[comp.windows.x] xswarm 2.0 blanker weirdness

lindholm@greve.ucs.ubc.ca (George Lindholm) (01/15/91)

-- 
I'm seeing some pretty weird behaviour by the xswarm blanking code. Several
times the blanker has kicked in a couple of seconds after I had just used
the keyboard and it was no-where near 300 seconds since the previous time.
I have also seen the blanking cover the left half of the screen only !???
What is going on here???

I'm using a SPARCstation with X11R4(18).

lindholm@ucs.ubc.ca     George_Lindholm@mtsg.ubc.ca      USERGNL@UBCMTSG.BITNET
University of British Columbia Computing Services
6356 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, B.C.
Canada, V6T 1T7
(604) 228-4375

dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) (01/17/91)

In article <1991Jan15.042140.2591@unixg.ubc.ca> lindholm@greve.ucs.ubc.ca (George Lindholm) writes:
>I'm seeing some pretty weird behaviour by the xswarm blanking code. Several
>times the blanker has kicked in a couple of seconds after I had just used
>the keyboard and it was no-where near 300 seconds since the previous time.
>I have also seen the blanking cover the left half of the screen only !???
>What is going on here???

Oh, it get's better. ;-)  I tried using it with tvtwm and here's
what happened:

	1. The screen "blanked" after 20 seconds (like I told it to),
	   but all the sticky windows stayed visible.

	2. Mouse and keyboard events didn't cause the screen saver
	   to go away, though I could get keyboard events to tvtwm
	   to get me to another part of the virtual screen.

	3. Once in another part of the virtual screen, I could see
	   the windows there, but couldn't get focus.

	4. From my X terminal, I killed xswarm, and the screen went
	   completely dark.  Nothing I did could get the screen to come
	   back.

	5. So, I killed my X server, and logged in again from xdm.

It was a good idea, but I still think that the server extension
for screen savers is the only way to get this to work right.

butterwo@threonine.cs.unc.edu (Jeff Butterworth) (01/17/91)

In article <1991Jan16.160205.19684@smsc.sony.com> dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) writes:
>In article <1991Jan15.042140.2591@unixg.ubc.ca> lindholm@greve.ucs.ubc.ca (George Lindholm) writes:
>>I'm seeing some pretty weird behaviour by the xswarm blanking code. Several
>>times the blanker has kicked in a couple of seconds after I had just used
>>the keyboard and it was no-where near 300 seconds since the previous time.
>>I have also seen the blanking cover the left half of the screen only !???
>>What is going on here???
>
>Oh, it get's better. ;-)  I tried using it with tvtwm and here's
>what happened:
>
...a list of horrid things that xswarm did...
>
>It was a good idea, but I still think that the server extension
>for screen savers is the only way to get this to work right.

I wrote xswarm and let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with George's
idea that screen savers should use some sort of server extension.  Without
support from xlib, writing a screen saver becomes a dangerous task that
can really mess people up when it doesn't work right.

To make xswarm work with tvtwm, I just included the file vroot.h that I
got from some kind user.  I was told that including this file would
make my program compatible with tvtwm.  It appears that more work needs
to be done to make xswarm compatible with tvtwm.  If anyone comes up with
some solutions, then I would love to receive a patch file!

Until some solution is found, I guess everyone should avoid mixing xswarm's
screen saver option and tvtwm.


Jeff Butterworth

Home: 100-G Misty Woods Circle, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 967-7359
School: 348 Sitterson, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC 27599 (919) 962-1849
	butterwo@cs.unc.edu

"If you keep your expectations tiny, you won't go through life
 sounding so whiny."
					- Matt Groening

toml@ninja.Solbourne.COM (Tom LaStrange) (01/18/91)

   To make xswarm work with tvtwm, I just included the file vroot.h that I
   got from some kind user.  I was told that including this file would
   make my program compatible with tvtwm.  It appears that more work needs
   to be done to make xswarm compatible with tvtwm.  If anyone comes up with
   some solutions, then I would love to receive a patch file!

   Until some solution is found, I guess everyone should avoid mixing xswarm's
   screen saver option and tvtwm.

I don't know what xswarm does but I can take a guess as to why it was doing
weird things with tvtwm.  In most cases, including the vroot.h file would be
the right thing to do.  However, a screen saver would typically create 
a screen sized override-redirect window on the actual root window and map
it.  The override-redirect of course prevents the window manager from getting
in the way.  By using vroot.h, you will create your screen sized window on
the virtual root window rather than the actual root window which is what
you want.  If you simply remove vroot.h it'll probably work much better
with tvtwm.

--
Tom LaStrange        toml@Solbourne.COM