase, so you always get the default value.
143 For this reason, it is necessary to add 'stty erase ^H' to your
144 profile if you have changed the value of the backspace key.
145 Of course, another solution is for st itself to modify the
146 value of stty erase. I usually have the inverse problem:
147 when I connect to non-Unix machines, I have to press CONTROL +
148 h to get a BACKSPACE. The inverse problem occurs when a user
149 connects to my Unix machines from a different system with a
150 correct backspace key.
152 [1] http://www.ibb.net/~anne/keyboard.html
153 [2] http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-5.html
155 ## But I really want the old grumpy behaviour of my terminal
159 [1] https://st.suckless.org/patches/delkey
161 ## Why do images not work in st (in programs such as w3m)?
163 This is a terrible hack that overdraws an image on top of the terminal emulator
164 window. It also relies on a very specific way the terminal draws it's contents.
166 A more proper (but limited way) would be using sixels. Which st doesn't
169 ## BadLength X error in Xft when trying to render emoji
171 Xft makes st crash when rendering color emojis with the following error:
173 "X Error of failed request: BadLength (poly request too large or internal Xlib length error)"
174 Major opcode of failed request: 139 (RENDER)
175 Minor opcode of failed request: 20 (RenderAddGlyphs)
176 Serial number of failed request: 1595
177 Current serial number in output stream: 1818"
179 This is a known bug in Xft (not st) which happens on some platforms and
180 combination of particular fonts and fontconfig settings.
183 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libxft/issues/6
184 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107534
185 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1498269
187 The solution is to remove color emoji fonts or disable this in the fontconfig
188 XML configuration. As an ugly workaround (which may work only on newer
189 fontconfig versions (FC_COLOR)), the following code can be used to mask color
192 FcPatternAddBool(fcpattern, FC_COLOR, FcFalse);
194 Please don't bother reporting this bug to st, but notify the upstream Xft
195 developers about fixing this bug.