Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

    
    Things I like:
    --------------
    The Applications menu on the Session Manager Window
    That Applications can be added to it
    That you can autostart them when you log in.
    
    Being able to set the banner and icon name with escape sequences.
    
    The Icon Box Customisation - and that it remembers shape and position
    when last saved.
    
    The Session Manager window "remembering" shape and position when
    customization last saved.
    
    
    Things I don't like:
    --------------------
    Can't easily modify System Applications on the Applications Menu
    
    Still no way of easily telling what the location and dimensions of an
    onscreen window are (a la HPWM's central indicator when you move a
    window)
    
    When adding node/username/transport in the security item from the
    Session Manager Customization Menu, it clears down the username each
    time. As with me, most people will want to add multiple nodes with the
    same username. Easy to fix, please do.
    
    
    Questions:
    ----------
    Will you now document customization files?
    
    Will the ability to plonk in our own picture in place of the login
    screen be implemented in V2?
    
    - ���

Things I like:

	Color DDIF support.
	All the menu thingies
	Dual Screen support

Things I don't like:

	Not too much, things look good.

Re: -1

We have a our own login picture. I wrote a program in XLIB which creates
a PIXMAP and displays it at the position I want. Then I define:

	DECW$LOGIN_BACKGROUND to run a command file to run the image.

    Care to share said command procedure and program?
    
    - ��� 

Things I like:

    Speed. The Firefox server really screams on this release.
    Looks like TCP/IP will be supported (plus it finally works on Firefox!)
    Calendar looks nicer, many things I haven't had the time to figure
	out but which I suspect will be useful.

Things I don't like:

    HPWM broken - I can live with it as it is for a while.
    Can't get any DECterms - I can live with it, just fire up xterms
	from my other machines. It's interesting, however - am I the
	only person that can't get DECterms to work at all?

Overall:

    The +s outweigh the hell out of the -s. A great big THANK-YOU.

    A colleague couldn't get DECterms to work - turned out to have  a
    sys$specific set of dcltables for his member of the cluster.
    
    Not your problem, I take it.
    
    - ���

    I'd agree with most comments so far. Re:
    
.1�    Still no way of easily telling what the location and dimensions of an
.1�    onscreen window are (a la HPWM's central indicator when you move a
.1�    window)
    
    QARd, number 3073 (priority zero) in the decwindows-ift database.
    
    Keith

Things I like:

All the customise menu stuff
Larger Bookreader fonts
Smooth motion of icons in icon box
Batch scroll in DECterm
All my existing applications still work (thought I might have to relink at
least)

Things I don't like:

Calendar seems to be broken.  Nobody else suffering from this?  Whenever I
try and start Calendar, a small window appears in the top-left of the
screen for a fraction of a second, but nothing else happens.  I tried
renaming my calendar file in case that was causing the problems, but the
application still does not start.  There is nothing in any of the log
files to explain this.  Should I QAR this?

    Re -1:

> Calendar seems to be broken.  Nobody else suffering from this?  Whenever I
> try and start Calendar, a small window appears in the top-left of the
> screen for a fraction of a second, but nothing else happens.  I tried
> renaming my calendar file in case that was causing the problems, but the
> application still does not start.  There is nothing in any of the log
> files to explain this.  Should I QAR this?

    If you consider the number of known Calendar problems listed in the
    IFT1 release notes, then yes, Calendar is broken ;-(

    Seriously though, your problem is new to us. Let's check a couple of
    things first: do you have some Calendar X defaults file lying around?
    If yes, consider getting rid of it. Did you start Calendar from VUE? If
    not, how? Did Calendar prompt you to upgrade your database? Have you
    tried to define DECW$CALENDAR_FILE to point to a non existing file?

    There's a conference dedicated to Calendar: CASEE::DECW$CALENDAR. Hit
    select etc...

    Thank you,
    Denis.

    Adrian, check your DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT for calendar stuff too.
    
    - ���

I like IFT1 also, and have had no problems with any of the applications.

However, the downside is that the toolkit seems to be suffering from what
appears to be a near total lack of testing.  The VAX binding include files
for most languages are broken.  DECBURGER is broken, for goodness sake!
And UIL has silently "removed" some features.  (Yes, I've QARed each of these.)
It's very discouraging.

The server has only died on me once...

		Steve

Dennis, Andy,

You were both right -- I had a line in my Xdefaults that tried to set the
Calendar window's geometry.  I removed this and Calendar came up and duly
converted my old calendar file.  I like the large display for 100DPI
monitors (but the main day display now falls off the screen).

A warning to other people upgrading -- check your DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT
files!  A lot of the stuff in there is probably redundant anyway in V2.

Adrian

	RE: .-1

	Yup, if you have the line "wm*geometry:  mumblexmumble-mumble-mumble"
	in your XDEFAULTS, then edit that out too. The Icon Box now writes
	it's own DECW$WINMGRSAVE.DAT and saves the postion and size of your
	Icon Box.

						mike

Things I like:
      - Support for multiple screens on one workstation (yea!)
      - Ability to cut 'n paste across screens (yea!)
      - Niftier calendar
      - Customizable application defns and startup in Session Manager
      - Customizable autostartup
      - Printscreen ability to turn off the autoscale/rotate.
      - Icon box that remember's its place/size.

Things I dislike:
      - When you have Printscreen set up to capture B&W and you capture
	a color screen image, Printscreen tries to halftone the image to
	simulate a grey scale.  It takes FOREVER for Printscreen to do the
	halftoning and the results look simply AWFUL! (QARed)
      - Inability to allocate all 256 colors on a GPX.  (Although I have not
	had to deal with it myself, I will soon have to start messing with
	colormaps.  I gather from discussions elsewhere that you can only
	get 254 out of the 256.)  pthththth! [raspberry sound]
      - VMS's refusal to document the X resources used in applications.
	Big pthththth!

Question:
      - How does one set the banner and icon name with escape sequences?

-Mike

  The 2-pixel-hi underline cursor is great! Not that it's a big item,
  but just wanted to let you folks know I appreciate the effort on all
  the little details.

  Too soon to comment on much else, but the session manager enhancements
  are excellent.

    The Window and Icon titles can be set like this:
    
$  esc[0,8]=27
$  write sys$output "''esc']21;window title''esc'\"
$  write sys$output "''esc']2L;icon title''esc'\"

Looks good so far but (there is always a but):

When I shrink to an ICON and expand from an icon I get a series of contracting 
or expanding borders. Its hard to describe unless I can show you (anybody
want a trip to sydney?)

anybody else see this?

VS3200 16mb rd54

brian

This is a "feature" called window animation.  If you click MB2 in the Icon
Box to bring up the popup menu, then click on Customize, you will see a
toggle button titled "Animate windows when shrinking and expanding".
Animation is enabled by default in V2 IFT1.  You can disable it by
clicking on the toggle and saving the setup.

- Adrian

        Brian, this  can also be seen under V1 if you set the resource
        w*flash: to true.
        
        q
        

re Flash...

    What's aggravating is that somebody actually spent programming effort
    on such piffle while bugs such as pop-up windows half off the screen
    are not fixed due to lack of priority. (I assume this bug still
    remains; I haven't tried V2 yet.)

    Side note to moderator: as I type this, it is 20:06 EDT.

    Might be worth checking the clock...

>    What's aggravating is that somebody actually spent programming effort
>    on such piffle while bugs such as pop-up windows half off the screen
>    are not fixed due to lack of priority. (I assume this bug still
>    remains; I haven't tried V2 yet.)

    That's a useless flame. This window manager always had that feature as
    far as I can remember, and I'm not even sure the original code was done
    in DEC.

    Denis.

    RE: .21
    
    Yes this is correct.  It has always been a feature of the
    window manager, if you happen to be able to figure out
    what all the *unsupported* resource names are.  Many people like
    "animated windows" so the feature is now visible to the
    everyday user.   Minimal programming effort ...
    

    One REALLY nice thing I just discovered today, and I know people
    had been asking for it.  The V2 Bookreader has a "Hot Spots" option
    (I'm at home, so I don't recall just what it's called) that when
    enabled, draws boxes around all the hot spots on the current page.
    You get this by pulling down one of the menus in the menu bar.
    Love it!
    
    			Steve

>    One REALLY nice thing I just discovered today, and I know people
>    had been asking for it.  The V2 Bookreader has a "Hot Spots" option
>    (I'm at home, so I don't recall just what it's called) that when
>    enabled, draws boxes around all the hot spots on the current page.
>    You get this by pulling down one of the menus in the menu bar.
>    Love it!

    I saw that too, and it's great! T'would be nice to be able to do it
    with a keyboard key, � la Hypercard... The More key is great too, but
    I'd like to do it with the keyboard arrows and next/pre screen keys too
    ;-) I also noticed that the bookreader still has some problems:

    -	When you resize the Bookreader Views, the push buttons at the bottom
	stay where they are; I don't know what the latest and greatest
	style guide has to say, but V1's behaviour felt more 'slick'.

    -	Context sensitive help is a real pain, since you can't assign input
        focus to the Bookreader's Views. I'm also missing some frames: I
        tried to ask for help on the new 'extension' toggle in the view
        pulldown menu, and I got the about frame... It seems that the help
	widget isn't being cached: it's created (and repositioned) whenever
	you ask again for help. And when the bookreader is iconized, the
	help widget stays on the screen.

    -	The bookreader's interpretation of a double click is interesting...
	You click on a topic, then click again 3 hours later, and that's
	considered a double click! Feels strange. Feature or bug?

    -	Images are shown in black & white, no matter what you have
	customized at the session manager level for your window's
	background and foreground. Maybe it's a feature, I don't know.

    -	Is the implementation of the toggles in the view pulldown menu
	style guide conforming? When off, they just don't appear. I can't
	remember what the style guide has to say...

    I'll QAR some of those if our link to TRIFID is usable ;-)

    Denis.

    PS: BTW, what's the extension toggle for?

    
    It really is bloody irritating that messages displayed on the Session
    Manager Window aren't timestamped.
    
    - ���

>>    It really is bloody irritating that messages displayed on the Session
>>    Manager Window aren't timestamped.

You seem to be in a bad mood today.  Anyway, griping here won't make
much difference.  As they say, "Submit a QAR".

-steve-

    Well I thought I had. I will now. Thank you for your suggestion and
    have a nice day.
    
    - ���

Under DECwindows V1.0 I had set up a command procedure to run  the xphoon
program at system startup be defining decw$display wsa1 and then running the
program. This worked really well, I would be able to login, work, and logout
and teh xphoon program stayed there in the background and ran just fine every
so often.

Now though While is starts ok, and works while I'm logged in, it dies the real
death when I log out (Or at least I think thats when its happening.)

what happens now is:

$       xphoon:==   $sys$common:[sysmgr]xphoon
$       set proc/prio=0
$       xphoon -b -t 30
XIO:  fatal IO error 65535  on X server "ATSEA::0.0"
      after 93 requests (92 known processed) with 5 events remaining.
%XLIB-F-IOERROR, xlib io error
%TRACE-F-TRACEBACK, symbolic stack dump follows
module name     routine name                     line       rel PC    abs PC

                                                           000982C4  000982C4
                                                           00098672  00098672
                                                           00098E30  00098E30
                                                           0008AEBE  0008AEBE
XPHOON          WmRootWindow                     2841      00000025  00019913
XPHOON          setroot                          2885      00000047  00019A00
XPHOON          main                             2821      000002AE  000198CE
  SYSTEM       job terminated at  7-JUL-1989 15:11:22.25

Anybody know whats happening to it?  

    I like the session manager application menu option.  The only problem
    that I have is I can only enter one command line.  It appears that
    the session manager creates the detach process with a mailbox as that
    processes input device and writes out the command to it.  It would be
    great if I could do just a couple of lines worth.  Then I wouldn't need
    hardly any command files at all.
    
    
    Sean

    RE: .28 xphoon getting killed after a logout
    
    In DECwindows V1, the session manager attempted to abort all 
    connected clients at the end of a session to ensure that a server
    reset occurred before the next login. There were a few deficiencies
    with the mechanism that it used, and the xphoon program you've been
    running apparently slipped through one of the cracks.
    
    In V2, the session manager has a better mechanism to force a server
    reset, and that's why xphoon is getting killed.

	Add a radio box to the login screen:

	o Full startup (do everything specified in Auto-Startup, default)
	o Minimum startup (don't automatically start anything)
	o Partial startup (popup something like the AutoStartup customize
	box to allow user to choose what to startup this time)

	Sometimes I just want to do a quick login, without starting up
	the umpteen different applications I normally have. Sometimes I
	want to start up most things but skip a couple. Right now it's
	quicker to login to my VT220, rename DECW$SM_GENERAL.DAT, then
	login and start up the few things I need than to sit through my
	full startup and exit the things I don't need... I'm not sure
	of the exact relationship between the login screen and the session
	manager, so it may be more practical for the session manager to
	pop up a dialog box with the choices after logging in (default is
	not to pop it up, default within box is full startup).

	And this could be enhanced further, by allowing creation of
	named startups (DECterm=_Only- DECterm, Programming_Only - DECterm
	& LSE, Communications_Only - Mail Notes & Xrn, etc.).

	Mike

re: .30

Thanks Vince, I was afraid that I'd come up against a V1 deficiency.

.new

What I'd really like to see added is the Session Manager applications
menu supported from the background, the whole screen or just the
open space on the icon box...

That and pointer focus or whatever its called...

I had occasion to run decw$examples:helloworld on a V2 client back to 
my V1 server and the geometry has sure changed!  If customer's 
programs are similarly affected we're in deep goo!  No time to 
investigate and I haven't seen the release notes (just like a 
customer).

    If you have time to Note you have time to submit a QAR.
    
    - ���

    How about a consistent customize menu for ALL windows e.g.
    CUSTOMIZE---+---> COMMON    relates to window itself
                |               (window size/shape/position/iconname/title
                |              /colours/startup as icon or window etc)
                |
                +---> SPECIFIC  relates to function of window
    
    Clock:
    The only example I've seen so far the clock segments have been swopped
    around, now the analogue is quite small. Is this customizable?
    
    Richard.

The ability to start all applications from the Session Manager makes it possible
for non-technical users to start the out-of the box applications without any
problems. If all the out-of the box applications had been added to to the
Application menu it would have been even easier.

My experience is that users without computer experience understands nothing of
file view.

Olav 

>My experience is that users without computer experience understands nothing of
>file view.


Hmm. Since these "point and click" interfaces are supposed to make it
easier for the computer-illiterate to use computers, it seems as
though FileView isn't quite doing the job!

    Having played with FileView, I've come to be quite fond of it, if
    nothing else but for the way it presents the complexity of VMS in
    an easily understood and consistent fashion.  If you're using
    FileView only to start other applications, you're missing a lot.
    
    			Steve

    Maybe so, but I ran Fileview for precisely 5 minutes when I first tried
    DW. I've since tried a few times to discover the charm and failed
    utterly.
    
    Of course that's my problem not the software - or is it?
    
    ���

I use fileview all the time.  I find it easier to manuever within a 
directory tree and I don't have to type long file names (which is
prone to mistakes).

I grew up on filename recognition under TOPS-20 and I like fileview
a lot more.  It's needs more DCL commands though (like SUBMIT) but I am
only using V1 and I am sure there are lots of new toys in V2.

Mike

	While I agree that FileView works nicely, provides needed capability 
and I personally haven't had any trouble using it, I would also agree that it 
does *nothing* for people who don't have experience with or understanding of 
hierarchical file structures and file naming conventions.  FileView is great 
for those who have used VT terminals or PCs since they know what a directory
is and that it contains files with extensions that convey meaing(hopefully ;^).

	If we had a capability that I once saw on an Atari ST, to display
files either as Icons(with text, where a directory appears as a folder or some
other container), or in straight text depending on a "Customize" or "Preferences"
setting, I think it would go a long way toward bringing people in and helping 
them understand how to organize their files.

re: .-1

You may be interested in looking at a DESKTOP prototype mentioned in the notes
conference VIA::DESKTOP (KP7...).

Jatin

Personally, I find FileView too slow for most things.  It's easier simply to
type the command to a DECterm, particularly since cut-and-paste in DECterm
eliminates the typing of long filenames.  I only use FileView very rarely for
large cleanup operations on directory trees.  It is wonderful for that.
However, for me to use it as my main way of getting things done, it would have
to speed up by about an order of magnitude.

--PSW

Andy et al...

Come on guys! You show me how to do this from a $ prompt..

While reading notes, see `copy this file for a good time..'

WALLOP::DISK$user:[something_or_other$public]BIG_long_filename.I_CAN_TYPE

I just double click (Have you tried Treble click?), then grab FileView and 
pull down `Files' Copy...... this fills everything in FOR ME. (AND it spells 
it write ;�) If I want this written to a specific sub-dir, just go there first
before `Files' Copy, and the job's done.

Next try marking every third file(shift click) or all the .com files, and
`Files' Copy to somewhere else.....


Come on guys, try it again....

PS Andy, your shadow conference is 6 out on this reply.... �37/ �43

.44:

> "copy this file"...

SLIGHTLY easier with FileView, perhaps, but certainly not that much different;
and you have to wait for the pulldown menu and popup dialog, which may be slow
on a lot of systems. Using a DECterm, I'd just expand the terminal window,
type "copy ", MB3 drag on the filename in NOTES, type " *", and RETURN.  No big
deal, really.  Most of the time, it's probably faster that way.

> marking every third file

Sure, THAT'S easier with FileView... but how often do you want to do that,
really?

> all the .COM files

Are you KIDDING?  I'd sure rather type "copy *.com" than SHIFT/MB1 on every
.COM file manually!!  Of course, your comparison is misleading, since I'd do
exactly the same thing in FileView... I'd change the filter to *.COM and then
click SELECT ALL.  Like the "copy this file" example, therefore: no significant
difference.

Aside from brief experiments, I didn't use FileView much at all until very
recently. Last month, I replaced one of my utility DECterms with a FileView,
just because I found most of the things I used it for would be about as easy
(and a little "slicker" looking) with FileView.  It's convenient to be able to
just doubleclick on a DECwrite document to edit it, and not have my DECterm
tied up running the editor (saving me the trouble of typing the extra command
verbage to spawn it off).  FileView is OK.  It's even moderately neat.  It's
hardly the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

	/dave

    There is a utility called swing for VMS which was doing fileview stuff
    under vtXXX while DECwindows was still a twinkle in some engineers
    eye. Especially for directory based operations. If we are going to
    throw in whacky (?) out of the box applications lets make them 
    whacky enough so that they can at least match up against public
    domain terminal based software.
    
    Having said that, I love some of fileview features, but it never
    quite does enough for me to warrant including it as a startup
    application.
    
    Joe.
    

FileView's biggest problem seems to be performance.  I think most of the
performance hit stems from its use of the standard VMS file manipulation
utilities (DIRECTORY, COPY, RENAME, PURGE, etc).  If I were doing the work, I'd
have snarfed the code for all of those utilities and written a single
VUE$FILE_OPS.EXE that could do all the standard file operations without VUE
having to construct command lines and run the thing from a DECterm.

--PSW

    I've only gotten as far as the release notes and I have one comment so
    far.
    
    With regards to the new VIEW command:  Would it be possible to change
    the "/INTERFACE" qualifier to be "/DISPLAY", or somehow be consistenet
    with the qualifier for VMS layered products that run under DECwindows?
    
    There seems to be a number of different paths being taken on this so
    far  - "/DISPLAY=DECWINDOWS", "/DECWINDOWS", and "/INTERFACE=DECWINDOWS".
    The CASE tools seems to be eliminating "/DECWINDOWS" in favor of
    "/DISPLAY=DECWINDOWS", and I'm not sure what other layered products are
    doing.
    
    It would probably be worthwhile to poll the various development groups
    in order to come to a consensus on what the qualifier should be and
    also what the allowed assignments are to the qualifiers (in order to
    eliminate such discrepancies as "CHARACTERCELL" vs. "CHARACTER_CELL",
    as a hypothetical example.)
    
    Other than that, I love the enhancements described to DECwindows.  I
    can't wait to install it myself.  Good work!
    
    - Dave
    
    

   I'm pretty sure /INTERFACE is what the DCL clearing house decided on for 
   the functionality that /DISPLAY and /DECWINDOWS gave.  I would expect
   all the products will be asked (made?) to use it in the future.  Fileview
   is the first I've seen that uses the new syntax.

Come on guys give FileView a chance...

I have been using it for about 6-8 months now and hardly ever use DECterm.
It really is very powerfull and is one of the best DECwindows applications

Using the pulldowns is not the best way to use it...

customise on file type i.e. .SDML gives me LSE, Spell, Read etc. all you have 
to do is MB2 on the file...

The multiple file select...for type, delete purge.

If the DCL option is there, add it, create a VUE$LIBRARY: .COM for it and your 
away...

FileView is a graphical DCL/Shell, it is not a substitute for knowing what to
do with a computer i.e. so called non techncial people, will not like it and 
that needs to be fixed by another application. We have been looking at building
one on for the customer project I am on, its based on buttons etc rather than
popups. I hope that someone in engineering is looking at providing an end user
type interface that can be customised i.e. that which ALL-IN-1 did for DCL
before DECwindows/workstations.

re Note 1032.44 by BRAYON::CRIERP:

> I just double click (Have you tried Treble click?), then grab FileView and 
> pull down `Files' Copy...... this fills everything in FOR ME. (AND it spells 
> it write ;�) If I want this written to a specific sub-dir, just go there first
> before `Files' Copy, and the job's done.

        One of the reasons I like to use DECterms is consistency of
        cut-and-paste.  If I can see something, I can cut it. Normal
        DECwindows applications appear to be awfully inconsistent
        about what data on the screen you can cut or quick-copy from
        and what you can't.

        The other reason is command-line recall.  I very often find
        that I repeat commands or slight variants on them.

        (There is also, for me, a feeling of neatness and order in
        terminal-based applications.  All the interactions with a
        given process are contained in one rectangular area.  I don't
        get into the situation of multiple windows, anywhere on the
        screen, perhaps some hidden and others not.  This is clearly
        a matter of taste.)

        Bob

    RE: .47
    
    Just for the record, FileView does NOT use the VMS DIRECTORY command to
    display its file information. It IS all done directly.
    
    Tom

RE: .52

But it does use the DELETE command for DELETE, PURGE command for PURGE, etc.

--PSW

    I have a problem with the "smooth running" of the icon box, and
    actually prefer the tiling version instead.  Part of my session ritual
    involves starting up several DECterms that are logically dedicated to
    various tasks, and stacking them vertically in the I-box.  With tiling
    it was pretty easy to move the icons to the general vicinity and "drop"
    them into place perfectly.  Now I've gotta squint and squeeze just sooo.
    
    Personally I like VUE, I mean FileView.  It helps a lot when you fire
    it up in an 8800 batch queue and just run the server part locally.
    
    It's really annoying that the clock has changed so that I can't place it
    into a 1�-inch vertical space.  Or, if I do, the analog face is now too
    small to be useful.  Bring back the V1 clock!
    
    Many other edges have been nicely polished.
    
      John

It would be very nice if you could modify the command of a system menu item in
the session manager. If you are short on memory it would be nice to modify all
the out-of-the-box applications to run remote. I got around it by defining a new
application called "Calendar (remote)", but it's a bit ugly.

One confusing thing about FileView (not for me) is that the file display isn't
updated in real-time. Couldn't the file system be changed to allow applications
to be notified on events like entering or removing files in a directory? This
could allow FileView to update the directory list in real-time without scanning
the whole directory. The function of the "Apply" button is very confusing for
first time computer users. I know you can modify the command files to update
the list automatically, but this takes a lot of time and can't be done by the
end-user (not system manager).

Olav

Last time I checked, the update or apply button highlighted when something
in the file system changed (at least by action of VUE if not from an external
influence).

And can't you make the system command menu point to a command file which does
whatever checking you want?

Burns

    Does the SText widget "grey out" when it is made insensitive
    in V2?
    
    Dave