comp windows x frequently asked questions faq archive name x faq part last modified this article and several following contain the answers to some frequently asked questions faq often seen in comp windows x it is posted to help reduce volume in this newsgroup and to provide hard to find information of general interest please redistribute this article this article includes answers to the following questions which are loosely grouped into categories questions marked with a indicate questions new to this issue those with significant changes of content since the last issue are marked by topic basic information sources and definitions what books and articles on x are good for beginners what courses on x and various x toolkits are available what conferences on x are coming up what x related public mailing lists are available how can i meet other x developers what related faqs are available how do i ask a net question so as to maximize helpful responses what publications discussing x are available what are these common abbreviations acronyms what is the icccm how do i write x friendly applications what is the x consortium and how do i join just what are open look and motif just what is openwindows just what is decwindows what is pex what is low bandwidth x lbx xremote ppp slip cslip topic using x in day to day life what are all these different window managers why does my x session exit when i kill my window manager sic can i save the state of my x session like toolplaces does how do i use another window manager with dec s session manager how do i change the keyboard auto repeat rate how do i remap the keys on my keyboard to produce a string how do i make a screendump or print my application how do i make a color postscript screendump of the x display how do i make a screendump including the x cursor how do i convert view mac tiff gif sun pict img fax images in x how can i change the titlebar of my xterm window where can i find the xterm control sequences why does the r xterm et al fail against the r server how can i use characters above ascii in xterm why are my xterm menus so small how can i print the current selection how does xt use environment variables in loading resources how to i have the r xdm put a picture behind the log in window why isn t my path set when xdm runs my xsession file how do i keep my display when i rlogin to another machine how can i design my own font why does adding a font to the server not work sic how do i convert a snf font back to bdf font what is a general method of getting a font in usable format how do i use decwindows fonts on my non decwindows server how do i add bdf fonts to my decwindows server how can i set backgroundpixmap in a defaults file what is xpm why can t i override translations only the first item works how can i have xclock or oclock show different timezones i have xmh but it doesn t work where can i get mh why am i suddenly unable to connect to my sun x server why don t the r pex demos work on my mono screen how do i get my sun type keyboard fully supported by xsun how do i report bugs in x why do i get warning widget class version mismatch where can i find a dictionary server for xwebster topic obtaining x and related software and hardware is x public domain software how compatible are x r r and r what changes are there where can i get x r source and or binaries where can i get patches to x r what is the xstuff mail archive where can i get x r source and binaries where can i get osf motif does motif work with x r x r where can i get toolkits implementing open look where can i get other x sources including r modifications where can i get interesting widgets where can i get a good file selector widget what widget is appropriate to use as a drawing canvas what is the current state of the world in x terminals where can i get an x server with a touchscreen or lightpen where can i get an x server on a pc dos or unix where can i get an x server on a macintosh running macos where can i get x for the amiga where can i get a fast x server for a workstation where can i get a server for my high end sun graphics board where can i get an x terminal server for my low end sun what terminal emulators other than xterm are available where can i get an x based editor or word processor where can i get an x based mailer where can i get an x based paint draw program where can i get an x based plotting program where can i get an x based spreadsheet where can i get x based project management software where can i get an x based postscript previewer where can i get an x based gks package where can i get an x based pex package where can i get an x based tex or dvi previewer where can i get an x based troff previewer where can i get a wysiwyg interface builder where can i find x tools callable from shell scripts where can i get an x based debugger how can i tee an x program identically to several displays topic building the x distribution topic needs updating to r what s a good source of information on configuring the x build why doesn t my sun with a cg work with r why doesn t my sun with sunos know about dlsym etc what is this strange problem building x clients on sunos why can t gcc compile x r on my sparc what are these i o errors running x built with gcc what are these problems compiling x r on the older sun what are these problems compiling the x server on sunos what are these problems using r shared libraries on sunos can olit programs run with r xt xtqstring undefined how do i get around the sunos security hole how do i get around the frame buffer security hole topic building x programs what is imake where can i get imake i have a program with an imakefile but no makefile what to do why can t i link to the xlib shape routines what are these problems with xtinherit not found on the sun why can t i compile my r xaw contrib programs under the new x topic programming problems and puzzles why doesn t my program get the keystrokes i select for sic how do i figure out what window manager is running is there a skeleton x program available why does xtgetvalues not work for me sic why don t xtconfigurewidget xtresizewidget xtmovewidget work why isn t there an xtreparentwidget call like xreparentwindow i m writing a widget and can t use a float as a resource value is this a memory leak in the x r xtdestroywidget are callbacks guaranteed to be called in the order registered why doesn t xtdestroywidget actually destroy the widget how do i query the user synchronously using xt how do i determine the name of an existing widget why do i get a baddrawable error drawing to xtwindow widget why do i get a badmatch error when calling xgetimage how can my application tell if it is being run under x how do i make a busy cursor while my application is computing how do i fork without hanging my parent x program can i make xt or xlib calls from a signal handler what are these xlib sequence lost errors how can my xt program handle socket pipe or file input how do i simulate a button press release event for a widget why doesn t anything appear when i run this simple program what is the difference between a screen and a screen can i use c with x motif xview where can i obtain alternate language bindings to x can xgetwindowattributes get a window s background pixel pixmap how do i create a transparent window why doesn t gxxor produce mathematically correct color values why does every color i allocate show up as black why can t my program get a standard colormap why does the pixmap i copy to the screen show up as garbage how do i check whether a window id is valid can i have two applications draw to the same window why can t my program work with tvtwm or swm how do i keep a window from being resized by the user how do i keep a window in the foreground at all times how do i make text and bitmaps blink in x how do i get a double click in xlib how do i render rotated text what is the x registry how do i reserve names if you have suggestions or corrections for any of these answers or any additional information please send them directly to uunet craft faq the information will be included in the next revision or possibly the one after that thanks for the many suggestions which haven t been incorporated yet this version of the faq is in the process of having r information replaced by r information this posting is intended to be distributed at approximately the beginning of each month new versions are archived on export lcs mit edu and are also available from mail server pit manager mit edu and archive server nic switch ch send help the information contained herein has been gathered from a variety of sources in many cases attribution has been lost if you would like to claim responsibility for a particular item please let me know conventions used below telephone numbers tend to be bell system unless otherwise noted prices on items are not included email addresses are those that work from the us x window system is a trademark of the massachusetts institute of technology other trademarks are the property of their respective owners note a script by george ferguson ferguson cs rochester edu to pretty print this faq is available from ugle unit no pub x contrib xfaq texinfo subject topic basic information sources and definitions subject what books and articles on x are good for beginners ken lee of synoptics klee synoptics com regularly posts to comp windows x and ba windows x a bibliography containing cites of all known reference books and how to manuals and also cites of selected technical articles on x and x programming it is ftp able as export lcs mit edu contrib xbibliography and gatekeeper dec com pub x contrib xbibliography here is an unordered set of the reference books and tutorials most useful for beginners most appear on that list comments are gathered from a variety of places and are unattributable asente paul j and swick ralph r x window system toolkit the complete programmer s guide and specification digital press the bible on xt a treasury of information excellent and invaluable distributed by digital press isbn order number ey e e dp and by prentice hall isbn also available through dec direct at digital the examples are on export lcs mit edu in contrib and on gatekeeper dec com in pub x contrib as asente swick examples tar z they were also posted to comp sources x as xt examples part jones oliver introduction to the x window system prentice hall isbn an excellent introduction to programming with xlib written with the programmer in mind this book includes many practical tips that are not found anywhere else this book is not as broad as the o reilly xlib tutorial but jones is an experienced x programmer and this shows in the quality and depth of the material in the book originally written for x r recent printings have included corrections and additions and current material young doug the x window system applications and programming with xt motif version prentice hall isbn the excellent tutorial x window system programming and applications with xt isbn updated for motif the examples are available on export the ones from the motif version are in ftp contrib young motif tar z young doug and john pew the x window system programming and applications with xt open look edition isbn x the tutorial rewritten for olit with new examples and drag drop information examples are on export in youg olit tar z and in you openwindows distribution in openwinhome share src olit olitbook heller dan motif programmers manual the th volume in the o reilly series covers motif application programming it s full of good examples with motif reference pages isbn the examples are available on uunet in comp sources x and nutshell archives a motif will be out soon scheifler robert and james gettys with jim flowers and david rosenthal x window system the complete reference to xlib x protocol icccm xlfd x version release third edition digital press the bible in its latest revision an enhanced version of x documentation by the authors of the xlib documentation this is the most complete published description of the x programming interface and x protocol it is the primary reference work and is not introductory tutorial documentation additional tutorial works will usually be needed by most new x programmers digital press order ey j e dp isbn nye adrian xlib programming manual volume and xlib reference manual volume o reilly and associates a superset of the mit x documentation the first volume is a tutorial with broad coverage of xlib and the second contains reference pages for xlib functions and many useful reference appendices both cover x r and r isbn volume and isbn volume nye adrian and tim o reilly x toolkit programming manual volume o reilly and associates the folks at o reilly give their comprehensive treatment to programming with the mit intrinsics r versions are now available as is a motif version volume m o reilly tim ed x toolkit reference manual volume o reilly and associates a professional reference manual for the mit x r and x r xt mansfield niall the x window system a user s guide addison wesley a tutorial introduction to using x now upgraded for r isbn quercia valerie and tim o reilly x window system user s guide o reilly and associates a tutorial introduction to using x isbn also available in r and motif flavors mui linda and eric pearce x window system administrator s guide for x r and r ora volume help for x users and administrators isbn prentice hall ordering is o reilly ordering is in addition check the x r and x r core distribution in doc tutorials for some useful papers and tutorials particularly the file answers txt late night s top ten x questions by dave lemke lemke ncd com and stuart marks smarks sun com answers other common questions and some of these here in more detail new r versions of the o reilly references not yet volume are now available a single volume programmer s supplement for r by david flanagan provides an overview of new r features it includes man pages for xlib xt and xmu isbn subject what courses on x and various x toolkits are available advanced computing environments periodically offers at least a two day introduction course contact susie karlson at for information at t offers training in xlib and in the xol set contact at t corporate education training for more info trainer in the usa bim educational services offers training in x administration and in programming with xt motif and open windows the courses are given near brussels info edu sunbim be voice fax communica software consultants offers three day hands on courses in x designed for the x window system developer and programmer contact chris clarkson telephone e mail communica communica oz au cora computer technologies offers several courses ghct offers a one week lecture lab course for programmmers designed by douglas young based on his book the x window system programming and applica tions with xt osf motif edition information brian stell or ghct brian sgi com ghg offers a range of courses on x and motif information or training info ghg hou tx us hands on learning has live training and self paced video workshops on topics such as using and or programming x xlib xm xt and widget writing information hewlett packard hpclass or contact your local hp center offers a day introduction to x a day xlib course a day xt and motif seminar and a day motif lab course integrated computer solutions inc offers several multi day hands on courses on x xt and the xaw and motif widget sets in particular information is available at and info ics com intelligent visual computing teaches several lab courses on site for motif and xview ivc is at or or at info ivc com iris computing laboratories offers five day xlib and xt courses info or info spectro com ixi limited offers regular x training courses for both programmers and non technical managers see also unipalm below learning tree international offers a four day course in x window system applications development including xlib and some information on motif for more info call in canada courses are offered in major north american cities also in london stockholm tokyo and elsewhere lurnix offers day type along courses on xt the course is being ported from xaw to xm information is available at in ca mitch trachtenberg and associates offers regular day lab courses on programming with osf motif usually in but not limited to cambridge ma info info mta com non standard logics requests nsl fr offers courses on programming with xlib motif and creating motif widgets osf educational services offers one day seminars and one week motif lab courses john a pew offers a day course on olit possibly based on his book on that subject sco scol info sco com offers training for its open desktop motif environment in the uk and europe software pundits offers a range of courses technology exchange offers a day xlib xt motif course telesoft is now offering a day plus day seminar on x and motif information bruce sherman bds telesoft com unipalm xtech offers osf s day motif course and a day overview on x information unipalm training at xtech unipalm co uk the university of edinburgh is developing a series of courses on x and related topics primarily for non profit making training in academia but also for commercial use information cliff booth unipalm ltd phone fax various other vendors are also beginning to offer x training usually specific to a proprietary toolkit or to xt and a proprietary widget set dec is offering xlib courses sun offers an xview course various universities are offering short x courses or overviews ucla dartmouth university of lowell university of canberra within australia uc berkeley extension will have a one week x motif class for programmers in san francisco starting on july the class will have a hands on lab for more information contact ucbx at among the best places to find courses are at the various unix conferences uniforum usenix unix expo xhibition the mit x technical conference the acm tutorial weeks c in addition the x consortium posts approximately quarterly a list of unendorsed speakers and consultants who can provide talks on a variety of x topics subject what conferences on x are coming up the xhibition x trade show and conference with tutorials panels presentations and vendor exhibits will be held at the san jose convention center june information xhibit ics com the tcl tk workshop will be held at ucal berkeley june information tcl cs berkeley edu the andrew technical conference and consortium annual meeting will be held june in pittsburgh information wilfred hansen cs cmu edu the european x user group holds an annual conference which typically includes includes paper presentations and a vendor exhibit exug x in the real world and multimedia will be held at the imperial college of science and technology london information exug demon co uk niall uit co uk or p whitehead cc ic ac uk fax the motif show is held in washington to coincide with the fedunix and the federal open systems conference usually december information motif fedunix org or paller fedunix org fax the mit x technical conference is typically held in january in boston registration information is available from registration expo lcs mit edu the xworld conference and exhibition includes tutorials panels presentations and vendor exhibits it is typically held in march in new york city information sigs publication group at other trade shows unixexpo uniforum siggraph show an increasing presence of x including tutorials and exhibits subject what x related public mailing lists are available the xpert mailing list is the general public mailing list on x maintained by the x consortium the mailings are gatewayed so xpert is almost identical to the comp windows x usenet newsgroup if you get comp windows x you don t need to be added to the xpert mailing list otherwise you can join the list to receive x information electronically it is best to find a local distribution perhaps someone within your company is already receiving the mailing as a last resort send mail to xpert request expo lcs mit edu with a valid return electronic address the xannounce mailing list carries major x announcements such as new releases including public patches from mit public reviews adoption of standards by the mit x consortium and conference announcements it does not carry advertisements source code patches or questions if you already receive the usenet news group comp windows x announce or the xpert mailing list you don t need to be added to the xannounce mailing list otherwise to subscribe send a request to xannounce request expo lcs mit edu note only redistribution addresses will be accepted for this list i e no personal addresses if you wish to receive xannounce yourself please contact your mail administrator to set up a local redistribution list and to put you on it comp windows x apps is not gatewayed to a mailing list in addition the x consortium sponsors these public lists bug clx clx bug reports and discussions x ada x and ada x d people interested in x and d graphics ximage people interested in image processing and x xvideo discussion of video extensions for x to subscribe to one of these lists assuming no one in your organization already receives it send mail to list request expo lcs mit edu with the subject line including the name of the list in caps and the request addition request in the body of the message be sure to give an address for your local distribution which is accessible from mit eddie mit edu a mailing list for topics related to open look is sponsored by greg pasquariello of unify corporation send to openlook request unify com or openlook request unify uunet uu net for information a mailing list for bugs in the publicly available version of xview source in particular is sponsored by sun send for information to xviewbug trackers request sun com a mailing list for topics related to motif is sponsored by kee hinckley of alfalfa software inc send to motif request alfalfa com for information this group is gatewayed to comp windows x motif a mailing list for topics related to the xpm pixmap format is sponsored by arnaud le hors of group bull send to xpm talk request sa inria fr for information a mailing list discussing interviews can be subscribed to by sending to interviews request interviews stanford edu a mailing list amiga x nic funet fi for topics related to the port of x to the amiga can be subscribed by sending to mailserver nic funet fi a message containing subject adding myself to amiga x subs amiga x your real name a mailing list discussing parcplace s formerly solbourne s oi object interface toolkit can be subscribed to at oi users requests bbn com a mailing list discussing multi threaded xlib can be subscribed to at mt xlib request xsoft xerox com subject how can i meet other x developers o reilly and associates sponsors a mailing list for the use of x user group organizers subscribe by sending to listserv ora com the message subscribe xgroups your internet address local area x user s groups are listed in issue of o reilly s x resource journal a list may also be available from xug ics com the french x user group is called afux and is based in sophia antipolis by cerics information can be obtained from miss vasseur or miss forest bp rue albert einstein valbonne cedex phone fax the european x user group was formed in to represent x users in europe it holds technical conferences at regular intervals the exug also publishes a regular newsletter which is distributed free of charge to members the exug also runs a email mailing list for members which is frequently used to address issues of european interest in x the exug can be contacted at p whitehead cc ic ac uk fax gxugiv is the german x user s group in vorbereitung in preparation being formed for x programmers and users it is associated with the exug all interested should contact olaf heimburger and at mcvax unido tub olaf subject what related faqs are available liam r e quin lee sq sq com posts a faq on open look to comp windows open look jan newmarch jan pandonia canberra edu au posts a faq on motif to comp windows x motif peter ware ware cis ohio state edu posts a faq for comp windows x intrinsics it is on export in contrib faq xt art mulder art cs ualberta ca posts to comp windows x a faq on maximizing the performance of x steve kotsopoulos steve ecf toronto edu posts to comp windows x a faq about using x on intel based unix systems the faq in alt binaries pictures contains information on viewing images with x and on massaging image formats the faq in comp mail mh gatewayed to mh users ics uci edu includes a section on xmh the faq in comp lang lisp contains information on several interface tools and toolkits there exists a pex phigs faq subject how do i ask a net question so as to maximize helpful responses when asking for help on the net or x mailing lists be sure to include all information about your setup and what you are doing the more specific you are the more likely someone will spot an error in what you are doing without all the details people who want to help you often have to guess if they are able to respond at all always mention what version of x you are using and where you got it from if your server came from a different source as the rest of your x system give details of that too give the machine type operating system and o s version for both the client and server machine it may also be appropriate to mention the window manager compiler and display hardware type you are using then tell exactly what you are doing exactly what happens and what you expected wanted to happen if it is a command that fails include the exact transcript of your session in the message if a program you wrote doesn t work the way you expect include as little of the source necessary just a small test case please for readers to reproduce the problem subject what publications discussing x are available the trade magazines unix world unix review computer language etc are publishing more articles on x two x specific publications include o reilly and associates publishes the x resource a practical journal of the x window system morris st a sebastapol ca editorial information adrian nye adrian ora com the x journal is started bi monthly publication september on a variety of x topics subscription information the x journal subscriber services dept xxx p o box denville nj usa editorial information editors topgun uunet uu net subject what are these common abbreviations acronyms xt the x toolkit intrinsics is a library layered on xlib which provides the functionality from which the widget sets are built an xt based program is an application which uses one of those widget sets and which uses intrinsics mechanisms to manipulate the widgets xmu the xmu library is a collection of miscellaneous utility functions useful in building various applications and widgets xaw the athena widget set is the mit implemented sample widget set distributed with x source xm the osf motif widget set from the open software foundation binary kits are available from many hardware vendors xhp xw the hewlett packard widget set was originally based on r but several sets of patches exist which bring it up to r as it is distributed on the x r tapes supplemental patches are available to use it with r r clx the common lisp x interface is a common lisp equivalent to xlib xdmcp the x display manager protocol provides a uniform mechanism for a display such as an x terminal to request login service from a remote host xlfd the x logical font description conventions describes a standard logical font description and conventions to be used by clients so that they can query and access those resources rtfm common expert speak meaning please locate and consult the relevant documentation read the forgotten manual utsl a common expression meaning take advantage of the fact that you aren t limited by a binary license use the source luke api application programmer interface the function calls etc in a programming library bdf bitmap distribution format a human readable format for uncompiled x fonts gui graphical user interface uil the user interface language part of osf motif which lets programmers specify a widget hierarchy in a simple outline form wcl the widget creation language a package which extends the understanding of the xt resource format such that a widget hierarchy and actions on the widgets can be specified through the resources file gil the file format put out by sun s openwindows developers guide uims user interface management system subject what is the icccm how do i write x friendly applications the inter client communication conventions manual is one of the official x consortium standards documents that define the x environment it describes the conventions that clients must observe to coexist peacefully with other clients sharing the same server if you are writing x clients you need to read and understand the icccm in particular the sections discussing the selection mechanism and the interaction between your client and the window manager get it either as part of the r distribution from mit in the later editions of the scheifler gettys x window system book as an appendix in the new version of o reilly s volume x protocol reference manual a version in old copies of their volume is obsolete the version in the digital press book is much more readable thanks to the efforts of digital press s editors to improve the english and the presentation from david rosenthal the icccm was updated for r updates are published in o reilly s programmer s supplement for release the complete document is on the r tapes alternate definition the icccm is generally the m in rtfm and is the most important of the least read x documents subject what is the x consortium and how do i join the mit x consortium was formed in january of to further the development of the x window system and has as its major goal the promotion of cooperation within the computer industry in the creation of standard software interfaces at all layers in the x window system environment mit s role is to provide the vendor neutral architectural and administrative leadership required to make this work membership in the consortium open to any organization there are two categories of membership member for large organizations and affiliate for smaller organizations most of the consortium s activities take place via electronic mail with meetings when required as designs and specifications take shape interest groups are formed from experts in the participating organizations typically a small multi organization architecture team leads the design with others acting as close observers and reviewers once a complete specification is produced it may be submitted for formal technical review by the consortium as a proposed standard the standards process typically includes public review outside the consortium and a demonstration of proof of concept your involvement in the public review process or as a member or affiliate of the consortium is welcomed write to bob scheifler mit x consortium laboratory for computer science technology square cambridge ma for complete information see the xconsortium man page from the x r distribution from which this information is adapted subject just what are open look and motif open look and motif are two graphical user interfaces guis open look was developed by sun with help from at t and many industry reviewers motif was developed by the open software foundation osf with input from many osf members open look is primarily a user interface specification and style guide there are several toolkits which can be used to produce open look applications motif includes an api specification the only sanctioned motif toolkit is the one from osf however there are other toolkits which can be used to produce programs which look and behave like osf motif one of these parcplace s formerly solbourne s oi is a virtual toolkit which provides objects in the style of open look and motif at the user s choice open look gui is also the name of a product from at t comprising their open look intrinsics toolkit and a variety of applications thanks to ian darwin ian sq com subject just what is openwindows open windows is a sun product that encompasses a window system that combines a news and x compliant server x news a user interface specification open look and a series of toolkits that implement it including the sunview like xview and the xt based olit xlib and xt implementations and a number of utilities olwm window manager filemgr shelltool etc thanks to frank greco fgreco govt shearson com subject just what is decwindows decwindows is a dec product that encompasses an x server the xui toolkit including the dwt widget set and uil xlib and xt implementations a session manager and a number of utilities dxwm window manager dxcalendar dxpsview etc at some point motif flavors of the toolkit and applications will be shipped subject what is pex pex is the phigs extension to x phigs stands for programmer s hierarchical interactive graphics system and is essentially a library of functions that simplifies the creation and manipulation of d graphics many platforms are capable of performing in hardware the computations involved in rendering d objects the extension allows the client phigs in this case to take advantage of the specialized hardware for d graphics sun microsystems is currently contracted to develop a freely redistributable copyright similar to the current x copyright sample implementation source and documentation are available in the r release several vendors are currently selling independently developed pex servers for their workstations and x terminals last modified subject what is low bandwidth x lbx xremote ppp slip cslip there are several options for using x over serial lines slip serial line ip this is both a mechanism and a protocol for sending ip packets over point to point serial links it has been around for several years and implementations are available for many of the major tcp ip implementations most x terminal vendors supply this as a checkoff item although nobody really ever uses it since it is horribly slow the tcp ip headers add bytes per packet and the tcp ip encoding of the x protocol is rather verbose rightfully so it is optimized for packing and unpacking over high speed links cslip compressed header slip this is a variant of slip that compresses the bytes of tcp ip headers down to about or bytes it still doesn t do anything about reencoding the x protocol modems that do compression can help but they increase packet latency it takes time to dribble the uncompressed data through typical serial interfaces plus the compression assembly time ppp point to point protocol this is an emerging standard for point to point links over serial lines that has a more complete set of option negotiation than slip a growing number of people see the combination of ppp for the serial line management and cslip for the header compression as becoming common for running normal tcp ip protocols over serial lines running raw x over the wire still needs compression somewhere to make it usable xremote this is the name of both a protocol and set of products originally developed by ncd for squeezing the x protocol over serial lines in addition to using a low level transport mechanism similar to ppp cslip xremote removes redundancies in the x protocol by sending deltas against previous packets and using lzw to compress the entire data stream this work is done by either a pseudo x server or proxy running on the host or in a terminal server there are several advantages to doing compression outside the modem you don t have to have compressing modems in there if you wouldn t otherwise be using them e g if you were going to be directly connected and it reduces the i o overhead by cutting down on the number of bytes that have to cross the serial interface and in addition to the effects of it reduces the latency in delivering packets by not requiring the modem to buffer up the data waiting for blocks to compress lbx low bandwidth x this is an x consortium project that is working on a standard for this area it is being chaired by ncd and xerox and is using ncd s xremote protocol as a stepping stone in developing the new protocol lbx will go beyond xremote by adding proxy caching of commonly used information e g connection setup data large window properties font metrics keymaps etc and a more efficient encoding of the x protocol the hope is to have a standard ready for public review in the first half of next year and a sample implementation available in r additional technical information about how xremote works and a few notes on how lbx might be different are available via anonymous ftp from export lcs mit edu in contrib in the following files xremote slides ps slides describing xremote xremote lbx diffs ps more slides describing some of lbx information provided by jim fulton jim ncd com there is also a set of slides on export from jim fulton s talk at the th mit x technical conference subject topic using x in day to day life subject what are all these different window managers the window manager in x is just another client it is not part of the x window system although it enjoys special privileges and so there is no single window manager instead there are many which support different ways for the user to interact with windows and different styles of window layout decoration and keyboard and colormap focus in approximate chronological order generally the more recent ones are more conformant with the icccm wm this simple title bar window manager was phased out in r or r uwm the universal window manager is still popular for its speed although it is very outdated moved to contrib on the r tape twm old tom s window manager was among the first non mit window managers and offered the user a great deal of customization options in a re parenting window manager awm the ardent window manager remains a hotbed for hackers and offers some features dynamic menus not found on more current window managers cwm cwm is part of the andrew system rtl siemen s window manager tiles windows so that they don t overlap and resizes the window with the focus to its preferred size dxwm digital s dxwm is part of the decwindows offering hpwm hp s window manager offers a d look it is a precursor of mwm mwm the motif window manager is part of the osf motif toolkit tekwm tektronix s window manager offering olwm sun olwm implements the open look gui and some of the style guide functionality olwm at t ditto gwm bull s generic window manager emulates others with a built in lisp interpreter version h is on the r contrib tape n is on avahi inria fr and export lcs mit edu m swm the sigma window manager is on the r tape pswm sun s postscript based pswm is part of the openwindows release swm solbourne s swm is based on the oi toolkit and offers multiple gui support and also a panned virtual window configuration information comes from the resources file twm new mit s new tab window manager from the r tape is a reworked twm and is the basis for several derivatives including the one on the r tape vtwm vtwm offers some of the virtual desktop features of swm with a single root window implementation it is based on the r twm and is available on archive servers a new version vtwm is based on r and is available from export tvtwm tom s virtual tab window manager is also based on the r twm and provides a virtual desktop modeled on the virtual root window of swm it is available on archive servers olvwm the vtwm style virtual desktop added to sun s olwm it is available on archive servers version is on export mvwm the vtwm style virtual desktop added to osf s mwm a beta version is floating around most recently from suresh unipalm co uk but requires a source license to osf motif ncdwm the window manager local to ncd terminals offers an mwm look xdswm the window manager local to visual technology s terminals ctwm claude lecommandeur s lecom sic epfl ch modification of the r twm offers virtual screens in the fashion of hp vuewm source is on export version also offers the window overview used in vtwm and tvtwm vuewm hp s mwm based window manager offers configurable workspaces dwm sgi s enhanced mwm piewm this version of tvtwm offers pie menus subject why does my x session exit when i kill my window manager sic it needn t what is probably happening is that you are running your window manager as the last job in your xsession or xinitrc file your x session runs only as long as the last job is running and so killing your window manager is equivalent to logging out instead run the window manager in the background and as the last job instead invoke something safe like exec xterm name login rv iconic or any special client of your devising which exits on some user action your x session will continue until you explicitly logout of this window whether or not you kill or restart your window manager subject can i save the state of my x session like toolplaces does although no known window manager directly supports such a feature which may be equivalent to writing out a xinitrc or xsession file naming the geometry and wm command of each application but olvwm may have something close there is a contributed application which does much of what you are looking for although it is not as complete as the sunview program toolplaces look for the application xplaces on an archive server near you there are several versions of this program floating around look for a recent vintage some new pseudo session managers such as hp s vuewm provide for the saving of sessions including information on the geometry of currently running applications and the resource database bjxrn stabell bjoerns staff cs uit no subject 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 x your favorite wm subject 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 ar ar to reduce the sensitivity of the keyboard subject 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 vt translations override key f string setenv display unix which permits the shorthand f 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 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
