Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!mcnc!borg!threonine!butterwo
From: butterwo@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Jeff Butterworth)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: xswarm 2.0 blanker weirdness
Message-ID: <445@borg.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 91 20:04:36 GMT
References: <1991Jan15.042140.2591@unixg.ubc.ca> <1991Jan16.160205.19684@smsc.sony.com>
Sender: news@cs.unc.edu
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 40

In article <1991Jan16.160205.19684@smsc.sony.com> dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) writes:
>In article <1991Jan15.042140.2591@unixg.ubc.ca> lindholm@greve.ucs.ubc.ca (George Lindholm) writes:
>>I'm seeing some pretty weird behaviour by the xswarm blanking code. Several
>>times the blanker has kicked in a couple of seconds after I had just used
>>the keyboard and it was no-where near 300 seconds since the previous time.
>>I have also seen the blanking cover the left half of the screen only !???
>>What is going on here???
>
>Oh, it get's better. ;-)  I tried using it with tvtwm and here's
>what happened:
>
...a list of horrid things that xswarm did...
>
>It was a good idea, but I still think that the server extension
>for screen savers is the only way to get this to work right.

I wrote xswarm and let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with George's
idea that screen savers should use some sort of server extension.  Without
support from xlib, writing a screen saver becomes a dangerous task that
can really mess people up when it doesn't work right.

To make xswarm work with tvtwm, I just included the file vroot.h that I
got from some kind user.  I was told that including this file would
make my program compatible with tvtwm.  It appears that more work needs
to be done to make xswarm compatible with tvtwm.  If anyone comes up with
some solutions, then I would love to receive a patch file!

Until some solution is found, I guess everyone should avoid mixing xswarm's
screen saver option and tvtwm.


Jeff Butterworth

Home: 100-G Misty Woods Circle, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 967-7359
School: 348 Sitterson, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (919) 962-1849
	butterwo@cs.unc.edu

"If you keep your expectations tiny, you won't go through life
 sounding so whiny."
					- Matt Groening