[X-Unix] How to set up initial xterm defaults (or what do you use as a xterm on the Mac)

[Eugene Lee]

On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 08:17:59PM -0400, Juan Manuel Palacios wrote:
: 
: 	Hey Eugene, thanks for the tip! Needless to say, it worked like a 
: charm. Now, I find my Terminal.app experience to be the best and 
: therefore I wish to mimic it whenever the use of xterm is inevitable, 
: and the only things left, I think, are the background and font colors. 

This stuff is in the xterm man page:

	xterm -bg color1 -fg color2

: In Terminal.app I have both of these set to black and green, 
: respectively, like in the old days... ;-) Is there any way I can preset 
: them in the /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc config file?

Those settings are not exactly set in your ~/.xinitrc file (BTW, you
shouldn't touch the system xinitrc file as a general rule).  The normal
way is via your xterm resources stored in your ~/.Xresources file that
is read by xrdb within your ~/.xinitrc file.  For example, let's say you
like a blue background and white text.  You can either do it per-xterm:

	xterm -bg blue -fg white

or make it a "global" setting for all of your xterms by adding these
lines to your ~/.Xresources file and restart X11.app(*):

	XTerm*VT100*background:		blue
	XTerm*VT100*foreground:		white

(*) Technically, there are other ways besides restarting X11.app, but
I'll let other people volunteer their explanations.  :-)

: I think I might want to 
: use different colors for clarity's sake, but knowing how to set them in 
: the first place is a major plus. Now, I know I spoke about the xterm 
: man page and that you pointed me to the X one, but pleeeaassseee.... 
: they're long! Can I be indulged here with a new tip, pretty please??

The man page does get a bit long in the tooth.  One alternative is to
use a OS X app that not only formats the man page in a nice GUI window
but also presents other useful features like searches.


-- 
Eugene Lee
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/