Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!jim
From: jim@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Jim Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: xterm and TERMCAP
Message-ID: <8901051418.AA27675@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 5 Jan 89 14:18:35 GMT
References: <35145@think.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: X Consortium, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 25


>                                                If I give xterm no
> arguments, the "li" and "co" fields in the TERMCAP environment
> variable are set correctly for the window size.

The problem is that the process that eventually becomes the shell or -e command
has already been forked by the time your window manager gets around to
(re)sizing the window.  There are a couple of possible workarounds that may or
may be palatable:

     o  Initialize the geometry resource to contain the desired size (either
	through your resources or the -geometry command line switch) and use
	a window manager that will allow you to have that size.

     o  Teach rn to understand SIGWINCH on operating systems supports it.

     o  Yuck: add an option to xterm to have it wait until its main window is 
	mapped the first time before forking the application.  This shouldn't
	be the default since it will slow down the normal case and will cause
	strange behavior when used with window managers that don't map the 
	window right away (e.g. put it into a "holding bin", etc.).


Jim Fulton
MIT X Consortium