Talk:xterm

This article was nominated for deletion on 12 September 2018. The result of the discussion was speedy keep.

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Xterm should be capitalized at the beginning of a sentence

The XFree86 Project's man page for xterm capitalizes xterm when it appears at the beginning of a sentence. For example:

titeInhibit (class TiteInhibit)

Specifies whether or not xterm should remove ti and te termcap entries (used to switch between alternate screens on startup of many screen-oriented programs) from the TERMCAP string. If set, xterm also ignores the escape sequence to switch to the alternate screen. Xterm supports terminfo in a different way, supporting composite control sequences (also known as private modes) 1047, 1048 and 1049 which have the same effect as the original 47 control sequence. The default for this resource is ``false.

invisible-island.net's man page for xterm does the same. For example:

EMULATIONS

Xterm provides usable emulations of related DEC terminals:

Thus, I've gone and changed "xterm" to "Xterm" at the beginnings of sentences. — Chai T. Rex (talk) 21:20, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, the FAQ, and maybe other parts of the web page, also capitalize the "T": "What is XTerm?", "XTerm also provides features...", "XTerm uses a state machine", etc. Kendall-K1 (talk) 05:25, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dec Terminal emulated

The article says vt220 however I seem to recall vt102. yum info is giving me vt102 ...

$ yum info xterm|grep Desc -A3
Description : The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System.
            : It provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for
            : programs that can't use the window system directly.

... That said https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.faq.html#what_is_vt220 and other places indicates vt220.Djm-leighpark (talk) 15:17, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The manual page is the place to look. Unlike packager's synopses, it is updated. Quoting:

The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102/VT220 and selected features from higher-level terminals such as VT320/VT420/VT520 (VTxxx). It also provides Tektronix 4014 emulation for programs that cannot use the window system directly.

The default terminal emulation since 2012 has been VT420. TEDickey (talk) 19:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, it's good to see you here! Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:09, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The wording about "selected features" dates from 2012. Before then (since 1998), the sentence mentioned "VT102/VT220". Still earlier, it only mentioned "VT102". Most readers are unfamiliar with the distinction, so the FAQ gives some information. vt100.net is a good place to look for that sort of information TEDickey (talk) 22:25, 12 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FOLDOC

Any relationship between FOLDOC and this topic appears to have long ago been rendered insignificant TEDickey (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the lede was copied from FOLDOC; unfortunately that is sourced to books which are not readily accessible, and the copied text is incorrect. Inputs for X windows are not "independent", because only the window having focus receives input events. That is alludeded to in the xterm manual page in a comment about key-repeat. Developers (for X at least) are well aware of those, but it is a pitfall for non-technical writers TEDickey (talk) 23:37, 30 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is currently insignificant and that's why I have moved most of these attributions to talk pages. Some close phrasing from FOLDOC was introduced in this version so attribution is required. ~Kvng (talk) 15:15, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

...and as I mentioned, it was inaccurate as written. Revising the sentence would presumably eliminate the need for attribution TEDickey (talk) 19:56, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If there something that you think needs to be changed, go ahead and WP:DOIT. ~Kvng (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

done TEDickey (talk) 12:01, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

odd comment about fonts

That's an odd comment about fonts. xterm's supported bitmap fonts longer than TrueType, but the latter's been supported since 2000. TEDickey (talk) 21:13, 10 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

most terminal emulators for X

Looking at this topic's history, that was Dave Gerard's comment, which may/may not be well informed. The title-howto gives a reasonably good overview of terminal emulators on X during the 1990s (and except for the Sun program, those are all inspired by xterm, if one reads the relevant documentation). It omits a few such as SCO's terminal (which may have been motivated by xterm, but actually emulates the SCO console -- like Sun's it isn't VT100). TEDickey (talk) 17:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]