meh@wucs1.wustl.edu (Mark E Hunter) (01/17/90)
Several questions in regards to NeWS:
NeWS supports a user stratup file called user.ps This file
resides in the user's home directory and consists of NeWS
commands to be executed upon startup
1) I cannot get the root account to execute its user.ps
It is a valid script and has been tested using other
accounts and by executing it manualy using the psh
command.
2) I have a number of scripts that will execute when psh'ed,
but will not run as user.ps. These scripts contain one or
more windows to create upon NeWS startup. Some of these
scripts ran a one time but a minor edit (changing the order
of the windows being created or adding a comment) resulted
in their not working.
Some scripts execute only some of the commands contained.
They do not seem to start at either end of the script and
break. They select random statements to execute. Others
run one session but not another.
This seemingly random behavior was explained by Sun as
timing problems. Their explanation was that the user.ps
was running before NeWS was fully operational. They did
not have a way to get these scripts to execute properly.
3) I have need to start NeWS and then run a NeWS script
automatically. I have a csh script which starts NeWS
and runs the NeWS script but because of the timing problem
above, sometimes the NeWS script is executed before NeWS
is fully functional. Does anyone know of a way to check
to see if NeWS is up ? Does anyone know of a way to get
the script to wait for NeWS to be up before continuing ?
Thanks,
Mark E. Hunter
meh@wucs1.wustl.edumontnaro@spyder.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) (01/17/90)
In article <1990Jan16.171713.15038@cec1.wustl.edu> meh@wucs1.wustl.edu (Mark E Hunter) writes: 2) I have a number of scripts that will execute when psh'ed, but will not run as user.ps. These scripts contain one or more windows to create upon NeWS startup. Some of these scripts ran a one time but a minor edit (changing the order of the windows being created or adding a comment) resulted in their not working. Some scripts execute only some of the commands contained. They do not seem to start at either end of the script and break. They select random statements to execute. Others run one session but not another. This seemingly random behavior was explained by Sun as timing problems. Their explanation was that the user.ps was running before NeWS was fully operational. They did not have a way to get these scripts to execute properly. The issue of startup files in NeWS 1.1 is one that bit me long ago. I suspect it's bitten others as well, so I'll post the workaround I received from comp.windows.news. I'm surprised that Sun couldn't give a more complete workaround/fix for the problem. The problem is that $NEWSHOME/lib/NeWS/init.ps loads ~/user.ps before it spins off the NeWS lightweight process that listens for client connections. It's a race to see if the listener process can get started before applications start requesting connections. The fix is to split user.ps into two parts, say user.ps and desktop.ps. In user.ps is code you want loaded into the server at startup time. Desktop.ps should contain client program invocations. Modify init.ps so that desktop.ps is executed after the server process is started: (user.ps) LoadFile pop DebuggingServer? { systemdict /dbgstart known not {(NeWS/debug.ps) LoadFile pop} if } if (NeWS/AdobeMap.ps) LoadFile pop StandardEncoding magic:AdobeSequence { dup 256 lt { exch put //StandardEncoding } { pop pop } ifelse } forall pop % start server verbose? { (Starting server\n) print } if server % Give the user the chance to start programs after the server is listening % for connection requests. This idea is not original from me. I got it from % comp.windows.news. % - Skip Montanaro, 11/23/88 (desktop.ps) LoadFile pop Note that this is not a problem in X/NeWS (aka OpenWindows, aka NeWS 2.0). ~/.openwin-init is executed after the server starts. -- Skip (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)