Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: jdiaz@oracle.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Popup window version of rwall
Keywords: Software
Message-ID: <JDIAZ.89Mar21140715@hqsun1.oracle.com>
Date: 18 Apr 89 18:58:19 GMT
References: <8903081444.AA12098@sprite.steinmetz>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Belmont, CA
Lines: 29
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: 21 Mar 89 22:07:16 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 230, message 3 of 16

>   From: steinmetz!sprite!montnaro@uunet.uu.net (Skip Montanaro)
>   Original-Date: Wed, 8 Mar 89 09:44:43 EST
>
>   Instead of the rwall user having to stick that stuff in though, I think
>   rwalld should be modified to realize what type of environment is being run
>   on each login session to which it will write messages. [...]
>
>   Is this bizarre, or what?

Yup, it's bizarre.  It also seems to be the wrong place to put such code.
After all, once you've finished rwalld, it'd be nice to have the same
capabilities in talk... and write... and biff... and any other application
that wants to notify you of events.

So, it seems that the right thing to do would be to write a notification
service, with a server that keeps track of where you are, and what kinds
of messages you want to see, and a client that shows the messages to you
using whatever window system you're using, and an interface to allow
applications to send messages, and....

Fortunately, it's already been written.  A paper on the Zephyr
Notification Service was published in the Winter '88 Usenix proceedings.
For more information, send mail to zephyr@athena.mit.edu.  (Not to me!)

Claimer:  I am merely a happy Zephyr user.


				   AMBAR
ambar@oracle.com				 {uunet,pyramid}!oracle!ambar