Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!rws
From: rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Proper way to set the root window's colormap?
Message-ID: <8910131512.AA14779@expire.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 89 15:12:54 GMT
References: <2763@ninja.Solbourne.COM>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 21


    If you have a bunch of clients that wish to use a standard colormap
    such as RGB_BEST_MAP, it is useful to set that colormap on the root
    window so that applications can use it rather than creating there own.

You must mean something different here, Xlib provides a mechanism for
clients to get at an RGB_BEST_MAP without having to create their own.
Clients wishing to use a standard colormap need more info that just
the colormap id, so making it to root window's colormap is not sufficient.
I assume you really just mean that it would work better if that particular
colormap was the same one used by applications that don't use standard
colormaps.  If so, have your session or window manager create the RGB_BEST_MAP
"in place" in the default colormap, before the "real" clients start up.  It
isn't that difficult to do.  I don't see that any additional mechanism is
necessarily required.

    We expect MIT to provide a similar fix in the future.

Putting words in MIT's mouth can be a dangerous thing.  We have started
thinking about the interaction between Xt and standard colormaps, but
the nature of the best solution is far from clear right now.