1: Color handling on true-color displays

As PC technology develops, it is becoming more frequent for PCs to have more powerful graphics cards. The current trend is towards 64-bit display adapters (e.g. ATI Mach 64, GXE) with copious amounts of VRAM, some which support large numbers of colors (up to 16 million).

When using SCO XVision Eclipse with such cards, a PC is effectively providing true/direct color support to an X client. This may cause problems with some X applications. Most X applications are developed for use with an 8-bit, 256 color display which is actually a pseudo color visual class. On occasion, application authors do not cater for true or direct color visual classes.

If an application has been developed for use on a pseudo-color display, and is run on a true color display, it will exhibit some strange behavior. This will manifest itself in many different ways as the client application is responsible for the errors that result (e.g. Failed to allocate color, Cannot access color cell etc.). In addition, the application will probably not display correctly. The application would exhibit the same problems on a console or X terminal that supports true color.

SCO XVision Eclipse is the only PC X server that emulates a PseudoColor visual on a TrueColor display so even if the X client is written to use only a PseudoColor visual, it will display correctly.

2: Swapping colormaps between X and Windows

SCO XVision Eclipse boasts a revolutionary new intelligent colormap handling mechanism which ensures that both Windows and X applications retain their respective colors whichever application is in focus.

Historically, starting a Windows application that used many different colors (e.g. Netscape) grabbed the colormap from the PC X server and left the X client black and thus unreadable.

SCO XVision Eclipse offers an intelligent color matching algorithm ensuring that all applications no matter whether they are X or Microsoft are legible.

3: Controlling PC X servers

SCO SuperVision is a sister product in the SCO Vision Family. It allows the centralized management of any SCO Vision Family product from the UNIX server. When used with SCO XVision Eclipse, it provides a powerful mechanism to distribute files, configure X server preferences, implement access restrictions, all from the UNIX server.

Whilst competitive PC X server products offer remote configuration of the PC X server. To configure remote PCs, it is necessary for the PC to be switched on and running the respective PC X server package.

SCO SuperVision provides much more than a configuration method. It is possible to distribute documents, files, settings for other applications. The PC does not need to switched on; if the machine is not active, SCO SuperVision waits for the next time the PC is booted and makes the appropriate delivery or changes then. It is central management not remote administration.

4: Multiple profile handling

SCO XVision Eclipse is fully Windows 95 based. All preferences and settings related to the server are stored within the Windows registry. This enables multiple configurations to be stored simultaneously and thus SCO XVision Eclipse users can save their most frequently used configurations and be prompted as to which to use whenever SCO XVision Eclipse is started.

5: Virtual screens

SCO XVision Eclipse comes with SCO Zones, a powerful new Windows 95 virtual desktop from SCO which allows easy negotiation of a busy desktop. Within each Zone, a separate instance of the X server can be run, giving virtual X machines.

6: Optimized Graphics

SCO XVision Eclipse benchmarks itself upon installation to determine the optimal settings for the PC and to fully exploit the power of the PC hardware. Common X operations are performed in three different methods; Windows routines, Pixel-perfect X routines and then optimized SCO routines. The results are then stored and used every time the operation is performed in a live environment thus ensuring exceptional performance.

7: Resource Handling

SCO XVision Eclipse has a graphics caching mechanism which controls how much of the Windows GDI resource is used by the server. Windows GDI is a valuable resource and the use of too much of it can affect performance significantly, distort displays and in some cases, crash the PC. SCO XVision Eclipse notes what Windows resources are in use and where possible, uses the same resource.

8: Multiplexing over serial connections

The optional host component of SCO XVision Eclipse means that it is possible to run both the emulators provided with SCO XVision Eclipse and an X session simultaneously over a serial or modem line. By multiplexing the serial line, it is possible to run a serial (XRemote) X session over one channel and have the remaining channels available for terminal emulators, the UNIX browser or updates from SCO SuperVision.

9: Host discovery

SCO XVision Eclipse automatically discovers available UNIX host machines on the network thus ensuring that the user need not know the name of the machine to which they should connect. SCO SuperVision can then be used to remove available hosts from the list giving the user only a choice of hosts that they are permitted to have access to.

10: Ground-breaking technology

SCO XVision Eclipse is the first of the SCO Vision Family products to support the SCO Vision Resume technology. This allows users to suspend their X session and resume the session on any available XVision display without the need to shut the session down and restart it. This means that mobile users within the intranet need not waste time wading through their applications to get back to the point at which they left; they can just unplug their PC, plug in elsewhere and resume the session at exactly the same point at which it was left.