how to set X resources in Cygwin?

[Andrew DeFaria]

On 9/27/2011 9:58 AM, Tom Roche wrote:
> Tom Roche Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:14:23 +0100
>> summary: I'm running an up-to-date cygwin X on wxpsp3. I get both
>> xterm and urxvt-X to start, but cannot get either to pickup settings
>> from .Xdefaults or .Xresources. What am I doing wrong?
> Andrew DeFaria Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:15:48 -0700 (rearranged)
>> Is $HOME set correctly for X?
> Dunno what you mean by "for X." $HOME looks correct to me:
I merely mean that ~/.Xdefaults is the same file for both bash and X 
(sometimes the setting of the HOME environment is incorrect set to 
something like C:\Users\<userid> or some other Windows path).
> # after starting X, in xterm
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ echo -e "${HOME}"
Hmm... No need for all that syntactic sugar "echo $HOME" would have 
achieve the necessary effect.
> /home/tlroche
>
>> I would have thought an xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults would be a cure all
>> (provided you xrdb'ed it to the proper X server!).
>> Out of curiosity, what does ax xrdb -query reveal?
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ xrdb -query
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ xrdb -query | wc -l
> 0
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ xrdb -all -query | wc -l
> 0
I would not expect the X Resource DataBase to have anything in it before 
you -load it
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ cat .Xdefaults
> ! copy/mod from
> ! http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2007/09/cygwin-x-ratposoin-screen-rxvt-setup/
> ! https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X_resources#Xterm_resources
> ! Note:
> ! * need to capitalize first letter (or 2) of application? see
> !   http://xwinman.org/resource.php
>
> XTerm*background:  white
> ! XTerm*foreground: black
> XTerm*cursorColor: red
> XTerm*font:        xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8
> XTerm*boldFont:    xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=Bold
> XTerm*scrollBar:   True
> XTerm*rightScrollBar: True
> XTerm*scrollKey:   True
> XTerm*saveLines:   9999
> XTerm*toolBar:     True
>
> !! see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Urxvt
> Urxvt*background: white
> Urxvt*foreground: black
> ! run "fc-list" for a list of available fonts
> Urxvt*font:       xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8
> Urxvt*boldFont:   xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=Bold
> URxvt*scrollBar: False
> URxvt*scrollTtyOutput: False
> URxvt*scrollTtyKeypress: True
> URxvt*secondaryScroll: True
> URxvt*saveLines: 9999
> URxvt.perl-ext-common:  default,tabbed
>
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults
>
> tlroche@tlrZ61t ~$ xrdb -query
> XTerm*background:       white
> XTerm*cursorColor:      red
> XTerm*font:     xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8
> XTerm*boldFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=Bold
> XTerm*scrollBar:        True
> XTerm*rightScrollBar:   True
> XTerm*scrollKey:        True
> XTerm*saveLines:        9999
> XTerm*toolBar:  True
> Urxvt*background:       white
> Urxvt*foreground:       black
> Urxvt*font:     xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8
> Urxvt*boldFont: xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8:style=Bold
> URxvt*scrollBar:        False
> URxvt*scrollTtyOutput:  False
> URxvt*scrollTtyKeypress:        True
> URxvt*secondaryScroll:  True
> URxvt*saveLines:        9999
> URxvt.perl-ext-common:  default,tabbed
OK, so your resources are set.
> But if I restart X: no change in display of xterm or urxvt-X
Why restart X? I bet restarting X will start with a fresh, empty 
resource database.

Note that I agree with you - X should just be reading your ~/.Xdefaults 
properly without the need to xrdb -load. What I'm trying to see is if 
xrdb -load fixes the problem. IOW does X now see the resources. It 
should. Then we can look at why it's not reading them from ~/.Xdefaults 
automagically.

Here's some more research material: 
http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Xdefaults+cygwin+xorg+not+reading 
<http://www.google.com/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Xdefaults+cygwin+xorg+not+reading> 

> And if I restart wXP: no change.
What's "wXP"? Windows XP?
>> BTW, instead of Xterm and Rxvt you might look into using mintty from
>> Cygwin itself. It's a quite nice terminal emulator.
> I'll give that a try, except that I think I should solve this first: not using .Xdefaults seems like a prior issue.
Yes, while this may solve your term needs, it solves no other X 
application need so yes you should solve the problem.
>   Or should I instead just invoke my X apps with ginormous command lines?
Lot's of people do but I'm not a big fan of that. I believe having 
control in a conf file a much better way. Sorta like the difference 
between embedding CSS <style> tags vs. using a <link> to a .css file...
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Music is essentially useless, as life is. - George Santayana


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