Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!ALEXANDER.BBN.COM!jr
From: jr@ALEXANDER.BBN.COM.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: gnumacs and x windows
Message-ID: <8702201506.AA15396@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 20-Feb-87 10:07:14 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8702201506.AA15396
Posted: Fri Feb 20 10:07:14 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 06:34:28 EST
References: <8702191629.AA02335@tristram.cs.purdue.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 40

>> 1.  What are the advantages of using gnumacs in this way?  The only
>> one I can see is that it enables you to bind mouse clicks to perform
>> editing functions.  Although this *is* an advantage, there are some
>> disadvantages to gnumacs with HAVE_X_WINDOWS defined (2 & 3, below).

I think the biggest single advantage is that the server and client may
be different machines, and emacs opens the X connection automatically
for you.  So I can ask for an emacs running on my file server (so I
can do some tool maintenance, say), and it pops up a window back on my
workstation.  Thus, I can have a command alias (or shellscript) of the
form:

  rsh my-server "(setenv TERM xterm; setenv DISPLAY my-works:0; emacs)"

Compare this to starting up a new xterm window and then executing the
rlogin and then running emacs - you avoid the xterm altogether, and
emacs will do a better job at screen updating to boot since it can
skip all the termcap/termlib stuff.

More generally, the following shellscript allows for any X command to
be executed remotely (or any command in background for that matter).

  #!/bin/sh

  case $# in
  [01])  echo "Usage: $0 host x-cmd [args...]";;
  *)		host="$1"; shift
		  xhost "$host"
		  rsh "$host" "(setenv TERM xterm; setenv DISPLAY `hostname`:0; $*)" &
		  ;;
  esac

On autoraise: can't you get close to what you want with appropriate
window manager bindings?  Does require a mouse click, I guess, but is
that too awful?

/jr
jr@bbn.com or jr@bbnccv.uucp

Without life, there wouldn't be chemical companies.