Arch Linux

Starfish

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2015-10-21

Posts: 134

[SOLVED] Invalid character in xterm using powerline

Here's the deal:
I have just installed powerline (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pyth … rline-git/), especially for tmux.
It worked fine except the fact that this particular sign:  (http://www.charbase.com/e0b0-unicode-invalid-character), which is used to show the segments in an arrow-like manner, was not properly displayed. Instead, I got this generic rectangle.
I found out that the problem lies in xterm, since at least one other terminal emulator (xfce terminal) can display it.

Despite the proper character encoding

$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8

$ cat ~/.Xresources
xterm*termName: xterm-256color
xterm*faceName: "DejaVu Sans Mono Book:size=13:antialias=true"
xterm*font: 7x13
xterm*maximized: true
xterm*locale: true

xterm is unable to recognize this particular symbol.

This leads me to my question(s): How can I make xterm render this unassigned or invalid symbol, how, in general, are "private user areas" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Use_Areas) defined and in which file(s) are the definitions stored?

Last edited by Starfish (2016-09-05 16:32:37)

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." - Master Oogway

atomicbeef

Member

Registered: 2015-09-30

Posts: 98

Re: [SOLVED] Invalid character in xterm using powerline

I don't use XTerm myself, but according to the XTerm FAQ, you should try using uxterm.

Starfish

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2015-10-21

Posts: 134

Re: [SOLVED] Invalid character in xterm using powerline

It was a pain in the butt, but I cracked it, following partially these instructions: http://powerline.readthedocs.io/en/mast … ched-fonts.

Since I have bothered the forum with my problem in the first place, I feel obliged to post the solution:
1.) Download the fonts (https://github.com/powerline/fonts) and run its installation script. A lot of tty and other files should now be somewhere in /home/$(whoami)/.local/share/fonts/.
2.) Find the directory for "true type fonts" using

xset q

(should be /usr/share/fonts/TTF/).
Copy your favorite font, adapted to powerline, to this directory, i.e.

cp /home/$(whoami)/.local/share/fonts/<font name>.ttf /usr/share/fonts/TTF/<font name>.ttf

3.) Add the following to your ~/.Xresources

xterm*renderFont=true
xterm*faceName=<font name> !no .tty

Done.

I edited the title since the problem was intimately connected to powerline.

EDIT: @atomicbeef: Sorry, started typing this answer before you posted yours. uxterm gave me the same trouble.

Last edited by Starfish (2016-09-05 16:34:08)

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." - Master Oogway