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From: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Friendly complaints of a would-be NeWS/GoodNeWS/HyperNeWS user...
Message-ID: <13430@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Date: 20 Mar 90 01:16:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@cgl.ucsf.edu
Reply-To: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., San Francisco
Lines: 91

Dear Fellow Netlanders,

We have high regard and enthusiasm for the technical merits of NeWS, and
highly admire the folks at Turing for sharing a system like GoodNeWS/HyperNeWS.
We have been delighted with features of both, and would like to be using them
as our production windowing environment; however, we still find impediments
to doing so.  Some of our problems may have work-arounds which NeWS gurus
out there may be able to help solve. Others may require peppier hardware or
a new (more efficient) release of NeWS.  So please take the following
remarks as criticism from friends of NeWS who are not entirely satisfied with
how it works at present.  We look forward to reading knowledgeable responses.

ca. GoodNeWS/HyperNeWS 1.3:
---------------------------

1) GoodNeWS appears to work.  If we put in our standard multi-line
   .openwin-init, it starts xnews with an altered menu system (great scrabble
   game!).  However, selecting the HyperNeWS item on the root menu does
   *nothing*.  No error messages, no action of any type.  If we use the
   supplied (one-line) openwin-init, as I read the instructions, HyperNeWS
   should start about 30 seconds after the GoodNeWS Turing Inst. message
   appears on screen.  Again, nothing...nothing... nothing...
   What's wrong here?  Xnews works fine on its own; GNHOME and HNHOME are
   defined, the supplied .usr.ps, (one-line) openwin-init, and .startup.ps
   files are present.

2) Documentation seems sparse.  I assume that HyperNeWS itself is suppposed
   to present you with on-line documentation, but given that it may not work
   (vide supra), a bare-bones UNIX man page seems required, with some very
   basic description of what the package is and how it behaves.  Such
   manual pages ARE provided for the GoodNeWS components.  The README
   refers to a GoodNeWS document, but we find no evidence of such, unless this
   appears as part of HyperNeWS on-line information, which is not easily
   read as ASCII files.

3) Now and then GoodNeWS (SPARCstation 1, OS 4.0.3, 12MB, running as
   1 of 5 discless clients on a 32MB 4/370) gets *VERY* slow, and occasionally
   completely hung (requiring a L1-A maneuver).

4) The terminal emulator is superior to any supplied with OpenWindows (nice
   job!)--see point 5 below.

ca. OpenWindows 1.0:
--------------------

1) The default font for xnews is ridiculously small and hard on the eyes.
   The fix (for psterm) is to add -fontsize NN to the command line,
   where NN is the point size to be used (we find 14 optimal).

2) It would be MUCH easier on the user if he/she could change the point size
   and font type through some window-based system such as the SunView defaults
   editor.  At present, to change the font type (according to the manual) 
   you must create a file .startup.ps containing the following (I use the font
   LucidaSansTypewriter in the example):
      UserProfile begin
         /ClassPsTermCanvas {
            begin
               /TextFamily /LucidaSansTypewriter store
            currentdict end
         } def
      end

3) The xnews initialization file (.openwin-init) is terribly limited in
   capability compared to equivalent SunView .sunview file:
      a) we can't find any way to start SunView applications from .openwin-init
         (workaround: start them as background processes from a shell script
         invoked as command to a psterm window).
      b) you can't specify the location of a psterm icon in .openwin-init

4) Support for SunView tools is clumsy.  Icons and windows have wide white
   borders around them; SunView icons can not be put behind other objects;
   see also item 3a above.

5) The terminal emulation is poor.  For example, when you rescale a psterm
   window, the font is rescaled proportionally to the window, which is not of
   much use.  It should rescale so as to preserve font size but change the
   number of rows and columns (or at least, an option should be present to
   force it to behave this way if desired).  We find no way to make ^H produce
   a backspace in cmd-tool or mailtool.  There is no inverse video mechanism
   in shelltool or cmd-tool, which make certain programs (like the nn news
   reader) useless.

6) It is still SLLOOOOOWWWWWWWW.  When we return to SunView, we are dazzled
   at the speed (though we would rather have the network capabilities and other
   features of NeWS).

Cheerio, Rick Rodgers (rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu)
R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.         (415)476-8910 (work) 664-0560 (home)
UCSF Laurel Heights Campus     UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cca.ucsf.edu!rodgers
3333 California St., Suite 102 ARPA: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu
San Francisco CA 94118 USA     BITNET: rodgers@ucsfcca