Re: Can't make rxvt pay attention to resources.
>>>>> Philip Tuckey <pat@rs3.univ-fcomte.fr> writes:
> ... rxvt doesn't interrogate the database of X resources maintained
> by the X server, but only looks in the file .Xdefaults. (I think
> this used to be the way X resources were specified, a long time
> ago???) According to the doc, rxvt is smaller than xterm because it
> doesn't implement the X toolkit; maybe this is related?
> ...
That explains it. According to one of my favorite X books, "The X
Window System ..." by Young, the Xt Intrinsics load resources using
this algorithm:
1. Load /usr/lib/X11/${LANG}app-defaults/<class>
2. If step 1 fails, load /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/<class>
3. Load $XAPPLRESLANGPATH<class>
4. If step 3 fails, load $XAPPLRESDIR<class>
5. Load data in RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
6. If RESOURCE_MANAGER property does not exist, load $HOME/.Xdefaults.
7. Load file specified by $XENVIRONMENT.
8. If $XENVIRONMENT is not set, load $HOME/.Xdefaults-<host>
9. Load command line options.
Where <class> is the class of the application, which is often the name
of the executable with the first letter or two capitalized. The man
page or equivalent should document the class name.
The RESOURCE_MANAGER property of the root window is conveniently set
(or retrieved) using xrdb.
The <host> above is the hostname of the machine on which the client is
running.
The interesting and sometimes tricky thing is that $HOME/.Xdefaults is
ignored if the RESOURCE_MANAGER property is set.
Anyway, it seems clear that rxvt does not conform to the Xt algorithm.
--
Steve Preston (spreston@gte.com)
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