Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated cygwin package rxvt-2.7.9-3

[Rui Carmo <rui dot carmo at accao dot net>]

Randall R Schulz wrote:
> By the way, even though there appears to be no command-line options for 
> choosing among the three available kinds of scroll bars, I don't know 
> why the resources file is "far preferable" since only with command line 
> options can you readily have different variations available (by having 
> different shortcuts or start-up scripts to launch RXVT).
Call me picky. I'd rather have a single configuration file with stuff 
like scrollbar style/placement/colors that I can copy to another box and 
be done with it.

For instance, this is my current .Xdefaults:
cat .Xdefaults | grep rxvt
rxvt*font:vt6x13
rxvt*saveLines:30000
rxvt*termName:xterm
rxvt*loginShell:true
rxvt*scrollBar_right:true
#rxvt*troughColor:black
#rxvt*scrollColor:blue
rxvt*reverseVideo:true
rxvt*scrollstyle:next

Of course, I can make a shortcut like:
D:\bin\rxvt.exe  -tn xterm -sr -fn "vt6x13" -sl 30000 -e bash --login -i

But having it all pre-defined allows me to just type:

rxvt -fn "Lucida Console-8" -geometry 132x24 &

If I want, say, a terminal for using mySQL in.

You see, the resource file way is _simpler_ :)

1) Less typing.
2) You get to use exactly the same settings across more machines (I just 
copied the file across to my Mac yesterday, for instance).
3) You don't have to memorize all the CLI switches.
4) Tou get the same degree of control (sometimes even more, depending on 
the X app involved).

In short, the settings are "readily available", as you put it, and it's 
faster to create variations from the same baseline config (unless you 
prefer having entirely different terminals, with different background 
colors, fonts, etc.) :)

Start-up scripts and shortcuts are probably easier for the beginner, but:

1) They're finnicky to use (you end up typing and re-editing them a lot 
more)
2) You tend to lose shortcuts a lot when changing machines

There is also the fact that .Xdefaults/.Xresources is The One True Way 
of doing configs in X11, but I'll stop pontificating right here. :)

R.