Archive-name: x-faq/part2 Last-modified: 1993/05/11 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 21) How do I use another window manager with DEC's session manager? DEC's session manager will start dxwm up by default. To override this, add to your .Xdefaults file something like this line, naming the full pathname: sm.windowManagerName: /wherever/usr/bin/X11/your_favorite_wm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 22) How do I change the keyboard auto-repeat rate? You can turn auto-repeat on or off by using "xset r on|off". The X protocol, however, doesn't provide for varying the auto-repeat rate, which is a capability not supported by all systems. Some servers running on systems that support this, however, may provide command-line flags to set the rate at start-up time. If you have control over server start-up (see the man pages for xinit and xdm), you can invoke the server with the chosen settings; for example, you can start the Xsun server from MIT with the options "-ar1 350 -ar2 30" to reduce the sensitivity of the keyboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 23) How do I remap the keys on my keyboard to produce a string? There is no method of arranging for a particular string to be produced when you press a particular key. The xmodmap client, which is useful for moving your CTRL and ESC keys to useful places, just rearranges keys and does not do "macro expansion." Some (few) clients, including xterm and several X-based editors, accept a translation resource such as: xterm*VT100.Translations: #override \ F1: string("setenv DISPLAY unix:0") which permits the shorthand F1 to be pressed to reset the display locally within an xterm; it takes effect for new xterm clients. To include control characters in the string, use \nnn, where nnn is the octal encoding of the control character you want to include. Window managers, which could provide this facility, do not yet; nor has a special "remapper" client been made available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 24) How do I make a screendump or print my application? The xwd client in the X11 distributions can be used to select a window or the background. It produces an XWD-format file of the image of that window. The file can be post-processed into something useful or printed with the xpr client and your local printing mechanism. You can use this command: csh% sleep 10; xwd -root > output.xwd & and then spend 10 seconds or so setting up your screen; the entire current display will be saved into the file output.xwd. Note that xwd also has an undocumented (before R5) -id flag for specifying the window id on the command-line. [There are also unofficial patches on export to xwd for specifying the delay and the portion of the screen to capture.] Two publicly-available programs which allow interactive definition of arbitrary portions of the display and built-in delays are asnap and xgrabsc. There are several versions of xgrabsc; version 2.2, available on export [8/92] is the most recent. xsnap includes some asnap features and supersedes it; it also renders XPM output [version unknown]. It is available on export or avahi.inria.fr; see xsnap-pl2.tar.Z. A screen-dump and merge/edit program combining features of xwd and xpr is available from vernam.cs.uwm.edu as xdump1.0.tar.Z. Information: soft-eng@cs.uwm.edu. xprint, by Alberto Accomazzi (alberto@cfa.harvard.edu) is available from cfa0 (128.103.40.1) in xprint.export-2.1.tar.Z. To post-process the xwd output of some of these tools, you can use xpr, which is part of the X11 distribution. Also on several archives are xwd2ps and XtoPS, which produce Encapsulated PostScript with trimmings suitable for use in presentations (see export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/xwd2ps.tar.Z and contrib/ImageMagick.tar.Z). Also useful is the PBMPLUS package on many archive servers; and the Xim package contains Level 2 color PostScript output. The XV program can grab a portion of the X display, manipulate it, and save it in one of the available formats. ImageMagick has similar capabilities. Also: Bristol Technology (info@bristol.com, 203-438-6969) offers Xprinter 2.0, an Xlib API for PostScript and PCL printers; a demo is on ftp.uu.net in vendor/Bristol/Xprinter. ColorSoft 9619-459-8500) offers OPENprint package includes a screen- capture facility, image-processing, and support for PostScript and non-PostScript printers. Some vendors' implementations of X (e.g. DECWindows and OpenWindows) include session managers or other desktop programs which include "print portion of screen" or "take a snapshot" options. Some platforms also have tools which can be used to grab the frame-buffer directly; the Sun systems, for example, have a 'screendump' program which produces a Sun raster file. Some X terminals have local screen-dump utilities to write PostScript to a local serial printer. Some vendors' implementations of lpr (e.g. Sony) include direct support for printing xwd files, but you'll typically need some other package to massage the output into a useful format which you can get to the printer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 25) How do I make a color PostScript screendump of the X display? If you need color PostScript in particular, you can - grab the screen-image using a program which can produce color PostScript, such as xgrabsc and xv - grab the screen-image using xwd and post-process xwd into color PS. You can do this using xwd2ps or the XtoPS program from the ImageMagick distribution. The PBMPLUS package is also good for this, as is the Xim package. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 26) How do I make a screendump including the X cursor? This can't be done unless the X server has been extended. Consider instead a system-dependent mechanism for, e.g., capturing the frame-buffer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 27)! How do I convert/view Mac/TIFF/GIF/Sun/PICT/img/FAX images in X? The likeliest program is an incarnation of Jef Poskanzer's useful++ Portable Bitmap Toolkit, which includes a number of programs for converting among various image formats. It includes support for many types of bitmaps, gray-scale images, and full-color images. PBMPLUS has been updated recently; the most recent version [12/91] is on export in contrib/pbmplus10dec91.tar.Z. Another tool is San Diego Supercomputing Center's IMtools ('imconv' in particular), which packages the functionality of PBM into a single binary. It's available anonymous ftp from sdsc.edu (132.249.20.22). Useful for viewing some image-formats is Jim Frost's xloadimage, a version of which is in the R4 directory contrib/clients/xloadimage; there are later versions available, including contrib/xloadimage.3.03.tar.Z on export. Graeme Gill's updates to an earlier version of xloadimage are also on export; see xli.README and xli.tar.Z.uu; version 1.14 was released 2/93. xv (X Image Viewer), written by bradley@cis.upenn.edu (John Bradley), can read and display pictures in Sun Raster, PGM, PBM, PPM, X11 bitmap, TIFF, GIF and JPEG. It can manipulate on the images: adjust, color, intensity, contrast, aspect ratio, crop). It can save images in all of the aforementioned formats plus PostScript. It can grab a portion of the X display, manipulate on it, and save it in one of the available formats. The program was updated 5/92; see the file contrib/xv-2.21.tar.Z on export.lcs.mit.edu. Version 3.00 [5/93] is distributed as shareware. The Fuzzy Pixmap Manipulation, by Michael Mauldin . Conversion and manipulation package, similar to PBMPLUS. Version 1.0 available via FTP as nl.cs.cmu.edu:/usr/mlm/ftp/fbm.tar.Z, uunet.uu.net:pub/fbm.tar.Z, and ucsd.edu:graphics/fbm.tar.Z. The Img Software Set, by Paul Raveling , reads and writes its own image format, displays on an X11 screen, and does some image manipulations. Version 1.3 is available via FTP on expo.lcs.mit.edu as contrib/img_1.3.tar.Z, along with large collection of color images. The Utah RLE Toolkit is a conversion and manipulation package similar to PBMPLUS. Available via FTP as cs.utah.edu:pub/urt-*, weedeater.math.yale.edu:pub/urt-*, and freebie.engin.umich.edu:pub/urt-*. Xim, The X Image Manipulator, by Philip Thompson, does essential interactive displaying, editing, filtering, and converting of images. There is a version in the X11R4 contrib area; but a more recent version (using R4 and Motif 1.1) is available from gis.mit.edu (18.80.1.118). Xim reads/writes gif, xwd, xbm, tiff, rle, xim, (writes level 2 eps) and other formats and also has a library and command-line utilities for building your own applications. ImageMagick [2.3; 2/93] by cristy@dupont.com can be retrieved from export's contrib area. It is a collection of utilities to transform and display images on any X server. The tool uses the MIFF format; filters to and from MIFF from other popular formats (PPM, TIFF, GIF, SUN Raster, etc) are included. xtiff is a tool for viewing a TIFF file in an X window. It was written to handle as many different kinds of TIFF files as possible while remaining simple, portable and efficient. xtiff illustrates some common problems with building pixmaps and using different visual classes. It is distributed as part of Sam Leffler's libtiff package and it is also available on export.lcs.mit.edu, uunet.uu.net and comp.sources.x. [dbs@decwrl.dec.com,10/90] xtiff 2.0 was announced in 4/91; it includes Xlib and Xt versions. A version of Lee Iverson's (leei@McRCIM.McGill.EDU) image-viewing tool is available as contrib/vimage-0.9.3.tar.Z on export.lcs.mit.edu. The package also includes an ImageViewPort widget and a FileDialog widget. [12/91;5/92] The Andrew User Interface System (version 5.2 and later) provides an image inset which can view many image formats. Like all Andrew insets, an image can be incorporated in a a document or sent in email via the MIME standard. The following formats can be read: Sunraster, GIF, Xbitmap, TIFF, Xpixmap, JPEG, PBM, XWD. [some material from Larry Carroll (larryc@poe.jpl.nasa.gov), 5/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 28) How can I change the titlebar of my xterm window? The solution involves sending an escape sequence to xterm which will cause it to update the property which the window manager relies upon for the string which appears in the window titlebar. A solution is as easy as typing this in an xterm running a shell: echo "ESC]2;TEXT^G" where ESC is the escape key, TEXT is the string you wish to have displayed, and ^G is a Control-G (the BEL character). Here is a more complicated csh alias which changes the titlebar to the current working directory when you change directories: alias newcd 'cd \!*; echo -n ESC]2\;$cwd^G' The digit '2' in these strings indicates to xterm that it should change only the title of the window; to change both the title and the name used in the icon, use the digit '0' instead, and use '1' to change only the icon name. Note: another way to do this, which prevents an incorrect display of the local directory if a modified `cd` is used in a subshell, is to wrap the escape sequences into the PS1 prompt itself. Note: on an IBM RS/6000 is may be necessary to begin the sequence with a ^V. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 29) Where can I find the xterm control sequences? The best source of such information is in your R5 sources in the file ctlseqs.ms; a PostScript version is in mit/hardcopy/clients/ctlseqs.PS.Z. O'Reilly's Volume 3, the X User's Guide, includes an R5 version of the control sequences; the standard volume will be available 3/93, and a Motif version of the book is available now. The current (R4) guide includes an outdated version of the control sequences. [1/93] Other good sources of information include the R4 version of that document and also the file in the R4 sources called mit/clients/xterm/ctlseq2.txt, a compilation put together by Skip Montanaro (GE CR&D) listing the VT100 sequences. It dates from R3 but is fairly accurate. A hardcopy version was published in the December 1989 XNextEvent (the XUG newsletter). In a pinch, a VT100 manual will do. [last updated 10/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 30) How can I use characters above ASCII 127 in xterm ? In order to use special characters such as the o-umlaut, you need to "stty pass8" but also to use a charcell ISO8859 font, such as XTerm*font: -*-*-medium-r-normal-*-*-130-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1 XTerm*boldfont: -*-*-bold-r-normal-*-*-130-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1 [The family is intentionally unspecified in this example.] In addition, you may want to set this in your shell: setenv LC_CTYPE iso_8859_1 For a given character above 127, you can determine the key to use with the Alt modifier by finding the equivalent character below 127 (try using `man ascii`). For example, o-umlaut (v) is Alt-v and the section character (') is Alt-'. [thanks to Greg Holmberg (greg%thirdi@uunet.uu.net) and Stephen Gildea (gildea@expo.lcs.mit.edu); 6/92] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 31) Why are my xterm menus so small? You are probably setting the geometry small accidentally. If you give a resource specification like this: xterm*geometry: 80x24 then you are asking for all widgets under xterm to have their geometry set to 80x24. For the main window, this is OK, as it uses characters for its size. But its popup menus don't; they are in pixels and show up small. To set only the terminal widget to have the specified geometry, name it explicitly: xterm*VT100.geometry: 80x24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 32) How can I print the current selection? You could paste it into an xterm after executing the lpr command. However, a program by Richard Hesketh (rlh2@ukc.ac.uk) specifically for manipulating the selection will help; e.g. % xselection PRIMARY | lpr finds the primary selection and prints it. This command can be placed in a window-manager menu or in shell-scripts. xselection also permits the setting of the selection and other properties. A version is on export. Also available is ria.ccs.uwo.ca:pub/xget_selection.tar.Z, which can be adapted to do this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 33)! How does Xt use environment variables in loading resources? You can use several environment variables to control how resources are loaded for your Xt-based programs -- XFILESEARCHPATH, XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, and XAPPLRESDIR. These environment variables control where Xt looks for application-defaults files as an application is initializing. Xt loads at most one app-defaults file from the path defined in XFILESEARCHPATH and another from the path defined in XUSERFILESEARCHPATH. XAPPLRESDIR existed in R3 and before. As of R4, the Xt developers added the more sophisticated *SEARCHPATH mechanism, but left XAPPLRESDIR in place to avoid breaking existing software. Set XFILESEARCHPATH if software is installed on your system in such a way that app-defaults files appear in several different directory hierarchies. Suppose, for example, that you are running Sun's Open Windows, and you also have some R4 X applications installed in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults. You could set a value like this for XFILESEARCHPATH, and it would cause Xt to look up app-defaults files in both /usr/lib/X11 and /usr/openwin/lib (or wherever your OPENWINHOME is located): setenv XFILESEARCHPATH /usr/lib/X11/%T/%N:$OPENWINHOME/lib/%T/%N The value of this environment variable is a colon-separated list of pathnames. The pathnames contain replacement characters as follows (see XtResolvePathname()): %N The value of the filename parameter, or the application's class name. %T The value of the file "type". In this case, the literal string "app-defaults" %C customization resource (R5 only) %S Suffix. None for app-defaults. %L Language, locale, and codeset (e.g. "ja_JP.EUC") %l Language part of %L (e.g. "ja") %t The territory part of the display's language string %c The codeset part of the display's language string Let's take apart the example. Suppose the application's class name is "Myterm". Also, suppose Open Windows is installed in /usr/openwin. (Notice the example omits locale-specific lookup.) /usr/lib/X11/%T/%N means /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Myterm $OPENWINHOME/lib/%T/%N means /usr/openwin/lib/app-defaults/Myterm As the application initializes, Xt tries to open both of the above app-defaults files, in the order shown. As soon as it finds one, it reads it and uses it, and stops looking for others. The effect of this path is to search first in /usr/lib/X11, then in /usr/openwin. Let's consider another example. This time, let's set XUSERFILESEARCHPATH so it looks for the file Myterm.ad in the current working directory, then for Myterm in the directory ~/app-defaults. setenv XUSERFILESEARCHPATH ./%N.ad:$HOME/app-defaults/%N The first path in the list expands to ./Myterm.ad. The second expands to $HOME/app-defaults/Myterm. This is a convenient setting for debugging because it follows the Imake convention of naming the app-defaults file Myterm.ad in the application's source directory, so you can run the application from the directory in which you are working and still have the resources loaded properly. NOTE: when looking for app-default files with XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, for some bizarre reason, neither the type nor file suffix is defined so %T and %S are useless. With R5, there's another twist. You may specify a customization resource value. For example, you might run the "myterm" application like this: myterm -xrm "*customization: -color" If one of your pathname specifications had the value "/usr/lib/X11/%T/%N%C" then the expanded pathname would be "/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Myterm-color" because the %C substitution character takes on the value of the customization resource. The default XFILESEARCHPATH, compiled into Xt, is: /usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N%C:\ (R5) /usr/lib/X11/%l/%T/%N%C:\ (R5) /usr/lib/X11/%T/%N%C:\ (R5) /usr/lib/X11/%L/%T/%N:\ /usr/lib/X11/%l/%T/%N:\ /usr/lib/X11/%T/%N (Note: some sites replace /usr/lib/X11 with a ProjectRoot in this batch of default settings.) The default XUSERFILESEARCHPATH, also compiled into Xt, is /%L/%N%C:\ (R5) /%l/%N%C:\ (R5) /%N%C:\ (R5) /%L/%N:\ /%l/%N:\ /%N: is either the value of XAPPLRESDIR or the user's home directory if XAPPLRESDIR is not set. If you set XUSERFILESEARCHPATH to some value other than the default, Xt ignores XAPPLRESDIR altogether. Notice that the quick and dirty way of making your application find your app-defaults file in your current working directory is to set XAPPLRESDIR to ".", a single dot. In R3, all this machinery worked differently; for R3 compatibilty, many people set their XAPPLRESDIR value to "./", a dot followed by a slash. [Thanks to Oliver Jones (oj@world.std.com); 2/93.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 34) How to I have xdm put a picture behind the log-in window? The answer lies in changing xdm's xrdb resource in the xdm-config file to run a program to change the background before loading the resources; for example, your /usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-config file may add the line DisplayManager.0.authorize: false to permit unrestricted access to the display before log-in (beware!) and also DisplayManager*xrdb: /usr/lib/X11/xdm/new.xrdb where that file does something (for all connections) along the lines of: #!/bin/sh #comes in with arguments: -display :0 -load /usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xresources /usr/bin/X11/xsetroot -display $2 -bitmap /usr/lib/X11/xdm/new.bitmap /usr/bin/X11/xrdb $* Substitute xloadimage or xv for xsetroot, to taste. Note that this is a general hack that can be used to invoke a console window or any other client. [Thanks to Jay Bourland (jayb@cauchy.stanford.edu), 9/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 35) Why isn't my PATH set when xdm runs my .xsession file? When xdm runs your .xsession it doesn't source your .cshrc or .login files. You can set the path explicitly as you normally could for any SH script; or you can place all environment-setting statements in a separate file and source it from both the .xsession file and your shell configuration file; or, if you set your PATH in your .cshrc file, the normal place, you can make your .xsession have PATH set simply by making it a csh script, i.e. by starting your .xsession file off with "#!/bin/csh". If this doesn't work, also try starting off with: #!/bin/sh # Reset path: PATH=`csh -c 'echo $PATH'` ; export PATH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 36) How do I keep my $DISPLAY when I rlogin to another machine? There are several ways to avoid having to do a "setenv DISPLAY ..." whenever you log in to another networked UNIX machine running X. One solution is to use the clients/xrsh on the R5 contrib tape. It includes xrsh, a script to start an X application on remote machine, and xrlogin, a script to start a local xterm running rlogin to a remote machine. A more recent version is on export in xrsh-5.4.shar. One solution is to use the xrlogin program from der Mouse (mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu). You can ftp caveat-emptor versions from 132.206.1.1, in X/xrlogin.c and X/xrlogind.c. The program packages up $TERM and $DISPLAY into a single string, which is stuffed into $TERM. rlogin then propagates $TERM normally; your .cshrc on the remote machine should contain eval `xrlogind` where xrlogind is a program that checks $TERM and if it is of the special format it recognizes, unpacks it and spits out setenv and unsetenv commands to recreate the environment variables. [11/90] In addition, if all you need to do is start a remote X process on another host, and you find rsh -n /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display $DISPLAY too simple (DISPLAY must have your real hostname), then this version of xrsh can be used to start up remote X processes. The equivalent usage would be xrsh xterm #! /bin/sh # start an X11 process on another host # Date: 8 Dec 88 06:29:34 GMT # From: Chris Torek # rsh $host -n "setenv DISPLAY $DISPLAY; exec $@ &/dev/null" # # An improved version: # rXcmd (suggested by John Robinson, jr@bbn.com) # (generalized for sh,ksh by Keith Boyer, keith@cis.ohio-state.edu) # # but they put the rcmd in ()'s which left zombies again. This # script combines the best of both. case $# in [01]) echo "Usage: $0 host x-cmd [args...]";; *) case $SHELL in *csh*) host="$1"; shift xhost "$host" > /dev/null rsh "$host" -n \ "setenv TERM xterm; setenv DISPLAY `hostname`:0; \ exec $* & /dev/null" & ;; *sh) host="$1"; shift xhost "$host" > /dev/null rsh "$host" -n \ "TERM=xterm export TERM; \ DISPLAY=`hostname`:0 export DISPLAY; \ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/X11/lib export LD_LIBRARY_PATH; \ PATH=\$PATH:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/local/bin; \ export PATH; \ exec $* < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1" & ;; esac ;; esac ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 37)! How can I design my own font? One way is to use the "bitmap" client or some other bitmap-editor (e.g. Sun's icon-editor tool, post-processed with pbmplus) to design the individual characters and then to do some large amount of post-processing to concatenate them into the BDF format. See Ollie Jones's article in the November 91 X Journal for more information. The R3 contrib/ area (in fonts/utils/ and in clients/xtroff) contained a number of useful utilities, including some to convert between BDF font format and a simple character format which can be edited with any text editor. An easier way is to use the "xfed" client to modify an existing font; a version is on the R4 or R5 X11R5 contrib tape in contrib/clients/xfed. Xfed is available for anonymous ftp on ftp.Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE [129.217.64.63], possibly as file /pub/windows/X/Diverse-X11-Sourcen/xfed.tar.Z. It can produce BDF-format fonts which can be compiled for a variety of X servers. The xfedor client from Group Bull permits creation of bitmaps, cursors, XPM1 pixmaps, and fonts. Binaries for common machines are on avahi.inria.fr in /pub; in addition, the sources (an old Xlib implementation) have been placed [5/91] in export:/contrib. If you are a MetaFont user you can use "mftobdf" from the SeeTeX distribution to convert PK, GF, and PXL fonts to BDF format; the distribution is on ftp.cs.colorado.edu and on export.lcs.mit.edu. The GNU package fontutils-0.4.tar.Z on prep.ai.mit.edu includes xbfe, a font editor, and a number of utilities for massaging font formats. The O'Reilly X Resource issue #2 contains an article on using these tools to modify a font. Fonts can be resized with Hiroto Kagotani's bdfresize; a new version is in ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp:/X11/contrib. bdffont in the Andrew User Interface System (versions 5.2.2 and higher) lets you create a font or edit an existing one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 38) Why does adding a font to the server not work (sic)? After you have built the font using your system's font-compiler, installed it in some directory, and run `mkfontdir` or your system's equivalent (e.g. bldfamily for OpenWindows) in that directory, be sure to use `xset +fp $dir` to add that full path-name to the server's font-path, *or* if the directory is already in the path, use `xset fp rehash` so that the new fonts in that directory are actually found; it is this last step that you're probably leaving out. (You can also use `xset q` to make sure that that directory is in the path.) Sometimes your "xset +fp $dir" command fails with a BadValue error: X Error of failed request:BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation) Major opcode of failed request: 51 (X_SetFontPath) This means the X server cannot find or read your font directory, or that your directory does not look like a font directory to the server. (The mention of an "integer parameter" in the message is spurious.) -- Is the font directory you're specifying readable from the SERVER's file system? Remember, it's the server, not the client, which interprets your font directory. Trouble in this area is especially likely when you issue an xset command with shell metacharacters in it (e.g. "xset +fp ~/myfonts") and the server is an X terminal or managed by xdm. -- Is the directory really a font directory? If you're running an MIT server (or most varieties of vendor servers) look in the directory for the file "fonts.dir". If you can't find that file, run mkfontdir(1). (If you're running OpenWindows, look for the file "Families.list". If you can't find it, run bldfamily(1).) -- If you're in a site where some people run X11Rn servers and others run a proprietary server with nonstandard font formats (OpenWindows, for example), make sure the font directory is right for the server you're using. Hint: if the directory contains .pcf and/or .snf files, it won't work for Open Windows. If the directory contains .ff and/or .fb files, it won't work for X11Rn. [thanks to der Mouse (mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu) and to Oliver Jones (oj@pictel.com); 7/92 ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 39) How do I convert a ".snf" font back to ".bdf" font? A tool called "snftobdf 1.4" is part of the bdftools package, which is available from export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/bdftools.tar.Z and from crl.nmsu.edu:pub/misc/bdftools.tar.Z. [2/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 40) What is a general method of getting a font in usable format? der Mouse's getbdf is one solution; it connects to a server and produces a .BDF file for any font the server is willing to let it. It can be used as an anything-to-BDF converter, but requires access to a server that can understand the font file, thus is both more and less powerful than other tools such as snftobdf. getbdf is on 132.206.1.1 in X/getbdf.c or available via mail from mouse@larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU. [5/91] In addition, the R5 program "fstobdf" can produce bdf for any font that the R5 server has access to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 41) How do I use DECwindows fonts on my non-DECwindows server? The DECwindows fonts typically don't exist on a non-DEC installation, but rewrite rules can be used to alias fonts used by DECwindows applications to standard MIT fonts of similar characteristics and size. Pick up the file contrib/DECwindows_on_X11R4_font.aliases from export.lcs.mit.edu; this file is for a standard MIT R4 server. It can also serve as a starting point for creating a similar aliases file for the Open Windows server or other servers which do not use the MIT font scheme. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 42) How do I add ".bdf" fonts to my DECwindows server? The format of fonts preferred by DEC's X server is the ".pcf" format. You can produce this compiled format from the .bdf format by using DEC's dxfc font-compiler. Note that the DEC servers can also use raw .bdf fonts, with a performance hit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 43) How can I set backgroundPixmap in a defaults file? (What is XPM?) I want to be able to do something like this: xclock*backgroundPixmap: /usr/include/X11/bitmaps/rootweave You can't do this. The backgroundPixmap resource is a pixmap of the same depth as the screen, not a bitmap (which is a pixmap of depth 1). Because of this, writing a generic String to Pixmap converter is impossible, since there is no accepted convention for a file format for pixmaps. Therefore, neither the X Toolkit or the Athena widget set define a String to Pixmap converter, because there is no converter you cannot specify this value as a resource. The Athena widget set does define a String to Bitmap converter for use in many of its widgets, however. [courtesy Chris D. Peterson (now kit@ics.com), 4/90] However: A specific converter which encapsulates much of the functionality of the xloadimage package by Jim Frost was posted 12/90 by Sebastian Wangnick (basti@unido.informatik.uni-dortmund.de); it permits loading of a number of image formats as a pixmap. The leading general-purpose format for pixmaps is the XPM format used by Groupe Bull in several of its programs, including the GWM window manager, by AT&T in its olpixmap editor, and by ICS in its interface builder. XPM distribution, available on export as contrib/xpm.tar.Z, includes read/write routines which can easily be adapted to converters by new widgets which want to allow specification of pixmap resources in the above manner. See information on the xpm-talk mailing list above. XPM 3.0g was announced in 4/93 and is available from export.lcs.mit.edu and avahi.inria.fr; an older version is on the R5 contrib tape. [A set of XPM icons collected by Anthony Thyssen (anthony@kurango.cit.gu.edu.au) is on export in contrib/AIcons.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 44) Why can't I override translations? Only the first item works. You probably have an extra space after the specification of the first item, like this: basic*text.translations: #override \ Ctrla: beginning-of-line() \n\ Ctrle: end-of-line() ^ extra space The newline after that space is ending the translation definition. [Thanks to Timothy J. Horton, 5/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 45)! How can I have a clock show different timezones? One solution is xchron, in Volume 6 of comp.sources.x, which can show the time for timezones other than the local one. sunclock on export displays a world map with sun/dark areas and local and UTC time. The OpenWindows clock has a TimeZone property. Modifications to the Xaw clock widget to support hour and minute offsets were posted by David Herron (david@twg.com). A patch for the clock coming with the Xaw3D widgets introduces resources hourOffset, minuteOffset, gmt; it can be found at ftp.wu-wien.ac.at:pub/src/X11/wafe/xaw3d.Clock.patch. Alternatively, you can probably set the timezone in the shell from which you invoke the xclock or oclock, or use a script similar to this: #!/bin/sh TZ=PST8PDT xclock -name "San_Luis_Obispo_CA" 2> /dev/null & TZ=EST5EDT xclock -name "King_Of_Prussia_PA" 2> /dev/null & ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 46) I have xmh, but it doesn't work. Where can I get MH? The xmh mail-reader requires the Rand MH mail/message handling system, which is not part of the UNIX software distribution for many machines. A list of various ftp, uucp, e-mail and US-mail sites for both xmh and MH is given in the monthly MH FAQ; one source is ics.uci.edu in the file pub/mh/mh-6.7.tar.Z. If you do not receive the comp.mail.mh newsgroup or the MH-users mailing list, you can request a copy of the FAQ, which also includes a section on xmh, by sending mail to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu containing the request "send usenet/news.answers/mh-faq". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 47) Why am I suddenly unable to connect to my Sun X server? After a seemingly random amount of time after the X server has been started, no other clients are able to connect to it. The default cron cleanup jobs supplied by Sun (for 4.0.3, at least) delete "old" (unreferenced) files from /tmp -- including /tmp/.X11-unix, which contains the socket descriptor used by X. The solution is to add "! -type s" to the find exclusion in the cron job. [10/90] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 48) Why don't the R5 PEX demos work on my mono screen? The R5 sample server implementation works only on color screens, sorry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 49) How do I get my Sun Type-[45] keyboard fully supported by Xsun? Many users wants the Num Lock key to light the Num Lock LED and have the appropriate effect on the numeric keypad. The Xsun server as distributed by MIT doesn't do this but there are two different patches available. The first patch is written by Jonathan Lemon and fixes the Num Lock related problems. It is available from export.lcs.mit.edu in the file contrib/Xsun-R5.numlock_patch.Z . The second is written by Martin Forssen and fixes the Num Lock and Compose keys and adds support for the different national keyboard layouts for Type-4 and Type-5 keyboards. This patch is available from export.lcs.mit.edu in contrib/sunkbd1216-0314.tar.Z or via email from maf@dtek.chalmers.se. [thanks to Martin Forssen (maf@dtek.chalmers.se or maf@math.chalmers.se), 8/92] A set of patches by William Bailey (dbgwab@arco.com) was posted to newsgroups 11/92 to provide support for the Type-5 keyboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 50) How do I report bugs in X? Generally, report bugs you find to the organization that supplied you with the X Window System. If you received the R5 source distribution directly from MIT, please read the file mit/bug-report for instructions. [Look in mit/doc/bugs/bug-report in R4.] [Thanks to Stephen Gildea , 5/91; 12/91] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 51) Why do I get "Warning: Widget class version mismatch"? This error, which typically goes on to say, "widget 11004 vs. intrinsics 11003" indicates that the header files you included when building your program didn't match the header files that the Xt library you're linking against was built with; check your -I include path and -L link-path to be sure. However, the problem also occurs when linking against a version of the X11R4 Xt library before patch 10; the version number was wrong. Some Sun OW systems, in particular, were shipped with the flawed version of the library, and applications which link against the library typically give the warnings you have seen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 52) Where can I find a dictionary server for xwebster? Webster's still owns the copyright to the on-line copies of Webster's Dictionary which are found at various (university) sites. After it became aware that these sites were then acting as servers for other sites running xwebster and gnuemacs-webster, it asked that server sites close off external access. [The NeXT machine apparently is also licensed to have the dictionary. A Webster daemon for NeXT machines is available from iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (129.79.254.192) in "pub/webster/NeXT-2.0".] Unless you want to get a legal on-line copy yourself or can find a site which can grant you access, you are probably out of luck. However, if you are a legitimate site, you'll want to pick up the latest xwebster, as-is on export:contrib/xwebster.tar.Z [10/91]; the file xwebster.README includes discussions of the availability, illegality, and non-availability of dictionary servers. [courtesy steve@UMIACS.UMD.EDU (Steve Miller) and mayer@hplabs.hp.com (Niels Mayer) 11/90] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 53) TOPIC: OBTAINING X AND RELATED SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 54) Is X public-domain software? No. The X software is copyrighted by various institutions and is not "public domain", which has a specific legal meaning. However, the X distribution is available for free and can be redistributed without fee. Contributed software, though, may be placed in the public domain by individual authors. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 55) How compatible are X11R3, R4, and R5? What changes are there? The Release Notes for each MIT release of X11 specify the changes from the previous release. The X Consortium tries very hard to maintain compatibility across releases. In the few places where incompatible changes were necessary, details are given in the Release Notes. Each X11 distribution site on the network also offers the Release Notes that go with the release they offer; the file typically can be found at the top of the distribution tree. [Stephen Gildea, 1/92] The comp.windows.x.intrinsics FAQ-Xt lists Xt differences among these versions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 56) Where can I get X11R5 (source and/or binaries)? Information about MIT's distribution of the sources on 6250bpi and QIC-24 tape and its distribution of hardcopy of the documents is available from Software Center, Technology Licensing Office, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 28 Carleton Street, Room E32-300, Cambridge MA 02142-1324, phone: 617-258-8330. You will need about 100Mb of disk space to hold all of Core and 140MB to hold the Contrib software donated by individuals and companies. PLEASE use a site that is close to you in the network. Note that the RELEASE notes are generally available separately in the same directory; the notes list changes from previous versions of X and offer a guide to the distribution. North America anonymous FTP: California gatekeeper.dec.com pub/X11/R5 16.1.0.2 California soda.berkeley.edu pub/X11R5 128.32.131.179 Indiana mordred.cs.purdue.edu pub/X11/R5 128.10.2.2 Maryland ftp.brl.mil pub/X11R5 128.63.16.158 (good for MILNET sites) Massachusetts crl.dec.com pub/X11/R5 192.58.206.2 Massachusetts export.lcs.mit.edu pub/R5 18.24.0.12 (crl.dec.com is better) Michigan merit.edu pub/X11R5 35.1.1.42 Missouri wuarchive.wustl.edu packages/X11R5 128.252.135.4 Montana ftp.cs.montana.edu pub/X.V11R5 192.31.215.202 New Mexico pprg.eece.unm.edu pub/dist/X11R5 129.24.24.10 New York azure.acsu.buffalo.edu pub/X11R5 128.205.7.6 North Carolina cs.duke.edu dist/sources/X11R5 128.109.140.1 Ohio ftp.cis.ohio-state.edu pub/X.V11R5 128.146.8.52 Ontario ftp.cs.utoronto.ca pub/X11R5 128.100.1.105 Washington DC x11r5-a.uu.net X/R5 192.48.96.12 Washington DC x11r5-b.uu.net X/R5 137.39.1.12 Europe/Middle East/Australia anonymous FTP: Australia munnari.oz.au X.V11/R5 128.250.1.21 Denmark freja.diku.dk pub/X11R5 129.142.96.1 United Kingdom src.doc.ic.ac.uk graphics/X.V11R5 146.169.3.7 hpb.mcc.ac.uk pub/X11r5 130.88.200.7 Finland nic.funet.fi pub/X11/R5 128.214.6.100 France nuri.inria.fr X/X11R5 128.93.1.26 Germany ftp.germany.eu.net pub/X11/X11R5 192.76.144.129 Israel cs.huji.ac.il pub/X11R5 132.65.6.5 Italy ghost.sm.dsi.unimi.it pub/X11R5 149.132.2.1 Netherlands archive.eu.net windows/X/R5 192.16.202.1 Norway ugle.unit.no pub/X11R5 129.241.1.97 Norway nac.no pub/X11R5 129.240.2.40 Switzerland nic.switch.ch software/X11R5 130.59.1.40 Japan anonymous FTP: Kanagawa sh.wide.ad.jp X11R5 133.4.11.11 Kwansai ftp.ics.osaka-u.ac.jp X11R5 133.1.12.30 Kyushu wnoc-fuk.wide.ad.jp X11R5 133.4.14.3 TISN utsun.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp X11R5 133.11.11.11 Tokyo kerr.iwanami.co.jp X11R5 133.235.128.1 Tokyo scslwide.sony.co.jp pub/X11R5 133.138.199.1 UUCP: uunet for UUNET customers ~/X/R5 decwrl existing neighbors only ~/pub/X11/R5 osu-cis ~/X.V11R5 (not online until ~ 9 Sept) utai existing neighbors only ~/ftp/pub/X11R5 hp4nl Netherlands only ~uucp/pub/windows/X/R5 NFS: Missouri wuarchive.wustl.edu /archive/packages/X11R5 128.252.135.4 mount point: /archive AFS: Pennsylvania /afs/grand.central.org/pub/X11R5 NIFTP (hhcp, cpf, fcp, ...): United Kingdom uk.ac.ic.doc.src 00000510200001 user "guest" anon FTAM: United Kingdom 000005102000 (Janet) X.V11R5 146.169.3.7 (Internet) 204334504108 (IXI) ACSNet: Australia munnari.oz (fetchfile) X.V11/R5 Please fetch only one file at a time, after checking that a copy is not available at a closer site. [9/2/91; updated for contrib 10/91] Anyone in Europe can get a copy of the MIT X.V11R5 distribution, including the core and contributed software and all official patches, free of charge. The only requirement is to agree to return the tapes, or equivalent new tapes. Only QIC and TK format cartridges can be provided. Contact: Jamie Watson, Adasoft AG, Nesslerenweg 104, 3084 Wabern, Switzerland. Tel: +41 31 961.35.70 or +41 62 61.41.21; Fax: +41 62 61.41.30; jw@adasoft.ch. UK sites can obtain X11 through the UKUUG Software Distribution Service, from the Department of Computing, Imperial College, London, in several tape formats. You may also obtain the source via Janet (and therefore PSS) using Niftp (Host: uk.ac.ic.doc.src Name: guest Password: your_email_address). Queries should be directed to Lee McLoughlin, 071-589-5111#5037, or to info-server@doc.ic.ac.uk or ukuug-soft@uk.ac.ic.doc (send a Subject line of "wanted". Also offered are copies of comp.sources.x, the export.lcs.mit.edu contrib and doc areas and most other announced freely distributable packages. X11R5 and X11R4 source along with X11R5 contrib code, prebuilt X binaries for major platforms, and source code examples from O'Reilly's books is available on an ISO-9660-format CD-ROM from O'Reilly & Associates. [as of 3/92]. X11R5 source is available on ISO-9660-format CD-ROM for members of the Japan Unix Society from Hiroaki Obata, obata@jrd.dec.com. X11R5 source along with GNU source, the comp.sources.x archives, and SPARC binaries is available on an ISO-9660-format CD-ROM from PDQ Software, 510-947-5996 (or Robert A. Bruce, rab@sprite.Berkeley.EDU). X11R5 source is available from Automata Design Associates, +1 215-646-4894. Various users' groups (e.g. SUG) offer X sources cheaply, typically on CD-ROM. Source and binaries for the Andrew User Interface System 5.1 are available on CD-ROM. The binaries are for four common systems and include XV11R5 binaries for three of them. Information: info-andrew-requests@andrew.cmu.edu, 412-268-6710, fax 412-621-8081. AUIS sources are also available via anonymous ftp from emsworth.andrew.cmu.edu (128.2.45.40) and in various formats from the Andrew Consortium, 106 Smith Hall, Carnegie Mellon, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15213. Binaries for X11R5, with shared libX11 and libXmu, for A/UX 2.0.1 are now available from wuarchive.wustl.edu:/archive/systems/aux/X11R5. Patches for X11R5 compiled with gcc (but not shared libraries) are also available. [John L. Coolidge (coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu, 10/91)] Binaries by Rich Kaul (kaul@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu) for the Sun386i running SunOS 4.0.2 are available on dsinc.dsi.com (please only after-hours USA EST). Binaries for the Sun386i are available from compaq.com (131.168.249.254) in pub/sun-386i/sources and from vernam.cs.uwm.edu (129.89.9.117). A binary tree for the Next by Douglas Scott (doug@foxtrot.ccmrc.ucsb.edu) is on foxtrot.ccmrc.ucsb.edu; it is missing the server, though. Binaries for the Sun386i are in vernam.cs.uwm.edu:/sun386i. Binaries for the HP-PA are on hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com (15.255.72.15). Source and binaries for HP-UX 8.*/9.0(S300/400/700/800) and Domain 10.4 (68K, DN 10K) are available through the Interworks Users Group; contact Carol Relph at 508-436-5046, fax 508-256-7169, or relph_c@apollo.hp.com. Patches to X11R5 for Solaris 2.1 by Casper H.S. Dik (casper@fwi.uva.nl) et al are on export in contrib/{R5.SunOS5.patch.tar.Z,R5.SunOS5.patch.README}. Patches to X11R5 for the Sun Type 5 keyboard and the keyboard NumLock are available from William Bailey (dbgwab@arco.com). X servers for color and monochrome NeXT machines is on foxtrot.ccmrc.ucsb.edu in /pub/X11R5-MouseX.tar.Z. Source patches are expected to be on orst and sonata as X11R5-source.patch.tar.Z. Also: Binaries are available from Unipalm (+44 954 211797, xtech@unipalm.co.uk), probably for the Sun platforms. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- David B. Lewis faq%craft@uunet.uu.net "Just the FAQs, ma'am." -- Joe Friday -- David B. Lewis Temporarily at but not speaking for Visual, Inc. day: dbl@visual.com evening: david%craft@uunet.uu.net