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From: mouse@LIGHTNING.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Not impressed with MacX
Message-ID: <9011290612.AA00580@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 29 Nov 90 06:12:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 80

[ re MacX ]

>> One of Apples 'enhancements' is that instead of typing in your host
>> name, display number, etc you put -display "(R)display" in the
>> command and the actual name will be substituted at execution.  Gee,
>> that's wonderful - why can't Unix let you do that?  Gosh us Apple
>> owners have an advanced system...
> I'm not sure I understand this: do you like, or dislike, this
> feature?

Well, he *did* put it under "criticism", and the wording is a bit
overblown.  I think he's criticizing.

I tend to agree; it's a poor substitute for having a real operating
system with some analog to a DISPLAY environment variable (as an
example of such an analog, consider logical names under VMS).

> It's certainly appreciated by me: I use MacX under A/UX and keep the
> preferences file in an NFS volume.  With the (R)display option I can
> use the same MacX setup no matter which machine I'm logged into,
> instead of having to switch setups for each mac.

Seems to be xinit should put hostname:0 (or something similar) into the
DISPLAY environment variable.

What, no xinit analog?  No hostname either?  No $DISPLAY analog, even?
Gosh you Apple owners have an advanced system....

>> Next is window management.  Using the Apple window manager, you have
>> a choice of Mac-style window adornment, document without grow box,
>> document with grox box and zoom, etc.  You can choose these from the
>> menu at any time, but Apple have thoughtfully allowed you to specify
>> these on the command line as well.  How?  With the -borderwidth
>> option, of course!  Isn't it obvious that -bw 2 means round cornered
>> rectangle window?
> I agree that borderwidth is not an intuitive option; however, how
> would you have specified the window style from Unix?

I wouldn't expect to.  That's a window manager function; I expect to
control it by telling the *window manager* things, not by telling the
*client* things!

>> Then there are the multiple screens.  The default in MacX is
>> [rootless - X windows are Mac windows].  To run an X window manager,
>> you need a root window, which is one big Apple window which all the
>> others get put in.  If you really do have multiple screens attached
>> to your Mac, they are treated as one big screen and cannot be
>> referred to individually.
> Again, how would you prefer things to be arranged?

How about the way everybody else does it?  You start the X server, it
takes over your screen, keyboard, and mouse, and there you are.  No
fash with a root window that is actually inside a Mac window, or is
partly invisible because of multiple monitors, or doesn't even exist.
(Multiple monitors should be separate screens.  If the hardware
differs, they should offer visuals with different capabilities.)

>> These are irritating, but the kludge on the mouse buttons is
>> downright awful.  Given that the Mac mouse has one button, how would
>> you simulate the three usually found on Unix boxes?

I've already addressed this in another post.  In short: make the X
pointer device match reality - make it have only one button.

> The MIT X11 server [...].

There's an MIT X11 server for the Mac?  Where and how can one get it?

> My only gripe about the keyboard is the brain-damaged policy of
> putting meta on the uparrow key instead of on option (where it is in
> the MIT server); this causes me no end of grief with emacs.  It would
> be very nice if this were a configurable option instead of the only
> game in town.

Good heavens, can't you xmodmap it back to something saner?

					der Mouse

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			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu