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From: mouse@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  xrdb
Message-ID: <9104110011.AA00932@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 11 Apr 91 00:11:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 44

> xrdb is used to set resources in the resource manager so that you
> don't have to have seperate default files for every machine that
> might use.

Right.

> I'm not sure how to go about doing this.

Just run xrdb.  The resource database is actually stored as a property
of the root window of screen 0 of your server.

> If I want to run a client on a Sun and a Mac, and be able to have
> seperate width, height, and font resources for both machines, how do
> I go about specifying this with xrdb?

When you load the resource database for your Sun, you load it with
values appropriate for the Sun; on the Mac, use values appropriate for
the Mac.  Then clients will get the correct values for the display
they're connecting to.

> Is it based on the current DISPLAY value?

That is the effect, though technically it is not true: it is based on
the RESOURCE_MANAGER property of the root of screen 0 on the connection
in question.

> What if they specify the display value on the command line of an
> application?

Then the resource routines will pick up the resources from that
display, when the program connects....

> How does xrdb know when to use resources speicified for the Mac and
> resources speicified for the Sun?

If you mean, how does it know to load the Mac values into the Mac's
database and the Sun's into the Sun, you have to tell it.  When you run
xrdb -load, you have to ensure that the values it gets are the correct
ones for the display you're loading them into.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu