calling xterm under KDE

[Scott W]

Ed Budd wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 19:14:13 +0800
> Stephen Liu <satimis at icare.com.hk> wrote:
> 
> 
>>- snip -
>>
>>>You can add the fontsize as a parameter when you invoke it, like
>>>this:
>>>
>>>xterm -fn <fontsize>
>>>
>>>I use 'xterm -fn 9x15' on a high res monitor and set it (along with
>>>some other params) in my window manager (blackbox) menu config.
>>
>>Hi Ed,
>>
>>Where can I find "window manager"?  From 'Control Center' ok KDE?
>>
>># menu config
>>menu: Command not found.
>># menuconfig
>>menuconfig: Command not found
>>
>>Kindly advise.  TIA
>>
>>B.R.
>>Stephen Liu
>>
> 
> 
> You probably can't. As I am using the term, "window manager" is not an
> applet but a reference to whatever you happen to be using to control
> graphical window behavior on your desktop. It looks like your window
> manager is KDE (which also happens to provide other services so is
> called a "desktop environment" to denote these additional features). My
> window manager is called "blackbox" which has a simple menu
> configuration file where I can input a line for xterm and conveniently
> call it through an item on a neat little pull-up menu.
> 
> For you I would suggest that you create a "shortcut" on your desktop.
> You'll need to check with the KDE documentation since I don't actually
> use it but it's probably as simple as right-clicking the desktop with
> your mouse and choosing "new" or something like that and then through
> "properties" type in the full command you want your new shortcut icon
> to invoke.
> 
> EB
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> 

You can do this pretty easily in KDE- right click on the Panel, go to 
Add/Special Button/Non-KDE Application, which will open a file browser. 
  navigate to the xterm binary, and then pass the options to it, in this 
case for fonts.  You can also create a resource file to set the defaults 
for font sizes and others, then source it via xrdb <resource file>. 
Most of the *term programs are all considered XTerm derivatives, so will 
honor their resource hints.

I missed the start of this thread, but running a seriously 
'heavy-weight' Window Manager/Desktop Environment like KDE and then a 
less resource intensive console seems a bit odd...but I'd suggest taking 
a look at aterm- it's a derivative of rxvt, less than half the footprint 
of xterm (which is less than half the size of 'konsole' already), 
supports transparency if that's your thing...

A sample .Xresources (can be named anything, but needs to be sourced via 
.xinitrc or other X startup means), could look like:

Xterm*loginShell: true
XTerm*scrollBar:  true
XTerm*saveLines:        1500
XTerm*background: black
XTerm*foreground: white

aterm*transparent: true
aterm*transpscrollbar: true
#aterm*tinting: light blue
aterm*foreground: white
aterm*shading: 40

They could actually be changed to:
*term*loginShell: true
*term*scrollBar:  true
etc etc and thus affect both XTerm and aterm both explicitly, but aterm 
in this case will still honor the XTerm* settings unless overridden via 
an equal aterm* setting.  You can also set the default fonts and or 
sizes as well...

Blackbox is pretty slick as a minimal WM, although I've got to say I 
never got Rox-Filer working as expected, one of the few things I 
begrudgingly miss from the KDE apps (konqueror, even if it is sort of a 
pig on resources).  Blackbox does however, fix one of the only other 
issues of the 'desktop environments' (GNOME, KDE) that I've come to 
like- tabbed consoles.  If Rox-Filer or another app could replace close 
to konqueror functionality, and perhaps offer a decent panel app (the 
slit is nice, but I don't like their pager/panel much), I'd likely be 
able to remove the KDE libs from all my systems happily ;-)

Scott