Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!kddlab!ccut!titcca!sragwa!sravd.sra.JUNET
From: erik@sravd.sra.JUNET (Erik M. van der Poel)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  Programs relying on app-defaults files
Message-ID: <1045@sragwa.sra.JUNET>
Date: 24 May 89 03:07:18 GMT
References: <1242@harrier.ukc.ac.uk>
Sender: news@sragwa.sra.JUNET
Reply-To: erik%sra.junet@uunet.uu.net (Erik M. van der Poel)
Organization: Software Research Associates, Inc., Japan
Lines: 42

In article <1242@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> rlh2@ukc.ac.uk (Richard Hesketh) writes:
>There is a confusion in the documentation as to the purpose of application
>contexts.  This I believe is being changed in R4 8-).

In what way is it being changed?

>I don't see that the one-file-per-application argument holds. ... It is
>certainly not an argument for dropping the use of resource files.

I don't want to drop resource files, I just want to add resource strings. (Just
to avoid confusion, by "resource strings" I definitely am NOT referring to
XtSet{Arg,Values} hard-wiring. The resource string is simply an alternative if
the resource file is not present.)

>What you need .. is a method for allowing programmers to specify a
>defaults file within the application program .. possibly in a statically
>initialized structure. ...

This is identical to what I proposed. I'm very sorry if I didn't make that
clear.

>In this way those who feel that every application should be only one binary
>and no trailing files, and those who wish to make their applications
>customizable by users would be catered for.  I personally don't think the
>change is necessary, unless I am missing something very important here?

I personally think the change is necessary and important. As it says in the
documentation, "To the extent possible, the X Toolkit is policy free." So Xt
should provide the *mechanism* to make it *possible* for the programmer to
implement an app-defaults *policy* to his/her own liking. (Xt implementors, are
you catching this?)

>I am afraid I have to disagree with Erik van der Poel, you *can* have
>separate app-defaults files for each new XtAppCreateShell(), as well as
>the one specified in XtInitialize() and they do work.

Oh, how embarassing! :-( But they don't seem to work for me, using the R3 Xt
with fixes 1 to 10. Are you using a souped-up almost-R4 version of Xt?

Thank you, Richard Hesketh, for following up. The days of dead silence after my
posting made me think I had touched on a subject that was either taboo or
irrelevant. :-)