Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cec2!news
From: meh@wucs1.wustl.edu (Mark E Hunter)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Beginning user questions
Message-ID: <1990Jan16.171713.15038@cec1.wustl.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 17:17:13 GMT
Sender: news@cec2 (USENET News System)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Lines: 42


        Several questions in regards to NeWS:

        NeWS supports a user stratup file called user.ps This file
        resides in the user's home directory and consists of NeWS
        commands to be executed upon startup

     1) I cannot get the root account to execute its user.ps
        It is a valid script and has been tested using other 
        accounts and by executing it manualy using the psh
        command.

     2) I have a number of scripts that will execute when psh'ed,
        but will not run as user.ps.  These scripts contain one or 
        more windows to create upon NeWS startup.  Some of these
        scripts ran a one time but a minor edit (changing the order
        of the windows being created or adding a comment) resulted
        in their not working.  

        Some scripts execute only some of the commands contained.
        They do not seem to start at either end of the script and
        break.  They select random statements to execute.  Others
        run one session but not another.

        This seemingly random behavior was explained by Sun as
        timing problems.  Their explanation was that the user.ps
        was running before NeWS was fully operational.  They did
        not have a way to get these scripts to execute properly.

     3) I have need to start NeWS and then run a NeWS script 
        automatically.  I have a csh script which starts NeWS
        and runs the NeWS script but because of the timing problem
        above, sometimes the NeWS script is executed before NeWS
        is fully functional.  Does anyone know of a way to check
        to see if NeWS is up ?  Does anyone know of a way to get
        the script to wait for NeWS to be up before continuing ?

Thanks,

Mark E. Hunter

meh@wucs1.wustl.edu