Configure Xterm scrolling...

jason_f · 2009-04-07 00:28:47

I have spent waaay too much time trying to get xterm configured to my liking
I want the screen to freeze if I have scrolled up and am looking at something, and there is additional output to the terminal. i dont want it to scroll down to the new output until I press a key.

I have the key part working.(mostly. ideally the keypress would trigger the scrolling event, and not echo to the shell... but space bar works good enough.) the real problem I'm having is, no matter what I try, it will always scroll on tty output. scrollttyoutput:false seems like it should do the trick ..but nope..

here's my current Xdefaults, but I have tried every possible combination of these values to no avail...

xterm*dynamicColors:      true
xterm*eightBitInput:      true
xterm*jumpScroll:         true
xterm*multiScroll:        true
xterm*saveLines:          3000
xterm*scrollBar:          false
xterm*scrollTtyOutput:    false 
xterm*scrollKey:          true
xterm*sessionMgt:         false

bernarcher · 2009-04-07 01:34:41

I tried it (in an IceWM DE).
xterm*scrollTtyOutput: false works here -- sort of.

I did a simple test, using:
bp:~$ ls -l *;sleep 10;ls
scrolling back while sleeping.

Tty output will not cause a jump to bottom anymore, yet the screen contents keep scrolling according to any new output line.

Last edited by bernarcher (2009-04-07 01:38:26)

jason_f · 2009-04-07 01:38:50

Yeah, it doesnt jump to the bottom but it still scrolls....to me its about the same as jumping to the bottom as I cant read what I was trying to read =P
I was able to get it to work in urxvt with, i think it was a synchronous scrolling option or some such...but xterm doesnt seem to have that option or anything related to it..

bernarcher · 2009-04-07 02:04:37

There is the -s xterm command line option which should cause asynchronous scrolling, but it appears to have no effect on this behaviour.

From time to time I do use the ctrl-s/ctrl-q (stop/start output) commands to keep the display from excessive scrolling. But, alas, this is only seldom useful.

jason_f · 2009-04-07 02:08:57

bernarcher wrote:

There is the -s xterm command line option which should cause asynchronous scrolling, but it appears to have no effect on this behaviour.
From time to time I do use the ctrl-s/ctrl-q (stop/start output) commands to keep the display from excessive scrolling. But, alas, this is only seldom useful.

No luck with the -s here either..
thanks for the control-s/q though Didn't know about those...
if you want to pause the output that's handy. Only time that doesn't work as well is when whatever is running isn't outputting too much, you scroll up, and just as you find what you're looking for, it moves =P

bernarcher · 2009-04-07 02:34:38

I just found this on http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~deul/pra … hp?node=57:

Recording your Terminal Session
You can cause all output sent to you screen to also go into a file.
1. Choose the Logging option from the Main Options menu. Default filename is XtermLog.<pid>
2. Through command line options:
* Use the command line option -l to enable logging
* Use the command line option -lf &tl;filename> to define the logging file
3. Use the pipeline function from the -lf option. E.g. lek% xterm -l -lf '| grep "^ lek% " > cmdlog'

It appears to work on the xterm scroll lines buffer here. Might be worth some experimenting.

jason_f · 2009-04-07 02:37:16

bernarcher wrote:

I just found this on http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~deul/pra … hp?node=57:
Recording your Terminal Session
You can cause all output sent to you screen to also go into a file.
1. Choose the Logging option from the Main Options menu. Default filename is XtermLog.<pid>
2. Through command line options:
* Use the command line option -l to enable logging
* Use the command line option -lf &tl;filename> to define the logging file
3. Use the pipeline function from the -lf option. E.g. lek% xterm -l -lf '| grep "^ lek% " > cmdlog'
It appears to work on the xterm scroll lines buffer here. Might be worth some experimenting.

Hm..wonder how well that would handle multiple terms dumping into the same logfile...

Thanks again..will have a look at this..

bernarcher · 2009-04-07 02:45:32

jason_f wrote:

Hm..wonder how well that would handle multiple terms dumping into the same logfile...

There will be a separate logfile for every xterm which has logging enabled because the PID is assembled into the name. E.g. I found those logfiles from two xterms running simultaneously:

Xterm.log.bpmachine.2009.04.07.04.41.09.7062
Xterm.log.bpmachine.2009.04.07.04.41.19.7347

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-07 00:28:47

Configure Xterm scrolling...

#2 2009-04-07 01:34:41

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#3 2009-04-07 01:38:50

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#4 2009-04-07 02:04:37

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#5 2009-04-07 02:08:57

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#6 2009-04-07 02:34:38

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#7 2009-04-07 02:37:16

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

#8 2009-04-07 02:45:32

Re: Configure Xterm scrolling...

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