Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale!cmcl2!CS.NYU.EDU!mckenney
From: mckenney@CS.NYU.EDU (Alan M. McKenney)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: New User's Questions (LONG)
Keywords: twm, xterm, user's manual, menus, Sun-3
Message-ID: <162@spunky.NYU.EDU>
Date: 10 Jun 91 15:15:05 GMT
Sender: notes@SPUNKY.CS.NYU.EDU
Reply-To: mckenney@cs.nyu.edu (Alan M. McKenney)
Distribution: na
Organization: Courant Institute, New York University
Lines: 138


    I am a new X-windows user (*not* programmer), in the process of
converting from SunWindows, and have found a number of things that I
found convenient in SunWindows which I can't figure out how to do under
X-windows, as well as a few other questions.  I have the Quercia &
O'Reilly book (vol. 3, the User's Guide), and have been poring over it,
(so please don't say RTFM.)  I have also looked at the FAQ list.

   (BTW, net.fanatics should be informed that I am not interested in
responses of the form "you shouldn't do that" or "write your own
window manager".)

Configuration:

    Hardware is a Sun 3/60, monochrome monitor.  Version of X seems to
    be plain vanilla X11R4 with few tools/programs not mentioned in my
    X-windows manual.

    I have started out with /usr/lib/X11/twm/twmrc.sunview as my .twmrc .

    BTW, I am not a system manager, and would prefer to stick to the
    software we have, plus possibly a few simple, well-debugged free
    programs, which I might be able to convince our overloaded systems
    folks to install if they don't have to think much about it.


Questions:

1)  SunWindows allows me to have a (function) key resize a window to
    a specified size.  (At least it works with cmdtool and shelltool.)
    Is there a way to set this up, at least for XTerm?

2)  SunWindows uses the F1 key as a window-specific Caps-Lock key,
    with a reminder in the title bar.  This is a lot more convenient
    than the standard Caps Lock key, which doesn't even light the
    Caps Lock light, and its window-specificity is a little closer
    to the context-specificity I would really like.  How can I get a
    window-specific caps lock, or, failing that, get a visual indicator
    on the screen, or at least get the Caps Lock light to indicate the
    state of the Caps Lock key?

3)  I am having a lot of problems with repeated characters, which I
    didn't have with SunWindows.  E.g., I type "bit", but sometimes get
    something like "biit" or "bitt".  Is this some kind of race
    condition (=known problem) in X, or does this have to do with
    how the autorepeat is set up?  I.e., can I do anything about it
    (besides swear at it)?

    I notice that xset allows autorepeat to be turned off, but I don't
    see where there is any way to control how long the system waits
    before autorepeating, or to control the repeat rate.

4)  The menus in XTerm are not as convenient as I would like.  I notice
    that twm allows considerable customization of its menus, but I
    can only find out how to change the labels in XTerm's menus.  I
    would like to (a) change the composition of the menus and (b)
    change what I do to get them.  Ideally, I would like a menu bar
    (cf. xman) or a title line button (I saw something like this in
    a variant of X -- motif?), or to have one menu, on button 3.

5)  The SunWindows lockscreen command has an option (-e) to allow
    a person coming up to a workstation running "lockscreen" to make
    SunWindows exit (and, if your .login file is set up properly, log
    you out) without knowing your password.  This is considerate when
    used on public or semi-public workstations.  The X version, xlock,
    does not seem to have anything like it.  Is it possible to come up
    with a similar function?

6)  When I exit X, I get a lot of "broken pipe" messages and a messy
    screen.  All attempts to get the screen cleared upon exit from X
    have proven at best unreliable.  How can I get X to quit
    gracefully, other than by manually shutting down all child
    processes one by one?

7)  Is there any way to control where the icons go when I "iconify"
    a window?  (I have set it up so I get icons, not rectangles in
    the "icon manager" window.)   As it is, the first time a window is
    iconified, the icon ends up wherever the window was.  It would be
    nice to be able to specify absolute positions (for those started in
    my .xinitrc file) and a "gravity" for windows that I open later.

8)  The User's Manual, appendix F (XTerm escape sequences), keeps
    mentioning an "NP" control character.  I have never heard of such a
    thing.  It also seems incomplete, as I see the screen doing things
    that are not documented in this appendix.

9)  Is there a better User's Manual?

    In fact, I find it strange that, here in NYC at least, most
    bookstores have several books on programming in X, but only
    one or two have even one book on just using X (that being vol. 3
    of the Quercia & O'Reilly series.)  Every other title I have seen
    either explicitly states "programming for X-windows" or the like,
    or turns out to focus almost exclusively on programming.  Does
    anyone just use X to get their work done, or are all X users
    hackers or hacker wannabees?  Why is there no "getting started
    with X-windows", like there is for, say, WordPerfect, or even
    for Unix (or SunWindows, for that matter)?

10) Who should I contact (preferrably by E-mail) about bugs in the
    X-windows documentation?  I found one blooper in the man page for
    "resize" already.

11) Is there X-terminal software for the Atari 1040-ST?  I do some of
    my work at home, using a terminal emulator on the Atari, and
    connecting via modem to a network link and from there to my
    Sun.  Thus, it would need to work over a 1200 baud (noisy!)
    serial link.  (Yes, I know about the two sites listed in the
    FAQ list.  The U of Erlangen site doesn't have anything useful
    that I could find and the U of Dortmund site doesn't respond.)
    Basically, I want to run programs on my Sun, but use the Atari's
    mouse, keyboard, and display for input/output instead of the Sun's
    console.  (I am assuming that is the point of an X-terminal.)

12) Is this group (comp.windows.x) the right group to ask user questions?
    I haven't seen any questions posted that are anywhere near my level
    of ignorance.  Or is there a comp.windows.x.compleat-idiots?

13) Sometimes, if there is an error in my .twmrc file, X-windows
    seems to hang.  One easy way to get this is to have a menu
    entry in .twmrc with an ! but no &.  In this case, the only
    way I have found to get out of it (short of rebooting) is to
    log in from somewhere else and kill processes, usually the
    twm.  Is there a better way to escape from X, similar to
    SunWindows's ^D^Q ?

14) Also, is there a good (general) way to interrupt and kill a
    window process, similar to the SunWindows item "quit"?  I know
    that XTerm has a menu item like that, but not all window
    producers do, and it would be nice to get twm to try to kill
    the program.

Alan McKenney        E-mail:  mckenney@cs.nyu.edu         (INTERNET)
Courant Institute,NYU         ...!cmcl2!cs.nyu.edu!mckenney   (UUCP)

-- 
Alan McKenney        E-mail:  mckenney@cs.nyu.edu         (INTERNET)
Courant Institute,NYU         ...!cmcl2!cs.nyu.edu!mckenney   (UUCP)