Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!mordor!joyce!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gssc.UUCP!davec
From: davec@gssc.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Resource management on 11.2
Message-ID: <8809160015.AA14382@decwrl.dec.com>
Date: 16 Sep 88 00:09:12 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 45



I've got several questions and comments regarding the resource manager
on X11 Release 2:

1) When a client is brought up, defaults are set in the following order:

		1) /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/class, if a toolkit client
		2) server defaults via xrdb
		3) if no server defaults, then
			$HOME/.Xdefaults 
		4) XENVIRONMENT
		5) If XENVIRONMENT not set, then
			$HOME/.Xdefaults-xxxx, where xxxx is the name
			of the host where the client is running.
		6) command line options

   Why is there a separate .Xdefaults and .Xdefaults-xxxx file, and why
   are they treated differently?

   Why does the use of xrdb exclude the use of .Xdefaults?  

2) .Xdefaults-xxxx quickly reaches the 14 char filename limit of sysV
   and other OS's.  This is not a friendly interface for users.  It
   would be more appropriate to collapse the name into something
   shorter, such as .X11-xxxx, to fit well into more environments.
   Are any plans in place to fix this in R3 or later releases?

3) I don't understand the purpose of .Xdefaults-xxxx files.  Why would
   I have a file called .Xdefaults-A on machine B?  When the client is
   started, the Toolkit and Xlib will look for $HOME/.Xdefaults-B.  A
   client started on machine A will look in A's file system, not B's.
   The only possible reason for this I see is for use with distributed
   filesystems, and even then it's a bit fuzzy.

4) /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults is a directory of files where the file name
   is a classname.  For xterm, the classname is XTerm.  Each client has
   it's own classname (as far as I can tell.)  This is not documented
   well.  For instance, given the set of clients from MIT, what are the
   given classnames?  Is there a way for the user to specify classnames
   at runtime?

Thanks for any answers to or comments on these issues.

Dave Cobbley
{decvax, ucbvax}!tektronix!sequent!gssc!davec