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From: joelb@lanl.gov (Joel R. Berendzen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.idl-pvwave
Subject: PV-WAVE/OpenWindows colormap bug workaround
Keywords: SunOS OpenWindows colormap
Message-ID: <14256@lanl.gov>
Date: 11 Feb 91 23:21:51 GMT
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 21



Those of you using PV-WAVE versions 2.x or 3.0 under SunOS 4.1 & OpenWindows
version 2 may have noticed an annoying "feature": the default color map that
PV-WAVE uses causes the Sun colormap to be set to all-white upon exiting from
OpenWindows.  This means that one can't see what one is typing.  The
condition is not reset by logging in or out; only explicitly resetting the
colormap (by re-entering OpenWindows, for example), or implicitly resetting
it (by rebooting) will fix the problem.

It seems that responsibility for this problem lies both with PV-WAVE, for
leaving a "bad" colormap on exit, and Sun, for not resetting the color map
upon exiting OpenWindows.  PV-WAVE was not helpful in finding a fix for
this problem, but Sun pointed out the utility /usr/bin/clear_colormap, which
resets the colormap to the Sun defaults.

The workaround, then, is to invoke /usr/bin/clear_colormap just before the
exit(0) call of /usr/bin/openwin (the OpenWindows startup shell script).
This resets the colormap after the X server has already exited.

Joel Berendzen, Biophysics Group (P-6), Los Alamos National Lab.