Xterm and .Xresources

[John Chambers,,,781-647-1813]

Jerry A Clabaugh <JerryC at world.std.COM> writes:
	On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Jerry A Clabaugh wrote:

	> I've got my window manager (fvwm2) set up to put an xterm
	> up when I start X windows.  I'd like to have it come up
	> with 'Large' VT font, which I was able to do by putting this
	> .Xresources file in my home directory:
	> 
	> xterm*font: -misc-fixed-medium-*-*-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
	> xterm*geometry: 70x28
	> 
	> The problem now is that the xterm pop-up menus don't work
	> anymore! (The ones you get when you push a mouse button over
	> an xterm with ctrl held down).  Anyone know what I need
	> to do?

	DON'T DO THAT! 

Whever not?  Isn't this how .Xresources is supposed to be used?  Just
shouting  at  someone  to NOT DO something isn't very helpful, unless
you give some explanation as to what you're shouting to not  do.   Do
you mean to not use .Xresources? How about .Xdefaults? Or do you mean
to not use xterm* entries?  Or perhaps you're  shouting  to  not  use
*font entries?  Or maybe you know of something broken specifically in
xterm*font?

	Instead, launch your xterm as

	xterm -fn "-misc-fixed-medium-*-*-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"

There's an obvious objection to this: It affects only xterms that you
start by hand. A second obvious objection is that you're asking us to
type a rather obscure, difficult-to-type command, but of  course  one
could always put it into a script. But the major problem is that this
has no affect at all on the xterms started  by  apps,  including  the
various  menus  that  are all over the place.  This is presumably why
someone would  prefer  to  put  the  resources  into  .Xresources  or
.Xdefaults,  so  the X server passes them on to every xterm no matter
how they are started.

In any case, it sure would help if there were a coherent  explanation
of  all  this.   "man xterm" is rather sketchy and vague, despite its
size.  It's far from obvious what are valid values for  X  resources.
But  just  shouting  to not do something, without any explanation, is
neither convincing nor illuminating.

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