[comp.sys.sgi] Tidy icon events...

kahn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Kahn) (11/14/90)

	I have a program that iconifies the graphics window when
a "stow" is selected as a smaller copy of the existing screen
image. As an icon, the program waits for an "open" or "winquit"
event to continue execution. The problem that I am experiencing
occurs whenever I select the "tidy" item while an icon is drawn;
my program starts to process events as if it is no longer an
icon (ie, as if it had been winopened!). I was surprised to find
that whenever the other window manager functions were selected
(pop, push, move) that a REDRAW event is queued, while when "tidy"
is selected absolutely no events are queued.

My question is what occurs when "tidy" is selected, and what
information/events are passed along to an iconified program?

Thanks in advance, Scott Kahn (Dept. of Chem., Univ. of Illinois)

merritt@milton.u.washington.edu (Ethan Merritt) (11/16/90)

>> kahn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Kahn) wrote:
>> 
>> [ description of prolblem ]
>> 
>> My question is what occurs when "tidy" is selected, and what
>> information/events are passed along to an iconified program?
>> 

	I have been meaning to ask this question as well.  I can
draw nice icons which duplicate a graphics picture in miniature using
iconsize(), etc.  But I lose control over what state the program is in 
whenever the icon gets tidied.  Can someone post a quick summary of
what tidy really does, or point to some place in the documentation?

					Ethan A Merritt
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dept of Biological Structure                H510 Health Sciences
University of Washington SM-20              (206)543-8865
Seattle, WA 98195                           merritt@u.washington.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

tomm@uucp (Tom Mackey) (11/16/90)

In article <1990Nov14.055148.22258@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kahn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Scott Kahn) writes:
>
>	I have a program that iconifies the graphics window when
>a "stow" is selected as a smaller copy of the existing screen
>image. As an icon, the program waits for an "open" or "winquit"
>event to continue execution. The problem that I am experiencing
>occurs whenever I select the "tidy" item while an icon is drawn;
>my program starts to process events as if it is no longer an

Hah!  I complained about exactly the same thing 3 weeks ago, and
never got an answer.  I thought perhaps it was some twisted braindead
thing I was doing, but now I am convinced there is something wrong
(or mis-understood) going on here.  My present far out conjecture
is that the window manager does something different when you queue
the device REDRAWICONIC.  If you do not queue this device, the
window manager does "the normal thing" when it iconifies a window.
If you have it queued, the WM appears to be lost, almost as if we
need to give the NeWS software some new C function to execute.  It
may be related to the difference you see if you queue the LEFTMOUSE
button... that button no longer is automatically used to pick up
a window and move it around with a pick in the center of the window.
I'm not suggesting that this latter behavior is a bug, just that
both activities seem to cause a default behavior to be replaced
with a null behavior.  If I am close to being correct on this line
of conjecture, it would appear that we need to be able to replace
the default behavior with something of our own choosing.  We could
do that if the TIDY event generated a REDRAWICONIC token.  And while
we are at it, why doesn't our icon get tidied, and what causes it
to respond (correctly, I might add) to the OpenAll menu choice from
the Windows Chest?

To be truthful, I haven't reported this to the hotline, since NeWS
is (unfortunately) going to be replaced by X in the next release,
and I am sure that will introduce an entirely new and slimier can
of worms!

Aren't defacto standards backed with politics just wonderful?

Just how much of the MAX/NeWS niftiness is going away when X stomps
in?  Pandora?  The personalized login icons?  The Toolchests?  The
comfortable (to me, anyway) MAX windows?  I find it amazing that an
entire industry is letting itself be railroaded like this.  What ever
happened to X11/NeWS (best of both worlds)?  I guess I'm most bummed
because I work on the user interface (home-grown) of our project, and
for two years haven't been able to do the well overdue revamping
because I've been waiting see if SGI was going X or NeWS (hoping for
NeWS).  So OK.... its X.  Now I feel that its going to be a real steep
learning curve to get caught up to the point that I can revamp a very
large existing application.

OK.  Ok... I'll stop whining!   ;^}    After all, it all pays the same!
--
Tom Mackey       (206) 865-6575        tomm@voodoo.boeing.com
Boeing Computer Services         ....uunet!bcstec!voodoo!tomm
M/S 7K-20,     P.O. Box 24346,     Seattle, WA     98124-0346