keywords:icewm,osx,quartz,xquartz,clipboard,macos,linux,x11,xterm,meta,xrdb,dot,Xdefaults,wierd,ascii,double,click,double-click,select,word,wrap,line,linewrap
description:Installation, configuration and hints X-windows, xterm, for Icewm window
manager on OSX, with other X windows and xterm hints.
title:X11 hints, xterm, also with hints for Icewm on Apple MacOS




Table of contents
-----------------
Introduction
Homepage for xterm and the xterm FAQ
Copy work around for xterm and the clipboard
Meta sends escape to fix emacs -nw in xterm
Multi-item clipboard using xfce4-clipman




Introduction
------------

Hints in this file have become more about xterm than IceWM. The xterm
info may eventually move. In any case, the information is generally
X11 related, and often applies to several window managers, not just
IceWM.




Homepage for xterm and the xterm FAQ
------------------------------------

As far as I can tell, Thomas Dickey is the current main programmer for
xterm. See his FAQ for more history and info including how to report
xterm bugs:

http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.faq.html




Double click word select for line wrapped words in xterm
--------------------------------------------------------

The work around: double click the end of the word which is on the next
line (or in extreme cases, several lines down).

The unexpected feature: In some environments double click will select
only up to the visual break, leaving the part of the word which
follows on the next line(s) unselected.

The expected behavior: double clicking a word in xterm will select the
entire word, even if the word has been wrapped in xterm. With X11
windowing systems such as KDE this works as expected. By "wrapped" I
mean that the word has been broken at the right margin and continues
on the next line (or lines). The word is only visually wrapped and has
not been physically separated. A "word" in xterm is defined by a
regular expression which can be configured. 

Under Apple's Mac OS (OSX) Quartz window manager, and with IceWM on
the Mac, the expected feature is broken. Double click will select up
to the break. The work around is to select the end of the word which
is on the next line (or in extreme cases, several lines down). Select
works backwards to be beginning of the line. The unexpected feature
(bug?) is that select does not work forward to the end of the line.

Since select works forward and backward under KDE, the feature may be
an issue with the window manager, and not with xterm.




Copy work around for xterm and the clipboard
--------------------------------------------

This applies to xterm. If you use xterm, you may find that even when
xterm is set to copy selected text into the clipboard, it either
doesn't work, or it does work but the clipboard is not converted to
the quartz-wm OSX MacOS clipboard. Emacs copy works fine.

The work around: use the right mouse button. Instead of doing a
left-click selection of text to copy, use this technique:

Drag over a few characters at one end of selection.

Right click at the other end of the selection. The selection briefly
highlights.

Now you will find that your copied selection is in the X11 clipboard,
and has converted properly to the quartz-wm OSX MacOS clipboard.

This workaround applies to clipboard problems with native Linux KDE
desktops as well. 





Meta sends escape to fix emacs -nw in xterm
-------------------------------------------

This hint applies to xterm. By default the meta (alt) key in xterm
does some weird character modification and ends up typing some high
ascii characters. The meta key will work normally in X-windows Emacs
and xev which adds to the confusion.

The solution is to control-left click to bring up the first of the
three xterm menus, and choose "Meta Sends Escape". (Control-middle and
control-right bring up the other two xterm menus.)

To make this setting permanent, add the following line to your
.Xdefaults file in your home directory.

xterm*metaSendsEscape: true

The .Xdefaults setting should take effect the next time you create an
xterm window. In general, you should run xrdb to update your X
settings after changing .Xdefaults. Comments in .Xdefaults are
prefixed with the ! (exclamation) character. I add a comment to my
.Xdefaults with the follow command line as a reminder to myself:

xrdb -l .Xdefaults


Rumor has it that xterm defaults can also be set in the file:

/etc/x11/app-defaults/XTerm

Here is a small .Xdefaults file (between -- and --):

--
! This is a sample .Xdefaults file. Remember to run xrdb after
! modifications to this file.

! xrdb -l .Xdefaults


xterm*metaSendsEscape: true

--




Multi-item clipboard using xfce4-clipman
----------------------------------------

This brief note is about about icewm, clipboard, multiple item
clipboards, and clip board managers. I couldn't find a web page with
this simple solution to the icewm clipboard issue.

To get a multi-item clipboard in icewm, run the icewmtray (in the
background), then run the xfce4-clipman clipboard. (You'll typically
exec icewmtray from your .xinitrc file.

Icewmtray doesn't seem to do anything until there are plugins. Then
the plugins magically appear next to the date (at least in my icewm
toolbar).

The Xfce4 clipboard plugin xfce4-clipman saves items that you've
copied. When used with "quartz-wm --only-proxy", the clipboard
synchronizes with OSX.

As far as I can tell, xfce4-clipman is a clipboard manager that has
all the basics available in Klipper, but without the KDE overhead.

While it may seem odd, I'm running xfce4-clipman via an ssh session to
a Linux server. Parts of my X desktop are local to the Macintosh, and
parts are coming from the Linux server via the forwarded X windows session.

Use ssh -Y to export X11 untrusted to the Linux server. It is not
necessary to have X11 running on the Linux side. 

This all works fine with OSX 10.6. I had serious problems with getting
icewm to build under 10.5. MacPorts seems to work much better than Fink.

Here is my .xinitrc. Put this file in your home directory, for example
"/Users/mst3k".

exec quartz-wm --only-proxy &
exec /usr/local/bin/icewmbg &
exec /usr/local/bin/icewmtray &
exec /usr/local/bin/icewm

In my case ssh'ing to a Linux server where I run xfce4-clipman, but
you should be able to run xfce4-clipman on the Mac.