[comp.windows.x] Hacking on xterm

martin@CITI.UMICH.EDU (11/30/88)

I have always had one gripe with xterm.  Suppose you are doing one of these
big compiles and you are fighting against the tide of errors.  It would be
nice to be able to use the xterm cut/paste features to paste a long (3-4 line)
command into the cshell.  Instead xterm makes a line cut at each w (80)
characters.  I think that about 10 messages ago something was mentioned about
xterms "Every line is the same number of characters" feature.  I think that a
terminal emulator should treat its text as a file, and not insert characters
(especially linefeeds) into the stream when text is read back out of it.

This is necessary if variable spaced fonts are to be used in it.  Again, I
also think that Apollo has tackled this, but, they did it at the expense of
having line-wraparound.  (that thing which we like so much) Isn't it funny how
some of us complain about not having apollo features in the hardcore X/unix
environment?  Time for fully open licensing agreements for all software!

I am willing to experiment with text widgets in X11.  In fact it has just
become one of my jobs.  I will rtfc, and then wsfc, but can anyone tell me to
what extent the "text widget" functionality has been pulled from the ugly
things in the xterm code?

Marty.