compata@cup.portal.com (David H Close) (07/13/90)
Pardon me if this has come up before; I'm new to this group. I've been using
an RS6000 with AIX 3 for about a month. It comes with a hypertext package
called InfoExplorer that replaces man pages. (Man still works, sort of, by
extracting from the hypertext database, but it leaves a lot to be desired.)
InfoExplorer works either with plain terminals or with an X Window session.
Its the X environment with which I'm having trouble.
When I run Info from the system console under X, it opens multiple windows
just like it should. When I run it from a PC emulating an X terminal with
Locus PC-Xsight, it almost works. One minor problem. When the mouse pointer
is located *within* an Info window, it becomes a solid box the same color as
the background. Naturally, this makes it difficult to see. I can determine
its position and shape only because it hides text when it passes over; it also
is visible (with the same incorrect shape) when it's on the scroll bar. On
the console, the mouse pointer remains an arrow within Info windows. On
Xsight, the pointer is correct when it's in an Info window *frame* or anywhere
else on the screen.
I've experimented with font aliasing on Xsight. This has greatly improved
the appearance of Info itself but has not affected the pointer appearance.
I think the pointer shape is being determined by Xsight, but upon some command
from AIX Windows. Is that true? If so, what can I do to make Xsight use a
reasonable pointer shape and color? If not so, what is the problem?
^^^^ The above is my problem and the reason for this posting. ^^^^
However, here's an additional question for extra credit.
Info also uses a large number of fonts which appear not to be standard with
X Windows. I have aliased them to Xsight's short list of common X11.3 fonts
and it seems to work fairly well. But I'd like to use the correct fonts on
Xsight. IBM didn't ship the BDF files for their fonts and I can't download
the SNF files from AIX since there's a byte-sex problem. Does anyone know
where I can obtain BDF files for IBM's fonts? Or is there an SNFTOBDF program?
Thanks much to any and all who can help.
Dave Close, Compata, Arlington, Texas
compata@cup.portal.com
compata@mcimail.comguy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (07/15/90)
>Info also uses a large number of fonts which appear not to be standard with >X Windows. Including, perhaps, the cursor font.... I've heard things that lead me to believe that Info is based on the Andrew toolkit. Is that the case? If so, perhaps the Andrew fonts - which come with the Andrew distribution in the X11R4 source, and come in "fdb" form, along with an "fdb"-to-BDF converted - are what you want. (Andrew uses one of its fonts for cursors.)
pjg@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (07/16/90)
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: [quoting david close] |>Info also uses a large number of fonts which appear not to be standard with |>X Windows. |Including, perhaps, the cursor font.... |I've heard things that lead me to believe that Info is based on the |Andrew toolkit. Is that the case? If so, perhaps the Andrew fonts - when info starts it displays the name of some vendor. not that this tells us whether they started with andrew. in any case i can run info just fine on the console (hft) or on my sun running X11R4. i expected some problems (because i have a hi-res display) but the fonts (and cursors) look just fine.
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (07/16/90)
>when info starts it displays the name of some vendor. not that this >tells us whether they started with andrew. in any case i can run >info just fine on the console (hft) or on my sun running X11R4. i expected >some problems (because i have a hi-res display) but the fonts (and cursors) >look just fine. And you don't have the Andrew fonts installed on your Sun?
pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (07/16/90)
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: [quoting me] | >in any case i can run | >info just fine on the console (hft) or on my sun running X11R4. |And you don't have the Andrew fonts installed on your Sun? good question. no i haven't installed the fonts that hide down in overhead/fonts/fonts/adobe but i have installed the R4 fonts which include a selection of adobe fonts so perhaps that's why it works. i mentioned the version of X we use in case it might matter.
marc@neon.paloalto.ibm.com (Marc Pawliger) (07/17/90)
In article <3654@auspex.auspex.com>, guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes: |> >Info also uses a large number of fonts which appear not to be standard with |> >X Windows. |> |> Including, perhaps, the cursor font.... |> |> I've heard things that lead me to believe that Info is based on the |> Andrew toolkit. Is that the case? If so, perhaps the Andrew fonts - |> which come with the Andrew distribution in the X11R4 source, and come in |> "fdb" form, along with an "fdb"-to-BDF converted - are what you want. |> (Andrew uses one of its fonts for cursors.) 1) Yes, InfoExplorer ("info") is based on the Andrew Tool Kit (ATK). 2) Info only uses two non-text fonts: "cursor", which is standard on every X implementation (R3 and R4) I've ever seen, and "icon12", which is an ATK cursor font. Cursor should always be available and the only things that will look strange if icon12 is missing are text carets and the like. IBM is currently shipping the X11R3 fonts with the Risc System 6000. Info looks best with a wider set of fonts than R3 provides, so some snf files from R4, along with a fonts.dir and fonts.alias file, are shipped in /usr/lpp/info/ X11fonts. If you have the R4 fonts, and are using info remotely, you can use the fonts.* files to give you a hint on how to do the name mapping so info will find the correct fonts under the name it requests them as. People have also mentioned that info does not accept common X switches like -fg and -bg. It actually does, but the front-end script in /usr/bin/info just ignored these switches and did not pass them on to the actual info program (/usr/lpp/info/bin/info_gr) that it invoked. A new version of the script that includes a usage statements and smarter argument parsing should be shipped with the next set of updates. I speak for myself, not IBM +---Marc Pawliger---IBM Advanced Workstations Division---Palo Alto, CA---+ | Internet: marc%ibmsupt@uunet.uu.net VNET: MARCP at AUSVM6 | | UUCP: uunet!ibmsupt!ibmpa!marc Phone: (415) 855-3493 | +------IBMnet: marc@ibmpa.tcspa.ibm.com------IBM T/L: 465-3493--------+