gerolima@wdl1.UUCP (Mark Gerolimatos) (05/27/87)
Okay, Eksers, I got a queston...excuse my flamo-attitude, but I'm getting pretty
frustrated:
How the hell do you get out of X (on a Sun)?!?!?!?!?
I've had to do the EMACS trick (fork a shell, and kill the parent),
but that always leave my keyboard acting like a f--king stupid DEC
something-or-rather (okay, WHY do keyboards all have to look like DEC
something-or-rathers in X? Perhaps the key-station approach was not
the best? Naw, couldn't be!...Okay, Schiefler, where's your elegant come-back?).
And also, does anyone out there have a REAL window manager? You know,
one with menus, so that I don't have to do an
ESC-META-CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-LEFT-THEN-RIGHT-MOUSE-BUTTON to close a window?
Anyone ever seen GMW? Now THAT'S a windowing system!
"For over a quarter of a century..."
Mark Gerolimatos
ARPA: gerolima@ford-wdl1.arpa "Let's take our neighbor for a ride!
UUCP: {sun,fortune}!wdl1!gerolima Would you like to go for a ride!?"
AT&T: (415) 852-4105 "Uuhhhh...no thanks."
USPS: c/o Ford Aerospace "No what?" "No, I wouldn't like to go."
3939 Fabian Way "Go Where!?" "Uuhh...for a ride..."
Palo Alto CA 94303 "A RIDE! Now that's a good idea!"
Mail Stop X20 -Frank and a friend, from Blue Velvetwohler@sri-spam.UUCP (05/27/87)
In article <5840003@wdl1.UUCP> gerolima@wdl1.UUCP (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >Okay, Eksers, I got a queston...excuse my flamo-attitude, but I'm getting pretty >frustrated: > > How the hell do you get out of X (on a Sun)?!?!?!?!? markie, yours seems to be common problem. i bet you do a `xinit -e uwm` in some incantation or another. that doesn't leave you with much of a shell to run in the open console window. try instead, the following: `xinit -C -n console -e ~/.X -- Xsun 0 -a 2` and my .X file looks something like, well a lot like: #!/bin/csh -f sed "s/\([^ ]*:0\)/$DISPLAY/g" < ~/.uwmrc > /tmp/uwmrc$$ mv /tmp/uwmrc$$ ~/.uwmrc uwm & xsetroot -gray & xclock =106x106+648+4 & xhost [hostnames deleted] exec $SHELL note that the last thing that is done is to exec your favorite shell in the console window to give you something reasonable to work with. now you can get the hell out of x (on your sun)--simply exit your shell (^D, exit, etc.). the shell will die, taking x with it. --bw wohler@spam.istc.sri.com
RWS@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP (05/27/87)
okay, WHY do keyboards all have to look like DEC
something-or-rathers in X? Perhaps the key-station approach was not
the best? Naw, couldn't be!...Okay, Schiefler, where's your elegant come-back?).
Fixed in Version 11. (Put it in a appropriate font to make it look elegant.)
Details will be available soon, in the Beta Test protocol document.bob@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (05/27/87)
In article <5840003@wdl1.UUCP> gerolima@wdl1.UUCP (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: > How the hell do you get out of X (on a Sun)?!?!?!?!? I just send a kill signal to the console window. Typing `exit' to its shell will do, as will opening it and using the xterm menus to generate the signal. It's ugly, because all the clients will complain to the real console screen that their sockets are no longer connected to the server, but it works quickly. And when the server gets the SIGKILL it will exit politely and restore your keyboard. > ... And also, does anyone out there have a REAL window manager? You > know, one with menus, so that I don't have to do an > ESC-META-CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-LEFT-THEN-RIGHT-MOUSE-BUTTON to close a > window? You forgot the step about spinning in your chair and yelling `Viva Quebec' three times really loudly. Another alternative would be to configure your .uwmrc or .menuwmrc in a manner less distasteful to you. When my cursor is in the background stipple, the window manager (menuwm in my case) takes naked mouse hits and gives appropriate menus. If you'd like a look at today's configuration, let me know and I'll send it your way as an example. > Anyone ever seen GMW? Now THAT'S a windowing system! Once again, this particular problem is not with the window system, nor with the window manager, but with the user-configurable parts of it. The defaults you get `out of the box' aren't that hot, but you can fix it easily with your favorite text editor and without recompiling. Perhaps the defaults are the way they are (usable but unexciting), to encourage people to really *think* about they way they want their window manager to feel? -=- Bob Sutterfield, Department of Computer and Information Science The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277 bob@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet} or ...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!bob soon: bob@aargh.cis.ohio-state.edu
gancarz@decvax.UUCP (Mike Gancarz) (05/30/87)
In article <> bob@ohio-state.arpa (Bob Sutterfield) writes: > > Perhaps the defaults are the way they are (usable but >unexciting), to encourage people to really *think* about they way they >want their window manager to feel? You're pretty close. Part of the reason for making the defaults so boring was to encourage you to try something more interesting on your own. The other part of the reason was to avoid overwhelming the novice user. --Mike
Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com (06/01/87)
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.44.1 of Mon May 18 1987 on cbstr1 (usg-unix-v) gancarz@decvax writes: > The other part of the reason was to avoid overwhelming the novice user. Um, are you kidding? No flame, I'm serious. I can't believe that controllified-metafied-shifted mouse hits are supposed to be easier on the novice's sensibilities than naked mouse hits, as in SunWindows. I keep picturing an X novice who's reasonably expert in Suns in general, including SunWindows, who sits down at his screen with his mouse in his right hand and his DrPepper in his left, only to find out that he has to keep putting the DrPepper down in order to metafy mouse hits. No, thanx; give me the naked mouse hits any day. Karl
ambar@athena.mit.edu (Jean Marie Diaz) (06/18/87)
In article <254@cbstr1.att.com> Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com writes: >I keep picturing an X novice who's reasonably expert in Suns in >general, including SunWindows, who sits down at his screen with his >mouse in his right hand and his DrPepper in his left, only to find out >that he has to keep putting the DrPepper down in order to metafy mouse >hits. Hmph. Me, I don't put down my 7up. I use my elbow. :-) AMBAR ARPA: ambar@eddie.mit.edu UUCP: {backbones}!mit-eddie!ambar
hagens@JANEB.WISC.EDU (Robert Hagens) (06/18/87)
>that he has to keep putting the DrPepper down in order to metafy mouse
Hey - heres an idea: lets take the lead from the sewing industry and
use foot pedals for meta keys. Then I could keep my Coke in my hand...
Rob Hagens
UW Argo Projectmontnaro@sprite.steinmetz (Skip Montanaro) (06/19/87)
I agree completely with Karl Kleinpaste. I'm one of those foolish
computer types who refuses to search for manuals before trying
something. If we're going to have X terminals some day for our
clerical and secretarial staff, they had better come up with a more
intuitive interface. I have plunked myself down in front of a
publicly accessible X machine several times and attempted to get it to
do something. Nothing but funny X-shaped cursors and ASCII BELs. Back
to NeWS and SunView...
Skip| ARPA: montanaro@ge-crd.arpa
Montanaro| UUCP: montanaro@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com
(518)387-7312| GE DECnet: advax::"montanaro@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com"bh01@clutx.BITNET (Russell Nelson) (06/19/87)
I agree that metafying mouse hits is annoying. Obscure, too, if you haven't read the documentation. I just sat down in front of a Sun 3/50 and a friend type 'xinit' for me. I was lost. I have minor experience with a Macintosh and a Symbolics Lisp Machine. I finally found out that you also have to run a window manager. I tried xwm and couldn't get it to do anything. Maybe I'm a dunce, and X is designed for the novice. Maybe not. -russ
ken@hpcvlo.UUCP (06/19/87)
Sounds like you are really complaining about uwm resorting to modified button events to do its business. This complaint has been brought up before. Note that this is really not a generic X problem but a window manager design problem. One strategy that has been used by some people (and is present in the HP version of uwm) is to allow uwm to recognize interesting events that are only interesting in the root context. Thus if left button down is only specified to uwm as a root window context event then uwm will not steal the left button from the applications (like xterm). This allows you to move the mouse to the root window to perform uwm functions and hold your 7-up/coffee/juice (I use yogi tea) in your left hand. I am willing to send the five uwm files modified to those who need them. I modified the Xv10r4 release of uwm. I have only tried it out on my HP equipment. Also I have just recently been notified of one bug in the modified uwm. If an application tries to read only button up events, then the application does not see anything. Applications trying to read up and down events or just down events work like a champ. If you have the modified version and have found/fixed this bug please send me mail. Otherwise I am going to fix it in the immediate future. Also I am swamped at work, so I hope I do NOT get swamped with requests. Have some patience with another poor working X hacker. -Ken Bronstein hp-pcd!ken
mayer@hplabsc.UUCP (Niels Mayer) (06/20/87)
In article <254@cbstr1.att.com> Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com writes: >I keep picturing an X novice who's reasonably expert in Suns in >general, including SunWindows, who sits down at his screen with his >mouse in his right hand and his DrPepper in his left, only to find out >that he has to keep putting the DrPepper down in order to metafy mouse >hits. > >No, thanx; give me the naked mouse hits any day. > >Karl This issue has already been hashed and rehashed on comp.windows.news... There's nothing in X that says you must use your meta key to perform window manager operations. That's entirely up to the window manager. Nobody is forcing you to use uwm, its just that uwm/menuwm/.... are readily available and work in the least-common-denominator X-window environment: windows that do not have active regions supporting window manager operations; windows that require modified mouse clicks to separate the application mouse actions from the window manager actions. For example, imagine a high level application building toolkit built on top of X, HP's Xray, DEC's Xtoolkit, etc. These applications-building tools may define a window-style using Macintosh-like (actually Xerox Star-like) active regions that allow window manager operations to be performed. The application-building kit would also contain a window manager that would know how to move, resize, top, bottom, and iconify windows based on naked keyclicks in the aforementioned active window regions. It would also perhaps let the META key modify the mouse clicks to perform wm operations on applications that use plain X. So instead of making silly sweeping generalizations about X itself, we should be examining the lack of a UI and window management standard between X applications. I'm sure there are gaggles of programmers looking at this problem right now. It would be interesting to get a discussion going on the subject of UI under X windows. Is X easy to use??? No. Is unix easy to use?? Nope. Could we provide a set of stadard initialization files (and programs) that will bring up an X system as a programming environment rather than a bag-o-tools? Certainly... but that will require both time and work. Hmmmm.... looks like that compile finished.... time to get back to work. -- Niels Mayer Hewlett-Packard Laboratories.