Name

dt - Desktop 1.1.3, a virtual console program for NetBSD/mac

Synopsis

dt [-n numvt] [-f font]

Description

dt provides virtual consoles for NetBSD/mac like screen(1) with the difference that dt directly accesses the framebuffer and the keyboard, so it is faster, and new keyboard mappings can be defined without recompiling the kernel. Because of the framebuffer and keyboard access, the only supported platform is NetBSD/mac.

Options

-n numvt
numvt specifies the number of virtual terminals to open when dt is started.
-f font
Specifies the name of the font to use. This can be either large (8x13 font) or small (6x10 font).

Keys

The following keys can be used to control dt:

Command-1..9
Switches between virtual terminals 1-9
Command-Shift-1..9
Switches the current terminal to another display
Command-up/down
Scrolls the scroll buffer up/down by one line
Command-home/end
Scrolls to beginning/end of the scroll buffer
Command-pgup/pgdn
Scrolls the scroll buffer up/down by one page
Command-C
Copies the selected text
Command-F
Switches between the two fonts
Command-O
Opens a new virtual terminal
Command-P
Toggles the mouse pointer on/off
Command-V
Pastes the copied text
Command-X
Pastes the selected text
F1..F12
Programmable macro keys
F15
Reloads the function key macros from your .dtrc

Digraphs

Digraphs can be used to produce characters not in the normal keyboard layout, or as an easier-to-remember alternative to other key combinations. For example, Option-^ and then a produces, well, something .

Supported digraphing characters are ^ (caret), ~ (tilde), ' (quote), ` (backquote) and ¨ (umlaut). Of these, all except umlaut require you to have the Option-key down for them to interpreted as starting a digraph with the US keyboard. With a Finnish keyboard, option isn't required.

Function key macros

You can specify macros for function keys F1 to F12 by placing the file .dtrc in your home directory.

Each line that doesn't begin with an # and is not empty is treated as a macro for the next yet-unspecified function key.

Lines beginning with # are ignored as comments.

Here is a sample .dtrc:

# A sample .dtrc file. This is a comment

# F1 will now act as if you had typed 'foo'. The previous line is empty,
# therefore it is ignored.
foo
# F2
bar
# F3 will produce the sequence C-x 1. You must quote the control character
# for it to be inserted into the file. In vi and emacs, you can add C-x to
# the file by typing C-v C-x.
^X1
# Note that typing ^X (caret and X) will not work unless you want to produce
# a caret and X
F15 will cause your .dtrc file to be reloaded.

Signals

You can send the following signals to the dt process to control beeping:
SIGUSR1
Turns beeps on
SIGUSR2
Turns beeps off

Files

$HOME/.dtrc
Specifies the user's function key macros

See Also

screen(1)

Availability

The latest released version of dt is available from ftp://puma.bevd.blacksburg.va.us/pub/NetBSD/utils/dt

Bugs

Author

Valtteri Vuorikoski <vuori@sci.fi>