ETERM(1)

🎀 ETERM(1) from X Tools 🎀

okay bestie, part 1 of 7 is here 💖 let's get into it

✨ NAME ✨

Eterm — the Enlightened terminal emulator for the X Window System 🌈

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Eterm [options]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so Eterm — version 0.9.6 — is a color vt102 terminal emulator and it's built to be an xterm(1) replacement 💅. The whole vibe is Freedom of Choice, which means it hands as much power, flexibility, and freedom as possible over to you, the user 👑.

It's designed to look good and work well 🦋, but it goes the feature-rich route instead of minimalism ✨. Eterm uses Imlib for its advanced graphic abilities 🧚. Keep scrolling for all the deets 💜.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

ok this part is important bestie 🫶 The Eterm options are listed below. Because of the freedom-of-choice thing, options can get eliminated or default values can be picked at compile-time 🛠️, so the options and defaults I list might not match the version actually installed on your system 💀.

Options that don't take a parameter (besides -h and --help) are boolean 🌸. If you use the POSIX (short) option, you're forcing the parameter to "true". If you go with the long option, you can use any accepted boolean value: "yes", "on", "1", or "true" turns it on, and "no", "off", "0", or "false" turns it off. Same goes for boolean values in the configuration file 🧚.

• -t theme, --theme theme — Load the theme you name 🎨. Check the FAQ if you want the full tea on what counts as an Eterm theme.
• -X conffile, --config-file conffile — Use your own user config file name 📁. If you don't, Eterm falls back to the default, user.cfg. The theme config file is always theme.cfg, no exceptions 🙅‍♀️.
• -d displayname, --display displayname — Try to open a window on the X display you name 🖥️. If you skip this option, Eterm uses whatever the DISPLAY environment variable says.
• --debug level — Show debugging output 🐛. level is an integer from 0 to 5 that controls how chatty the debugging output gets.
• --install — Tells Eterm to install its own colormap instead of using the default one 🌈.
• -h, --help — Prints a message describing the available options 📜.
• --version — Prints the Eterm version and its compile-time configuration 🔍.
• -r, --reverse-video — Reverse video! It swaps the foreground and background colors 🔄.
• -b color, --background-color color — Sets color as the background color 🖤. Heads up: if reverse video is also on, this one actually becomes the foreground color 🙃.
• -f color, --foreground-color color — Sets color as the foreground (text) color 🤍. Same catch: if reverse video is also selected, it actually becomes the background color 🔁.
• --color0 color, ..., --color15 color — Use color as color X 🌈, where X is the number from 0 through 15.
• --colorBD color — Use color as the bold color 💪.
• --colorUL color — Use color as the underline color 〰️.
• --pointer-color color — Use color as the pointer color 👆.
• -c color, --cursor-color color — Use color as the cursor color 💫.
• --cursor-text-color color — Use color as the cursor text color 📝.
• -g geom, --geometry geom — Sets the window geometry, written as Width x Height+X coord+Y coord, i.e. 100x200+0+100 📐.
• -i,--iconic — Starts in an iconified state 🪟. This only works if your window manager supports iconification, so no promises otherwise 🤷‍♀️.
• -n name, --name name — Sets the name of the current instance to name 🏷️. This also affects the icon title and the window title string, unless you've explicitly set those yourself.
• -T title, --title title — Sets the window's title text to title 🎀.
• --icon-name text — Sets the icon title text to text 🖼️.
• -B type, --scrollbar-type type — Picks the scrollbar style 🎢. type can be motif, xterm, or next.
• --scrollbar-width width — Sets the scrollbar width to width, in pixels 📏. Eterm doesn't put any restrictions on this number, but keep it reasonable, bestie 🙏.
• -D desktop, --desktop desktop — Starts Eterm on the desktop you pick 🖥️. desktop should be an integer between 0 and your highest-numbered desktop.
  • > NOTE: You need a GNOME-compliant window manager for this one to work 🚨. For more on the _WIN_WORKSPACE property and how to support it, check http://www.gnome.org/devel/gnomewm/.
• --line-space num — Adds an extra gap, in pixels, between the lines in the terminal window 📖.
• --bold-font font — Sets the bold text font to font 🅱️.
• -F font, --font font — Sets the normal text font to font 🔤.
• --default-font-index num — Specifies the index of the default (normal) text font 🔢.
• --font1 font, ..., --font4 font — Sets the font at the specified index (1-4) to font 🖋️.
• --proportional — Okay, this one is a whole thing 🌀. It says the font in use is proportional and asks for standard deviation-based character cell spacing 📊.
  • Terminals need fixed-width character cells to keep columnar alignment, even when proportionally spaced fonts are in use 📐. Some proportional fonts have a huge gap between their minimum and maximum character widths 😵.
  • This option picks a cell size up to two standard deviations above the average character width, but it won't go past the maximum width of the largest glyph 🎯.
  • Characters bigger than the chosen cell width will overwrite (or get overwritten by) other characters, and they may leave pixel droppings 🫠. That's an expected side-effect of an imperfect scenario, so if you object to it, just don't use this option 🙅‍♀️.
• --font-fx effects — Applies effects to the terminal window font ✨. The value of effects is one single string with a series of corner/color pairs 🎨.
  • Each pair says which corner a character's drop shadow should go toward, plus what color that shadow will be 🖤. The corner keyword comes first: top_left or tl, top_right or tr, bottom_left or bl, or bottom_right or br. Each corner gets a color right after it.
  • There are shortcuts for the common looks 💅:
    • outline followed by a color gives you a single-color outline.
    • shadow gives you a single-color drop shadow. You can add an optional corner (default bottom_right) and then the color.
    • emboss dark_color light_color gives a 3-D embossed look.
    • carved dark_color light_color gives a carved-out look.
    • (Of course, with the last two, the 3-D look only works if you choose the light and dark colors wisely 🧠.)
  • For no font effects at all, just use none 🙈.
  • The default is bottom_right black, a black drop shadow 🖤. It greatly improves the visibility of lightly colored fonts sitting on light spots in a background image 🌟.
  • Font effects are not active in solid color mode 💀.
• -P pic, --background-pixmap pic — Uses pic as the background image 🌄. pic can be in any format Imlib understands, which basically means just about anything: JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PPM, and more 📸. The image gets tiled by default.
  • To set an alternate geometry, follow the filename with an @ sign and a geometry string 📐. The format is @wxh+x+y:ops:
    • w and h are the horizontal and vertical scaling percentages.
    • x and y are the horizontal and vertical alignment percentages.
    • ops is a colon-delimited list of operations: tiled (tiles the image) and propscaled (proportional scaling) 🧩.
  • You can combine these operations for different effects 🪄.
• -I pic, --icon pic — Sets the icon pixmap file to pic 🖼️. It works similarly to -P above.
• --up-arrow-pixmap pic — Same idea as above, but this one sets the scrollbar's up-arrow ⬆️.
• --down-arrow-pixmap pic — Same idea again, this time for the scrollbar's down-arrow ⬇️.
• --trough-pixmap pic — Sets the scrollbar's background, the trough 🛁.
• --anchor-pixmap pic — Sets the scrollbar's anchor image ⚓.
• --menu-pixmap pic — Sets the menu background image 📋.
• -O, --trans — Gives you a pseudo-transparent Eterm 👻. The image is taken straight from the root window, so any requests to change the pixmap get ignored 🚫.
  • If you're not using Enlightenment as your window manager (http://www.enlightenment.org/), you'll need something else. Another compliant window manager works too, and someone told the author that WindowMaker works as well 🪟. Otherwise, you'll need the Esetroot program (found in the utils/ directory) to set your root background image 🛠️.
• -0, --itrans — Activates the immotile transparency optimization for transparent Eterm windows 🧊.
  • > NOTE: This does not turn on transparency. You still have to include -O or --trans 🚨.
  • Use it on transparent windows that are shaded or tinted and that don't move around the desktop much 🌙. For a more detailed explanation, check the Mon Mar 6 21:11:13 PST 2000 ChangeLog entry 📜.
• --viewport-mode — This activates a special Eterm mode that's kinda hard to describe in words 🔮. Picture pseudo-transparency, where the desktop background moves through the Eterm window as you drag it, so it always lines up with the desktop image 🖼️.
  • Now picture the same effect, but the image is any pixmap you choose instead of the desktop image 🎨. It gets scaled or tiled up to the size of the desktop, and dragging Eterm around reveals different parts of the image as you move, like a small viewport window on a ship or submarine 🚢.
  • It's especially keen if you open several Eterms in this mode with the same image 🤩.
• --shade percentage — Shades the background image or transparency by the percentage you set 🌑.
• --tint mask
• --tint color — okay so this one tints the background pixmap, and you can shade either the image file or the see-through bits 🌈✨. The mask is an integer, usually written in hex as 0xRRGGBB, where RR, GG, and BB are hex numbers from 00 to ff (that's 0 to 255 in decimal) showing how bright the image's red, green, and blue are 💖. 00 masks that color out entirely, while ff leaves it totally alone 🫶. You can also skip the mask and use an X color like grey75, MidnightBlue, or #babb7f 🦋.
• --cmod brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] — this is a color modifier for the whole image 💅. Each of the three values is a number greater than or equal to 0. You can write them in decimal, in octal (if they start with 0), or in hex (if they start with 0x) 🔢. 256 (0x100) means 100%, or "leave that value unchanged," 0 means 0%, and 512 (0x200) is 200%, and so on 🌸. Heads up, though: overflow can happen with excessively high values 💀. Only brightness is required, but if you want contrast you need to include brightness, and if you want gamma you need both of the others too 👑.
• --cmod-red brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] — same vibe as --cmod, but it only touches the red values 🔴.
• --cmod-green brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] — same as above, but for the green values 💚.
• --cmod-blue brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] — same as above, but for the blue values 💙.
• -p newpath, --path newpath — sets the pic search path 🧚. When --background-pixmap or any other pixmap option is used, Eterm looks in this path to find the image.
• --cache size — sets the size, in bytes, of the Imlib2 cache 🧠.
• -N list, --anim list — this is an animation list for cycling the background pixmap 🎞️. It needs two or more words. The first word is the delay in seconds between background updates, so pick something reasonable to make sure Eterm doesn't spend its whole life rendering backgrounds 😭. Every remaining word is a background image and uses the same syntax as the -P option above, geometry string included.
• -M font, --mfont font — sets the normal multibyte text font to font 📝.
• --mfont1 font, ..., --mfont4 font — sets multibyte font X to font 🌷.
• --mencoding encoding — sets the multichar encoding mode to eucj, sjis, or euckr 🇯🇵🇰🇷.
• --input-method method — sets the XIM input method ⌨️.
• --preedit-type type — sets the XIM preedit type ✍️.
• -l, --login-shell — makes the new shell a login shell 🔐.
• -s, --scrollbar — enables the scrollbar. This is the default 📜.
• -u, --utmp-logging — tries to turn on proper utmp logging. For this to work, Eterm probably needs to run setuid or setgid, usually setuid root 🔑.
• -v, --visual-bell — turns on the "visual bell," so the window flashes or blinks instead of beeping ✨.
• -H, --home-on-output — jumps to the bottom whenever there's output 🏠.
• --home-on-input — jumps to the bottom whenever there's input ⬇️.
• -q, --no-input — stops Eterm from accepting keyboard input and keeps the window manager from focusing it. Super useful for log tailers and stuff like that 🙈.
• --scrollbar-right — puts the scrollbar on the right-hand side 👉.
• --scrollbar-floating — shows the scrollbar without a trough 🫧.
• --scrollbar-popup — only shows the scrollbar when the Eterm window is focused 🪄.
• -x, --borderless — forces Eterm to have no borders 🖼️.
• -S, --sticky — starts Eterm as a sticky window, so it shows up on all desktops 📌.
• -m, --map-alert — un-iconifies the window on beep 🔔.
• -8, --meta8 — makes the Meta key set the 8th bit in the char 🎀.
• --double-buffer — instead of drawing text straight onto the window, Eterm allocates an extra pixmap the size of the terminal window. The background and the text get rendered into that pixmap, and then it's set as the window background 🖌️. It uses extra memory in the X server, but Eterm can ignore expose events, so redraws are faster 🚀.
• --no-cursor — disables the text cursor 🫥.
• --pause — after the child process ends, Eterm waits for a keypress before it exits ⏸️.
• --xterm-select — copies xterm's treatment of cutchars. The only real difference is what happens when you double-click a single cutchar sitting between two words. When this is on, only that single character gets selected. When it's off, that character gets selected along with the two words. The off behavior is handy for double-clicking the space between someone's first and last names, or the @ sign in an e-mail address, etc. 💅
• --select-line — when this is on, a triple-click selects the entire line from beginning to end. When it's off, a triple-click only selects from the current word to the end of the line 📏.
• --select-trailing-spaces — decides whether trailing spaces in a selection are kept (on) or thrown out (off) ✂️.
• --report-as-keysyms — reports certain keystrokes as keysyms and modifiers instead of escape sequences 🗝️.

💀 NOTE: this one is only for programs that support this special Eterm mode. Don't turn it on unless you're running a program that actually uses this mode!

• --buttonbar — toggles the display of all buttonbars 🔘.
• --resize-gravity — if true, Eterm automatically detects the nearest corner, and font-change resizes make the window gravitate toward that corner 🧲.
• --overstrike-bold — if true (the default), Eterm fakes a bold font by printing each character twice, with the second pass offset by one pixel. This makes characters look thicker without needing a special font 🖤. You might want to turn this off if you use a specific color for bold.
• --bold-brightens-foreground — if true (the default), Eterm uses the "bold" ANSI color attribute to brighten the foreground color by using the high-intensity colors (8 through 15) instead of the low-intensity colors (0 through 7) ✨. Heads up that picking a specific color for bold will override this.
• --blink-brightens-background — if true (the default), Eterm uses the "blink" ANSI color attribute to brighten the background color by using the high-intensity colors (8 through 15) instead of the low-intensity colors (0 through 7) 🌟.
• --colors-suppress-bold — if true (the default), any colored text (so anything not drawn in the default foreground color) doesn't get any other special bold treatment, like a bold font or bold overstrike 🎨.
• --big-font-key keysym — sets the keysym that makes the font bigger. The default is Shift plus the + key on the keypad. Ctrl-> or Meta-> may also work, if you #define one of the hotkeys in src/feature.h 🔍.
• --small-font-key keysym — sets the keysym that makes the font smaller. The default is Shift plus the - key on the keypad. Ctrl-< or Meta-< may also work, if you #define one of the hotkeys in src/feature.h 🔎.
• --meta-mod num — picks which X modifier (1-5) gets treated as the Meta key. Check out xmodmap(1) and the output of xmodmap -pm for more deets 🧪.
• --alt-mod num — same as --meta-mod, but for the Alt key 🔀.
• --numlock-mod num — same as --meta-mod, but for the NumLock key 🔢.
• --greek-keyboard mode — uses the Greek keyboard mapping, either iso or ibm 🏛️.
• --app-keypad — starts Eterm in application keypad mode, as opposed to normal keypad mode 🎹.
• --app-cursor — starts Eterm in application cursor key mode, as opposed to normal cursor key mode ➡️.
• -L num, --save-lines num — sets how many lines go in the scrollback buffer 📚.
• -a size, --min-anchor-size size — sets the minimum height, in pixels, of the scrollbar anchor 📏.

💀 NOTE: this causes abnormal scrolling behavior when you combine it with large scrollback buffers! Be careful with this one, bestie.

• -w width, --border-width width — sets the window's border width to width 🪟. This controls the gap between the edge of the X window and the edge of the terminal window. It has nothing to do with the window border your window manager supplies, so don't mix them up 🙃.
• --print-pipe pipe — the pipe used for the PrintScreen function 🖨️.
• --cut-chars separators — sets the separators for double-click selection ✂️.
• --finished-title title — the string Eterm adds to its title bar if --pause is specified and the child process finishes 🏁.
• --finished-text text — same as above, but the text shows up in the terminal window itself 💬.
• --term-name TERM — uses TERM as the value of $TERM 🏷️.
• --pipe-name pipe — specifies a named pipe to display output from. This is handy on systems where syslog output goes to a named pipe, like /dev/xconsole on Debian 🐧.
• -a line, --attribute line — this one passes config file attributes on the command line 🧩. line should be a single string, so you'll almost certainly need to quote it. The first word of line has to be the context (see the config file section below), which parses the rest of the line. For example, you can set the foreground color with -a 'color foreground blue', or add a binding with -a 'actions bind anymod button1 to script exit' 🎀. This option only works with config file attributes that aren't context-sensitive. In other words, menus and imageclasses can't be specified with it 🙅.
• -C, --console — grabs console messages 👀. Depending on your system, Eterm may need to be setuid root to do this.
• -e command, --exec command — runs command instead of a shell, and forces Eterm mode 🚀.
• -U URL, --url URL — okay so this one lets you pick up a "screen" session at a URL instead of a local one (the local one is -U "") 💅 URLs look like screen://user@host.dom:port/screen_options, and every part is optional. If you leave stuff out, it defaults to screen://current_user@localhost:22/-RDD 🌸 Using this forces Escreen mode and overrides --exec ✨

Only screen-options are allowed here (see man screen for those). Do NOT pass a command here, with or without arguments 🙅 If you want to send a command to the screen-session, use screen [<options>] <command> [<args>] instead.

• -Z lclport:fw:fwport,delay, --fw lclport:fw:fwport,delay — this one is giving tunnel energy 🦋 If the URL you gave to -U is hiding in an intranet behind firewall fw, Eterm builds an SSH-tunnel to that firewall (to port 22/SSH, or fwport if you give one) from your local machine. It'll use any available port number, or lclport if you pick one. Then, after delay seconds (or a sensible default if you skip it), it tries to open a screen session on the host behind the firewall using ssh -p localport ... localhost screen (cf. ssh -L) 🧚

---

✨ THEMES ✨

Okay, Eterm is built on the philosophy of Freedom of Choice 🌈 Every user should get to pick the environment they want to live in, and the tools should totally support that. So Eterm is extremely configurable, and it's giving main character energy 👑

Eterm supports something called "themes", which should feel familiar if you've used Enlightenment, icewm, or Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT 💜 A theme is basically a collection of resources that change as many aspects of a program's look and feel as possible. For example, an Enlightenment theme lets you customize menus, window borders, desktops, icons, iconbars, and literally everything else about how E looks and feels 🎀

An Eterm theme is made of a primary configuration file, always called theme.cfg, sitting in a directory that has the same name as the theme. That directory has to be a child of one of the directories listed in CONFIG_SEARCH_PATH in src/feature.h 🫶 The theme can also include extra config files that the primary theme.cfg references, plus pixmaps, menu files, documentation, etc. Those are all allowed as extras on top of the minimum requirement ✨

By convention and default, themes should live in ~/.Eterm/themes/<theme_name>/ or /usr/share/Eterm/themes/<theme_name> 🌸

Eterm also supports a user configuration file as a supplement to the theme config file 💖 The default name is user.cfg, and it follows the exact same syntax as any other config file. It gets searched for using the same algorithm as theme.cfg, and any settings in user.cfg override previous values for those settings defined by the theme. So it's recommended that your user.cfg files aren't complete config files. Just keep the values you actually want to override 🙈

NOTE: If you have a user.cfg file in the Eterm theme directory or in ~/.Eterm/, it will override any previous settings, even if you're running a different theme 💀 For example, say you run the trans theme, but ~/.Eterm/themes/Eterm/user.cfg has a mode line that sets the image mode to "image" rather than "trans". Then you will NOT get transparency. This is why user.cfg files should be kept small and only override settings you know you want to enforce. On the flip side, if you were running the trans theme and had a user.cfg in the trans theme (or in ~/.Eterm/themes/trans/), that one would be found before the one in the Eterm theme.

Almost all command line options can be enabled or disabled in the theme's configuration file (the default is /usr/share/Eterm/themes/Eterm/theme.cfg). The next section has all the details on the format and usage of that file 📜

---

✨ CONFIGURATION ✨

Since Eterm 0.9.6 is based on the concept of themes, it is vital that you have a thorough understanding of the previous section before taking on this one 🧠 The previous section and this one were written by the same person who wrote the Eterm code that handles options, config files, and themes, so it's probably the most authoritative documentation on the subject you're going to find 👑

From here on out, I'm going to assume you've read the stuff above and know how to change the default value for the theme. It's highly recommended that you keep a copy of the Eterm theme config file that comes with Eterm handy while you read this 📖

Okay, first the general idea 💅 The theme.cfg file is made of comments and non-comments. Comments begin with a pound sign and continue to the end of the line. Lines of whitespace are also ignored. The rest of the file is the config stuff, which is divided into sections (called "contexts") and variables (called "attributes"). There are several contexts listed below in sections. Each attribute has to be inside a certain context to be valid. For instance, foreground is perfectly acceptable in the color context, but it would get rejected if it showed up in, say, the toggles context. This keeps the config file organized and lets multiple contexts have attributes with the same name (like the scrollbar attributes in the color and toggles sections) 🎀

Each context has to be enclosed in a begin...end pair that specifies the type of section. The statement begin toggles starts the toggles context, and the next end statement terminates it. (You'll notice some end statements have the context name after them. That's just for readability; any text after the word end gets ignored 🦋)

The rest of this section is a step-by-step breakdown of the config file, including what can go in each section. Heads up: some attributes (and even entire contexts) might not be available depending on what support was compiled into Eterm by whoever built it ⚠️

🌸 MAGIC NUMBER

The first line of the config file must contain a "magic number" type line. This lets Eterm verify that it's reading an Eterm config file and not something else, like an Enlightenment 0.13 and earlier config file 🙅 The line should look like this:

<Eterm-VERSION>

where VERSION is the Eterm version the config file is intended for. For example, config files written for Eterm 0.9 should have <Eterm-0.9> as their first line, followed immediately by a newline ✨

🎨 COLOR CONTEXT

This context contains color specs 🌈 With the exception of the terminal colors 0-15, all colors should be either a valid color name or an RGB string as outlined in the X11(7) man page.

• foreground color — sets the foreground (text) color 📝
• background color — sets the background color 🖤
• cursor color — sets the cursor color 💖
• cursor_text color — sets the cursor text color 💜
• pointer color — sets the mouse pointer color 🖱️
• video { normal | reverse } — normal won't reverse the foreground and background colors. reverse (aka reverse video) will 🔄
• color num color — sets terminal color num (0-15) to the color name, color string, or set of 3 decimal/hex/octal RGB values specified by color 🌟
• color { bd | ul } color — sets the terminal bold (bd) or underline (ul) color to the color name, color string, or set of 3 decimal/hex/octal RGB values specified by color 💅

🪟 ATTRIBUTES CONTEXT

This context contains X11 attributes 🪟 Most of these depend on the cooperation of the window manager, so keep that in mind 🫶

• geometry geom — sets the startup geometry using the geometry string geom. It should be in the format WxH+X+Y, where W is the width, H is the height, and +X and +Y are the X and Y offsets. If the signs on X and Y are positive, the coordinates are offsets (in pixels) from the left and top of the screen, respectively. If the signs are negative, the offsets are relative to the right and bottom of the screen, respectively 📐
• title title — uses title as the text in the title bar of the Eterm window 🏷️
• name name — uses name as the resource name of the Eterm window 🧚
• iconname name — uses name as the icon name of the Eterm window icon 🖼️
• desktop num — starts Eterm on desktop num. NOTE: This requires a GNOME-compliant Window Manager. Check out http://www.gnome.org/devel/gnomewm/ for more info on the _WIN_WORKSPACE property and how to support it 🖥️
• scrollbar_type type — uses a scrollbar with the type style. type can be any of motif, xterm, or next 📜
• scrollbar_width num — uses a scrollbar that is num pixels wide 📏
• font num font and font bold font — sets the numth font, or the bold font, to font 🔤
• font default num — specifies that the numth font should be considered the "default" font ⭐
• font proportional boolean — specifies that the font in use is proportional and requests standard deviation-based character cell spacing. Terminals must use fixed-width character cells to maintain proper columnal alignment, even when proportionally-spaced fonts are in use. Some proportionally-spaced fonts vary greatly between the minimum and maximum character widths. This option picks a character cell size that's up to two standard deviations above the average character width, but it won't exceed the maximum width of the largest glyph. Heads up: characters larger than the chosen cell width will overwrite (or be overwritten by) other characters and may tend to leave pixel droppings 🙈 This behavior is an expected side-effect of an imperfect scenario. If you object to this behavior, don't use this option 🚫
• font fx effects — specifies the effects to apply to the terminal window font 💫 The value of effects is a single string containing a series of corner/color pairs. These pairs define toward which corner a drop shadow of each character should be made, and what color that shadow will be. The corner is specified first using these keywords: top_left or tl, top_right or tr, bottom_left or bl, and bottom_right or br. Each corner specifier is then followed by a color 🌈

There are also a few shortcut keywords for common font effects, and they're so satisfying 💅✨ You can get a single-color outline with the keyword outline followed by a color. For a drop shadow, use shadow, then an optional corner specifier (bottom_right is the default), then a color. For a 3-D embossed look, go with emboss dark_color light_color. The opposite vibe, a carved-out look, comes from carved dark_color light_color. 🦋 Heads up: with those last two, the 3-D effect only works if you pick your light and dark colors wisely, so choose carefully, bestie 🙈

If you want zero font effects, just use the keyword none 🫶

The default is bottom_right black, which gives a black drop shadow. This is a total lifesaver for lightly colored fonts sitting on light spots in a background image 😭 Also, font effects are not active in solid color mode, so don't be shocked when nothing shows up there 💀

---

🌸 IMAGECLASSES CONTEXT 🌸

This context holds the global image attributes. It's also the parent context for defining images through the image context, so it's basically the main character of the whole setup 👑

• icon filename — Uses filename as the icon image for the Eterm window. filename can be an absolute path, relative to the current theme, or relative to one of the directories in the path attribute below ✨
• cache num — Sets the Imlib2 cache size to num bytes. The default is 0 🧚
• path directory_list — Gives a colon-delimited list of directories that Eterm searches when it's looking for image and menu files. The syntax for directory_list is exactly the same as the $PATH environment variable in UNIX shells 🌈
• anim interval images ... — Sets up an animation list for cycling the background pixmap. The interval is the delay, in seconds, between background updates. Pick a reasonable value so Eterm doesn't spend all its time rendering backgrounds 💖 Every image here is a background image and uses the same syntax as the -P option above, including the optional geometry string 🎀

---

🦋 IMAGE CONTEXT 🦋

This context defines every attribute of one particular image. There can be, and usually are, several image contexts per theme, one for each class of image 💜

• type class — Sets the type, or class, of the image you're defining in this context. This MUST be the first attribute in the image context, no exceptions 🙈 Valid classes are background, trough, anchor, up_arrow, down_arrow, left_arrow, right_arrow, menu, menuitem, submenu, button, and buttonbar. The left and right arrows are valid, but they don't do anything just yet 🥲 Every attribute after this one, up until the next type definition, applies to that image class.
• mode initial_mode [ allow allowed_modes ] — Sets the starting mode for this image class, plus the modes it's allowed to switch into. initial_mode is the mode the image starts in (unless command-line options override it. allowed_modes is a list of one or more modes, and the image can't switch to any mode that isn't in the allow list. If you leave out the allow section entirely, the image can never change from initial_mode. If you don't give a mode line at all for an image class, the default is the same as mode solid allow solid. Valid mode names are image (use an image), trans (transparency), viewport (viewport mode), auto (auto mode, which needs Enlightenment 0.16 or better), and solid (solid color only) 🔥
• state { normal | selected | clicked | disabled } — Sets the state of the image you're about to define. Everything until the next state attribute (or until you change types) applies to that particular state. You should at minimum define the normal state, since it's the default when the other states don't have their own attributes. BUT each state has self-contained options, so if you define multiple states, you have to define ALL the attributes that state needs 😭 The sample themes that ship with Eterm show how to build 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-state images, so go peek at those if you're stuck ✨

The attributes above affect the image class as a whole. Everything else in this context only affects the current state of the image class 🌈

• color fg bg — Sets the foreground and background colors for this image class. The foreground color is for text, and the background color is for the object itself. If you specify an invalid color, fg defaults to white and bg defaults to black 🤍
• file filename — Sets the file the image gets loaded from. This is used for the image mode, so if you allow image mode, don't forget to supply an image file! 💀 You can also tack on an image geometry string by adding an @ and the geometry string to the end of the filename. The geometry string syntax is covered below. filename has to be an absolute path or a path relative to one of the directories in the path attribute. The image gets verified and loaded as soon as this attribute is parsed 🧚
• geom image_geometry — Sets the geometry and geometry-related operations you want applied to the image. This only applies to image classes using image mode 🖼️ The geometry is written as wxh+x+y:ops, where w and h are the horizontal and vertical scaling percentages, x and y are the horizontal and vertical alignment percentages, and ops is a colon-delimited list of operations. The operations are tiled (tiles the image) and propscaled (proportional scaling). You can combine these for different effects 💅
• cmod { image | red | green | blue } brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] and colormod { image | red | green | blue } brightness [ contrast [ gamma ] ] — Both of these do the exact same thing 💖 They apply a color modifier to the image. The second keyword decides what gets modified: the whole image, the red values, the green values, or the blue values. Each of the three parameters is a number that's greater than or equal to 0. You can write numbers in decimal, octal (if they start with 0), or hexadecimal (if they start with 0x). A value of 256 (0x100) means 100%, or "leave that value unchanged." 0 is 0%, 512 (0x200) is 200%, and so on. Just be warned that overflow can happen with really high values 😬 Only brightness is required. But you have to give brightness before contrast, and both of those before gamma 🙃
• border left right top bottom — Says the image has borders that shouldn't get scaled along with the rest of the image. This is mostly for images with a beveled look, so the bevel doesn't get scaled and lose its effect ✨ All four values are in pixels, same as the equivalent options for E themes and Gtk+ pixmap themes 🎀
• bevel { up | down } left right top bottom — Adds a bevel to an image class. You can do this to any image class using image or trans mode. The parameters are pixel values for the width of each edge of the bevel. This is especially handy if you're using tiled images or transparency for the arrow or anchor scrollbar widgets, or for menus 🌸
• padding left right top bottom — Only used for the submenu image class. It reserves the given number of pixels on each side so the text doesn't overwrite part of the image. It works just like the same option in Enlightenment themes 🫶

---

🍓 MENU CONTEXT 🍓

This context creates a menu. There's one instance of this context per menu, and menus have to be defined in submenu-menu order, meaning any menu that refers to another menu as its submenu must be defined after that submenu 🧠 Inside the menu context, each menu item gets a menuitem subcontext, with the exception of the shorthand for separators 💜

• title menu_title — Sets the title for the menu. This MUST be the first attribute after begin menu. Titles have to be unique across all menus. A title can have spaces, but wrap it in single or double quotes if it does. Any future references to the menu use the title 👑
• font font_name — Tells Eterm to use font_name for this menu. If you don't give one, the default terminal font gets used 🔤
• sep or - — Either symbol works as shorthand to insert a separator into the menu ➖

---

🧚 MENUITEM CONTEXT 🧚

This is a subcontext of the menu context, and it creates a single item for a menu. There can be, and usually are, several menuitem contexts per menu 🦋

• text label — The text shown for this menu item. It's left-justified in the menu window. It can have spaces, but wrap label in quotes if it does ✨
• rtext label — Text that's right-justified next to the menu item text. This is usually used to show which keystrokes go with a menu item, like "C-x C-c" for the "Exit" item in an Emacs menu 🌈

okay so this is where you tell a menuitem what to actually do when someone clicks it 💖

action { string | echo | submenu | script } param
action separator

bestie, if you pick separator you don't need anything else 🙈 The other action types all need a param. string sends a string over to Eterm to handle itself (think escape codes 🌸). echo sends a string to the client program instead, which is perfect for typing commands into a shell or keystrokes into something like emacs or mutt 💻. If you use string or echo, the param gets parsed for escape codes (\a, C-, and the like) before it's sent off ✨. submenu pops open a submenu when the item is picked, and param is the title of that submenu. The submenu has to already be defined, no cap 💅. Last one, script runs the Eterm-builtin script inside param. Check the section below for the builtin Eterm functions that are allowed with this action type 👑.

---

✨ ACTION CONTEXT ✨

Okay, actions are the key and mouse button bindings that make things happen 🔥 Literally any action you can trigger with an escape code can be bound to a key or mouse button, with or without modifiers. You can even bind menus to keystrokes or mouse buttons 🎀

bind [ modifiers ] { keysym | button } to { string | echo | menu | script } param

This one binds a keysym or a mouse button to an action 🦋 The action part comes after the word to and is exactly the same syntax as menus (see above). You can stack as many modifiers as you want, as long as the combo is reasonable 💀, but you only get one keysym or button. Valid modifiers are ctrl, shift, lock, mod1 through mod5, alt, meta, and anymod (which allows any modifier). If you don't list any modifiers, the keypress has to have NO modifier keys in use or the action just won't trigger 🙈. Use anymod if you want any arbitrary modifier key to be allowed. The keysym can be written out in text (case-sensitive!) or as a hex number. Buttons go button1 through button5. Also, alt and meta are equivalent to one or more of mod1 through mod5, and maybe to each other too, depending on your modifier settings 🧚. You can check yours with xmodmap -pm. See also the alt_mod and meta_mod options below 💜.

---

🌸 BUTTON_BAR CONTEXT 🌸

The buttonbar is a newer addition, showing up in Eterm 0.9.1 🍓 It gives you a fully customizable bar at the top or bottom of each terminal window. Buttons work just like menuitems: they can pop open menus like a menubar, or trigger any other action a menuitem can 💅.

• font font — picks the font that button labels get displayed in 🔤
• dock { top | bottom | no } — decides whether to dock the buttonbar, and if so, whether it goes at the top or bottom of the Eterm window 🦋 Heads up: only top and bottom are currently enabled 🙈
• visible boolean — toggles whether this particular buttonbar is visible on startup 👀

For buttons, this is the syntax:

button [ text ] [ icon filename ] action { string | echo | menu | script } param

This binds an action to a button 🎀 param and the action types work exactly the same as they do for menuitems. You can add some text, an icon, or both, but you can't leave out both at once 💖.

---

🧁 MULTICHAR CONTEXT 🧁

This is where behavior for multi-byte fonts and encodings gets defined 🌈 Heads up, this context doesn't exist by default 🙈

• encoding { eucj | sjis | euckr | big5 | gb | iso-10646 } — specifies the encoding method. Patches to support other encoding methods are very much encouraged 🫶
• font num font — sets the numth multichar font to font ✨

---

🔮 XIM CONTEXT 🔮

This context controls locale-based behavior 🌍

• input_method input_method — your input method program of choice 💅
• preedit_type { OverTheSpot | OffTheSpot | Root } — your preedit type of choice ✨

---

🌐 ESCREEN CONTEXT 🌐

This context has customizations specific to Escreen mode 🧚 Check the Escreen section below for more details 💜

• url protocol://user@host:port/params — connects to (or creates) a particular screen session through a URL-type construct 🔗 Standard URL rules apply. The protocol should be either screen (the default) or twin. If user, host, and/or port are specified, an ssh connection gets made to the remote server with that login info. By default it creates or attaches to a local session 🏠

Any params you give get passed straight to the underlying protocol, and they're separated from each other by a plus sign (+) ➕

• firewall localport:firewall:remoteport — bounces the connection through a firewall via ssh 🦋
• delay secs — how long to wait before sending the screen/twin initialization sequence. This is needed to make sure the remote session is established before the init sequence goes out 🫶
• bbar_font font — the font for the Escreen buttonbar. The default is -*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--10-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1 ✨
• bbar_dock { top | bottom | no } — docks the Escreen buttonbar as specified. Only top and bottom are currently enabled 🙈

---

🎀 TOGGLES CONTEXT 🎀

This context is full of boolean variables you can flip on or off 🔁 For these attributes, "yes", "on", "1", and "true" turn the option on, and "no", "off", "0", or "false" turn it off. That's what boolean means everywhere in this section. They all default to false unless otherwise noted 💜

• map_alert boolean — if true, Eterm un-iconifies itself when it gets a beep (ASCII 0x07) 🔔
• visual_bell boolean — if true, Eterm flashes instead of sending a beep 💡
• login_shell boolean — if true, Eterm prepends - to the shell name when it calls the shell. Depending on your shell, this might change its startup behavior 🐚
• scrollbar boolean — turns the scrollbar display on or off. Default is on 📜
• utmp_logging boolean — if true, Eterm tries to make an entry in the utmp file to record login info. Eterm may need to run privileged to pull this off 🔐
• meta8 boolean — toggles whether the Meta key sets the 8th bit in a character 🔢
• iconic boolean — if true, Eterm launches as an icon 🌟
• home_on_output boolean — zooms to the bottom of the scrollback buffer on output 🏠
• home_on_input boolean — zooms to the bottom of the scrollback buffer on input ⌨️
• no_input boolean — if true, Eterm won't accept any keyboard input and asks the window manager not to let it be focused 🙅
• scrollbar_floating boolean — if true, the scrollbar has no trough 🫧
• scrollbar_right boolean — if true, Eterm puts the scrollbar on the right side of the window (default is left) ➡️
• scrollbar_popup boolean — if true, Eterm hides the scrollbar when the window loses focus and restores it when focus comes back. Default is to not change the scrollbar state based on focus 👀
• borderless boolean — if true, Eterm runs with no window borders. That also means the window can't be moved or resized, so you'll want to specify a geometry with this one 🪟
• double_buffer boolean — instead of drawing text directly onto the window, Eterm allocates an extra pixmap the size of the terminal window. The background and the text get rendered into it, and then that pixmap is set as the window background. Double-buffering uses extra memory in the X server, but it lets Eterm ignore expose events so redraws are faster 🏎️
• no_cursor boolean — if true, Eterm won't display a text cursor 🫥
• pause boolean — after the child process terminates, Eterm waits for a keypress before exiting ⏸️
• xterm_select boolean — duplicates xterm's treatment of cutchars 🎯 The only real difference is what happens when you double-click a single cutchar between two words. If this is on, only that single character gets selected. If it's off, that character gets selected along with the two words. The latter is handy for double-clicking the space between someone's first and last names, or the @ sign in an e-mail address, etc 📧
• select_line boolean — if true, a triple click selects the entire line from beginning to end. If false (default), a triple-click selects from the current word to the end of the line 🖱️
• select_trailing_spaces boolean — if true, spaces at the end of a line get included in the selection text when selecting. The default is to strip these trailing spaces ✂️
• report_as_keysyms boolean — reports certain keystrokes as keysyms and modifiers instead of escape sequences. NOTE: this is intended only for programs that support this special Eterm mode. Do not enable it unless you're running a program that uses this mode 🚨

Only flip this on if the program you're running actually speaks Eterm's special mode, bestie 🚨

• itrans boolean and immotile_trans boolean — toggles the immotile transparency optimization for transparent Eterm windows 🪟 Note that this does NOT activate transparency. You still have to activate trans mode for the background image. Use this on transparent windows that are shaded or tinted and don't move around the desktop much 🧊 See the Mon Mar 6 21:11:13 PST 2000 ChangeLog entry for a more detailed explanation 📜
• buttonbar boolean — okay so this one toggles the display of all the buttonbars at once 🎀
• resize_gravity boolean — bestie, if this is true, Eterm finds the nearest corner on its own 🧚 and when you change the font size, the window gravitates toward that corner 🦋
• overstrike_bold boolean — this one is on by default ✨ Eterm fakes bold by printing each character twice, with the second pass shifted over by one pixel. The letters look thicker without needing a special bold font 💖 You might want to turn it off if you've picked a specific color for bold 🙈
• bold_brightens_foreground boolean — also on by default 🌸 the "bold" ANSI attribute brightens the text color by using the high-intensity colors (8 through 15) instead of the low-intensity ones (0 through 7). Heads up: if you've set a specific color for bold, that color wins and this gets overridden 💅
• blink_brightens_background boolean — on by default 🌈 the "blink" ANSI attribute brightens the background color using the high-intensity colors (8 through 15) instead of the low-intensity ones (0 through 7) 🍓
• colors_suppress_bold boolean — on by default 💜 any colored text (so anything that isn't using the default foreground color) gets no extra bold treatment at all, no bold font and no bold overstrike. Iconic restraint 👑
• sticky boolean — if true, Eterm makes its window sticky, which means it shows up on all desktops ⭐

⌨️ KEYBOARD CONTEXT

This context is all about the keyboard-related config options 💅

• smallfont_key keysym — pick a keysym to shrink the font size 🫶 The default is Shift plus the - key on the keypad. Ctrl-< or Meta-< might work too, if you #define one of the hotkeys in src/feature.h ✨
• bigfont_key keysym — pick a keysym to grow the font size 📈 The default is Shift plus the + key on the keypad. Ctrl-> or Meta-> might work too, if you #define one of the hotkeys in src/feature.h 🔥
• keysym keysym string — make keysym send string instead of whatever it normally does 🦋 The keysym has to be between 0xff00 and 0xffff, or Eterm will absolutely complain 😭
• meta_mod num — tell Eterm which X modifier (1-5) counts as the Meta key 👑 Check out xmodmap(1) and the output of xmodmap -pm for the full scoop
• alt_mod num — same deal as meta_mod, but for the Alt key 🌸
• numlock_mod num — same deal as meta_mod, but for the NumLock key 💖
• greek boolean { iso | ibm } — turn greek keyboard support on or off, and pick which greek mode you want 🇬🇷 🧚
• app_keypad boolean — turn application keypad mode on or off when Eterm starts up 🎀
• app_cursor boolean — turn application cursor key mode on or off when Eterm starts up 🌈

🍓 MISC CONTEXT

This context holds the misc attributes that really didn't have a cute home anywhere else 🧸

• print_pipe command — set the command that print requests (printscreen) get piped into ✨
• save_lines num — set how many lines the scrollback buffer holds 📜
• cut_chars string — set the characters that count as word delimiters to whatever characters are in string ✂️
• min_anchor_size num — set the minimum size, in pixels, of the scrollbar anchor 🖱️ (that's the part your mouse grabs onto and drags around) 💜
• border_width num — set how wide the border is between the text window and the X window, in num 🦋
• line_space num — add num pixels' worth of space between each row of the terminal window 🌸
• finished_title title — when the child process finishes and the Eterm is paused, title shows up in the title bar 🏁
• finished_text text — when the child process finishes and the Eterm is paused, text shows up in the terminal window 💅
• term_name name — use name as the $TERM environment variable, which decides which termcap/terminfo entry gets used 🧚 The default is Eterm 🎀
• exec command — instead of running a shell, Eterm spawns command as its child process 👑

Only one exec allowed, bestie! You can only have one of these 💀

---

✨ BUILT-IN FUNCTIONS ✨

Eterm has a whole set of built-in functions you can use in config files 🦋 Each one takes zero or more parameters and spits out a series of zero or more words. "Words" follow shell rules, so words are separated by whitespace, and single or double quotes can wrap words that have whitespace inside them 🫶 You can also use backquotes to run a command, and its output can either become part of the config file itself or get handed to a built-in function as its parameter list 🍓 Built-in functions and backquotes can go anywhere their output would be valid. Built-in functions always start with the % character 💖

• %appname() — returns the application name, a hyphen, and the version number. Right now that's the string Eterm-0.9.6 ✨
• %exec(command) — runs command and returns the result. Basically it's exactly like using backquotes 🧚
• %get(variable) — retrieves the value of a config file variable. Check out %put() below for the deets 🌈
• %put(variable value) — creates a config variable named variable and assigns it the value of value. You can grab that value later with %get(variable) 💜
• %random(params) — randomly picks one of the words that make up params and returns it 🎲 The default themes that ship with Eterm use this to choose random backgrounds, but backgrounds aren't the only thing you can randomize! You can randomize anything: colors, toggles, fonts, tinting, etc. 🔥
• %version() — returns the version number. Right now that's the string 0.9.6 🍓

---

🌸 PREPROCESSING 🌸

Eterm supports the %include file directive, so you can split your config info into multiple files 🫶 Eterm loads and parses file just like any other config file, but it treats the contents as if they replaced the directive itself 💅

You can also ask for a config file to be run through an external preprocessor (like m4 or cpp) before Eterm reads it 🧠 You do this with the %preproc command directive. You can use whatever you like for command, as long as it accepts input on STDIN and sends output to STDOUT 🎀 If you want an example, check out the menus.cfg file in the default chooser theme 👑

---

🌈 SCRIPT FUNCTIONS 🌈

One of the action types you can bind to keypresses, mouse buttons, menuitems, or buttonbar buttons is a script 🦋 The script has to be a single word (so no spaces, or wrapped in quotes), and it's made up of one or more calls to the script functions below 💖 Each call is separated from the next by a semicolon (;). Function parameters go inside parentheses, though the parentheses are optional if there aren't any parameters to pass 🧚 Commas and/or whitespace separate parameters from each other ✨

• copy(buffer) — copies the current selection to the specified clipboard or cut buffer 📋 buffer is either a number from 0-7, in which case the selection goes to that cut buffer, or one of the words clipboard, primary, or secondary (or any initial substring of those), in which case the selection goes to the specified clipboard. You can leave buffer out, and then the default buffer is primary (XA_PRIMARY in Xlib-speak) 🫶
• echo(string) — sends the specified string to the subcommand 💬 Exactly equivalent to the echo action
• es_display(cmd, params) — Aliases: es_disp 🪟 This is a master function for messing with Escreen displays through a series of subcommands. The cmd you pick decides what, if any, params are allowed. Here are the available subcommands:
  • goto — switch to the specified display (0-9) 🎯
  • prev — switch to the previous display ⬅️
  • next — switch to the next display ➡️
  • toggle — toggle display 🔁
  • new — create a new display. You can pass a name for the new display as a parameter, or ask to prompt the user for the name 🌟
  • rename — change the name of the current display. You can pass a name for the new display as a parameter, or ask to prompt the user for the name ✏️
  • kill — terminate the current (or specified) display 💀
  • watch — toggle monitoring of the current/specified display for activity 👀
  • scrollback — view the scrollback for the current/specified display 📜

🎀 es_region(cmd, params)

Aliases: es_reg, es_win, es_window

okay so this is the master function for bossing around Escreen display regions 👑. You pick a subcommand with cmd, and that decides whether params are allowed. Here are the subcommands:

• goto — switch to the specified region (0-9) 🦋
• prev — switch to the previous region
• next — switch to the next region
• toggle — toggle region
• new — create a new region. You can pass a name as a parameter, or ask to prompt the user for the name ✨
• rename — change the name of the current region. You can pass the new name as a parameter, or ask to prompt the user for it 💅
• kill — terminate the current (or specified) region 💀
• only — maximize the current or specified region to the full display 🔥
• watch — toggle monitoring of the current or specified region for activity 👀
• scrollback — view the scrollback for the current or specified region 📜

🌸 es_statement(statement)

Executes an Escreen (screen/twin) command directly. No detours, just vibes 🧚

🦋 es_reset()

Aliases: es_rst

Resets the Escreen session. A fresh start, bestie 🌈

💜 exec_dialog(command)

Same as exec/spawn, but this one pops up a dialog box where you can edit or confirm the command to be run and specify extra parameters if needed 🎀

👑 exit(message) / exit(code)

exit(message)
exit(code)

Aliases: die, quit

Exits Eterm with an optional message or an integer return code. You can pass either parameter, but not both ⚠️. If neither is specified, a code of 0 (zero) is the default 🍓

💥 kill(signal)

Sends the specified signal to Eterm's primary child process (either your shell, or whatever you told Eterm to execute). For the time being, signal must be numeric 🔢. If you leave signal out, SIGTERM is the default 💖

💬 msgbox(message)

Pops up a small dialog box with message and waits for a keypress before moving on ⭐

😴 nop()

Does absolutely nothing except waste time. :-) 🙈

📋 paste(buffer)

Pastes the contents of the specified clipboard or cut buffer right into the terminal window 🫶. buffer can be:

• a number from 0-7, which pastes the selection from that cut buffer
• one of the words clipboard, primary, or secondary (or any starting part of those words), which pastes the contents of that clipboard

You can leave buffer out, and then the default is primary (XA_PRIMARY in Xlib-speak) 🦋

💾 save(type, filename)

Saves the current theme or user configuration 💾. type can be user or theme, and the default is user. filename is the file where the settings get saved. It can include a path, either absolute or relative to the theme directory 🗂️. The default filename for user is user.cfg, and the default for theme is theme.cfg ✨

📜 save_buff(filename)

Dumps the whole scrollback buffer into the file you name 📝

🌊 scroll(n)

Scrolls backward or forward through the scrollback buffer 🌊. n is a floating point number with an optional unit specifier. The units are:

• lines or l
• pages or p
• buffers or b

The number and the unit can be separated by whitespace or a comma, but that's optional. A positive number scrolls down (forward), and a negative number scrolls up (backward) ⬆️⬇️. For example, the key sequence Shift-PgUp is the same as scroll(-1p) 🎀. You can also use fractions, like scroll(0.5p) to scroll down half a page 🌗. If you don't give a unit, the default is lines.

🔍 search(str)

Pops up a dialog box where you can type a search term, and the default value is set to str 🔍. Every occurrence of the search string gets highlighted in the scrollback buffer, and Eterm jumps back to the most recent one ✨. Search again with the same keyword and the previous highlighting gets cleared 🧹.

🚀 spawn(command)

Aliases: exec

Spawns a secondary child process to run command, or runs Eterm if no value is passed 🧚

🧵 string(string)

The specified string is parsed via Eterm. This is exactly identical to the string action 💅

---

✨ ESCREEN ✨

Escreen is a screen/twin interface layer that lets Eterm work with GNU screen and with Massimiliano Ghilardi's twin software 🦋. This means Eterm can run multiple subshell sessions inside a single window 🪟. It works kind of like the "tabbed" sessions in programs like konsole and multi-gnome-terminal, but Escreen is an interface to existing software, so you get extra perks like multiple regions per display, detach/reattach capability, seamless remote session support, firewall support, and more 🌈.

Escreen support is still somewhat experimental, so it's not compiled into Eterm by default 🧪. To turn it on, you have to compile with --enable-escreen and/or --enable-etwin, depending on whether you have screen, twin, or both. If you installed from a package, run Eterm --version and look for either +ESCREEN (enabled) or -ESCREEN (disabled) 🔎.

For the best results, use Escreen mode by starting Eterm with the Escreen theme: Eterm -t Escreen 💖. This theme supplies the default key bindings, the basic Escreen menu, color definitions, and so on for the Escreen engine 🎨. Most importantly, it supplies the required url parameter that invokes Escreen mode 👑.

For a deeper dive into Escreen mode, check out the README.Escreen file 📖.

---

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Michael Jennings (mej@eterm.org) 🫶

🌈 URL(s) 🌈

Eterm Home Page -- http://www.eterm.org/ 🏠

Author's Home Page -- http://www.kainx.org/ 🦋

---

That's the whole page, bestie! 💅✨ This one is stamped with X Version 11 and dated 17 August 2008, and it's still giving main character energy 👑🎀💖