A practical guide to customising st without knowing C.

Based on vanilla st (no patches).

config.h is the configuration file for st.

It is a C source file, but you do not need to know C to edit it.

After every change, recompile and restart st:

cd ~/st
make
make install

Before making changes, create a backup:

cp config.h config.h.bak

To start, copy the template:

cp config.def.h config.h

Important: after a git pull, always compare your config.h with the updated config.def.h to catch new options:

diff config.def.h config.h

static char *font =
    "Liberation Mono:pixelsize=12:antialias=true:autohint=true";

Liberation Mono is the vanilla default.

Replace with any monospace font.

Example using Iosevka Term:

static char *font =
    "Iosevka Term:size=11:antialias=true:autohint=true";

The display name and the fontconfig name often differ.

To find the exact name as fontconfig sees it:

fc-list | grep -i "fontname"

• Iosevka (full, 400MB+)
  • https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/system/Iosevka/

• Iosevka-core (minimal subset, sufficient for st)
  • https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/system/Iosevka-core/

• JetBrains Mono
  • https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/system/JetBrainsMono/

static int borderpx = 2;

Border width in pixels around the terminal window.

Set to 1 for a thinner border:

static int borderpx = 1;

static unsigned int cursorshape = 2;

Available shapes:

2: Block
4: Underline
6: Bar
7: Snowman

static unsigned int cursorthickness = 2;

static unsigned int blinktimeout = 800;

Set to 0 to disable blinking entirely.

static double minlatency = 2;
static double maxlatency = 33;

Lower values reduce perceived lag:

static double minlatency = 1;
static double maxlatency = 16;

static unsigned int cols = 80;
static unsigned int rows = 24;

These are only the initial values.

Window resizing behavior itself is usually controlled by the window manager, not by st.

char *termname = "st-256color";

Do not change this unless you know what you are doing.

Slackware users may alternatively build st using a SlackBuild and include their custom config.h during the build process.

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/system/st/

• https://git.suckless.org/st
• https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/system/st/

• Originally written by r1w1s1