Re: XWinrc configurable server (menus/icons)

[Harold L Hunt II <huntharo at msu dot edu>]

Earle,

Earle F. Philhower III wrote:

> Howdy Harold,
> At 07:31 PM 8/5/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>
> > Can't remember if I replied to this yet.  I am in the process of 
> > getting my Inspiron 8500 returned after having it replaced (bought it 
> > 3 weeks ago).  Both the original and the replacement randomly freeze.  
> > Google for ["Inspiron 8500" freeze] and you'll see exactly what I 
> > mean.  I have been setting up computers for the past two weeks now.
> > I have finally ordered a Gateway 450X notebook.  Hopefully that will 
> > work better and allow me to spend a little more time looking at patches.
>
>
> Good luck, on the bright side since it went south so fast you didn't
> lose too much data on the drives.

That is really the problem: the machines don't die; they just freeze. 
So I have a computer sitting here that I can't keep my hands off but it 
randomly freezes between a couple of times an hour and once every couple 
of hours.  Oh well, the return is authorized now, so I have to send it 
back within five days :)

> > In other words, I might look at your patch tomorrow, or I might look 
> > at it next week.  Can't say for sure.
> > In any case, thanks for the patch, I like the idea and am looking 
> > forward to seeing what it does.
>
>
> No rush.  But just delete the tar file I sent yesterday, that was really 
> just
> a parser that read the config file.  It took a few hours of futzing 
> around today,
> but I got it nicely integrated into the server.  Now on init it parses 
> ~/.XWinrc
> or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/system.XWinrc and makes custom menus and submenus for
> the taskbar icon and each window, and can replace icons with ones specified
> in the rc file.

Okay.

> I'm attaching the diffs against test95 below, please use these for any 
> testing
> you do (there are several new files, so if patch asks: you do want to 
> make new
> files...).  The file _usr_X11R6_lib_X11_system.XWinrc has all the 
> documentation
> on the RC format anyone'd need.  If the file's not found, you get the exact
> same behaviour as test95 as far as menus/icons/etc.

Okay, documentation is good.

> ** There's also a off-by-one bugfix in winmultiwindowclass.c, so no matter
> what that file's changes should go in... **

Could you elaborate just a little on what this problem was?  Do you 
expect it to fix any crashes?

> Oh yeah, a simple "if (fork()==0) { execl(); exit(0); }" seems to spawn 
> X and
> Windoze apps fine.  I know there was some discussion about this earlier...

In the end I am probably not ready to code anyone into submission, so I 
will probably just accept what works, which will become the defacto 
standard, etc.

> Below's the sample config that I'm running that replaces the X.ico with 
> one that's
> floating in my Windows directory, and replaces Xterm's with another, and 
> adds
> custom menus to Xterm, all other windows, and the toolbar window...

Interesting.  I like the point raised by David Fraser about maybe making 
a substitutable %DISPLAY% variable for the config file so that you can 
reference the current display.  How hard would that be?


Thanks for contributing,

Harold