Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

    My workstation actually boots off its local disk and then joins our
    cluster.  For the purpose of this problem I think we can consider my
    node a standalone node.  The satellites on the cluster, which also is
    on V5.3-1 SSB don't exhibit the same problem, so I'm inclined to
    believe cockpit error on my part.  Maybe I should try booting my node
    as a satellite just to verify that.
    
    I think there's an actual VAX Notes bug in what I reported, but first I
    need to find out why the font size changed.
    
    --Simon
    

    I think I was imprecise in saying what font was larger.  The DECterm
    font appears to be the same.  The title bar font, the login screen,
    etc. seem to have become bigger.  The fonts used by Notes have become
    larger.
    
    --Simon
    

    Have you looked for anything interesting in NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT? Mine is
    modified (since I like to read the notes, not just know they're there,
    and whoever selected the default font for DW Notes, Notepad, and the
    like is either a sick puppy or has a lot of stock in Pearle Vision)
    with the following lines (maybe someone's modified yours?):

************
File WORK3:[BECK]NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT;4
   40   !Notes*READ_WINDOW.width:		 590
   41   Notes*READ_WINDOW.width:		 680
******
File CLU$COMMON:[SYSLIB]NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT;5
   40   Notes*READ_WINDOW.width:		 590
************
************
File WORK3:[BECK]NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT;4
   46   !Notes*READ_WORK_TEXT.font:		-Adobe-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-M-*-ISO8859-1
   47   Notes*READ_WORK_TEXT.font:		-DEC-Terminal-Medium-R-Normal--14-140-75-75-C-8-ISO8859-1
   48   !
******
File CLU$COMMON:[SYSLIB]NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT;5
   45   Notes*READ_WORK_TEXT.font:		-Adobe-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-M-*-ISO8859-1
   46   !

    re .3:  I don't have a customized NOTES$DEFAULT.DAT so it's only the
    one in SYS$LIBRARY: that is in effect.  The size of the Notes windows
    haven't changed, but whatever it was that I did, the font is bigger.
    I should go compare NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT from V2.0 with V2.1, although
    I doubt that there would be a difference.

    One other thing, on the off chance that it may be relevant.  I tailored
    off all my 75dpi fonts from my workstation.

    --Simon

    I have rebooted my workstation as a satellite in the cluster.  Version
    of VMS is the same, V5.3-1.  However, I no longer have the problem with
    Notes, or rather, the font is back to the teeny size.  The window
    titles are also smaller in size.  For example, in the Icon Box (which I
    resized) it now completely contains "Icon Box: Copyright" whereas
    previously, when I was running off my workstation's disk, the word
    "Copyright" was chopped off in the middle.
    
    I did a DIR/DATE SYS$COMMON:<DECW$DEFAULTS.SYSTEM> and they all look
    the same as the corresponding files on my workstation.  The only DECW$
    defaults file I can see is DECterm's.  (I selected "Big Font" there.)
    In fact, I should be using the same file in either case because my
    SYS$LOGIN_DEVICE is the cluster's user disk.
    
    So, aside from the 75dpi fonts, I can't think of any difference.  What
    else should I be looking for?
    
    --Simon
    

    Try looking for a "*font:" resource line in a
    SYS$LOGIN:DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT file.  That would cause what you are
    seeing.
    
    Leo

    Thanks, Leo.  But not only don't I have a DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT file in my
    SYS$LOGIN directory, there isn't any such file anywhere on my disk.
    
    --Simon
    

dir sys$login:decw$*

Directory DISK$USER:[SIMONSZETO]

DECW$CALENDAR_FILE.DWC;1                DECW$MAIL.DAT;14    DECW$SM.LOG;33     
DECW$SM.LOG;32      DECW$SM_BW.DAT;9    DECW$SM_BW.DAT;8    DECW$SM_BW.DAT;7   
DECW$SM_GENERAL.DAT;9                   DECW$SM_GENERAL.DAT;8
DECW$SM_GENERAL.DAT;7                   DECW$TERMINAL_DEFAULT.DAT;1
DECW$WINMGR.DAT;4   

Total of 12 files.
    

Unless I'm mistaken, you have switched from 75 dpi fonts
to 100 dpi fonts, causing your notes window to appear
larger.  The notes window size is "hard-coded" into
the defaults file, and it assumes 75 dpi fonts.  Just
copy the DECW$SYSTEM_DEFAULTS:NOTES$DEFAULTS.DAT file
into your SYS$LOGIN, and change the read window height
and width lines to let you see the full 80 columns.
You'll probably want to change the edit window, too.

Tim

    Well, that sounds plausible.  But as long as I have been using this
    workstation I have been using the 15" monitor which I understood to be
    100dpi.  Up until now I thought that DECwindows automagically used the
    100dpi fonts and the 75dpi fonts were just taking up disk space.  I
    don't know very much about workstation hardware, but I suppose that
    that it's possible DECwindows software doesn't know what kind of
    monitor I have.

    If what you say is true, it's a crock that I have to delete the 75dpi
    fonts to get readable size fonts.  That implies that satellites are
    doomed to using 75dpi fonts unless all of them can use 100dpi fonts.

    Where is all this documented?  I took a quick look at the table of
    contents of the User's Guide and didn't see anything.

    Actually I'm not entirely sure I believe you.  (Pardon the skepticism.)
    DECterm is working no differently, and the 75dpi fonts are gone.  So,
    did DECterm know all along to use the 100dpi fonts?

    --Simon

>    DECterm is working no differently, and the 75dpi fonts are gone.  So,
>    did DECterm know all along to use the 100dpi fonts?

   I believe (I could be wrong) that the DECterm "large" font under 100dpi
shows up the same as the "small" font under 75dpi.

   Now, I don't know how the font selection logic in DECterm works, but it
seems hacky but possible that the font names for the large vs. small DECterm
fonts are hard coded - thus no difference when your got rid of the 75dpi
fonts.  The server startup probably started, and said to itself, "wow, I don't
have 75dpi fonts any more, I guess I'll use the 100dpi, they're the closest
I've got to what they wanted!".  (Well, it was in C, so it wasn't nearly so
readable... ;-)

   There's a logical name you have to define in DECW$PRIVATE_SERVER_SETUP.COM
to get it to use the 100dpi fonts.  It doesn't auto-sense the monitor.


					-mjg

(who knows it doesn't auto-sense from running both 100dpi monitors when the
server thinks its 75dpi, and the converse.)

Re: .11

Yes, the 75 dpi big terminal font is the same as the 100 dpi little terminal
font.

		75 dpi				100 dpi

little font	14 pixels, 140 points		14 pixels, 100 points

big font	18 pixels, 180 points		18 pixels, 140 points

In VMS V5.1, DECterm asked for a 140 point font for the little font and a
180 point font for the big font.  This meant that it used the same font for
little and big on 100 dpi systems: it found the 140 point big font in the
100 dpi directory and the 140 point little font in the 75 dpi directory.

In VMS V5.3 I fixed this problem by having DECterm ask for a 14 pixel font
for the little font and an 18 pixel font for the big font; that way there
are two distinct font sizes on both 75 dpi and 100 dpi systems.  Admittedly
this is a hack.  What I really needed was a new font:

		75 dpi				100 dpi

bigger font	23 pixels, 230 points		23 pixels, 180 points

That way DECterm could ask for 14 and 18 points and get the same physical size
characters on 75 dpi and 100 dpi monitors.  However, the 23 pixel font simply
didn't exist.

				-- Bob

re .11:
>   There's a logical name you have to define in DECW$PRIVATE_SERVER_SETUP.COM
>to get it to use the 100dpi fonts.  It doesn't auto-sense the monitor.

Actually, it is a symbol.  Either of the following seems to work:

$ DECW$SERVER_DENSITY == 100
or
$ DECW$SERVER_DENSITY :== 100

A purist at heart, I prefer the second form, but it doesn't matter since
the symbol is used as an argument to F$ELEMENT which is happy with a
numeric or string argument.
    
Now I can go back to VAXNOTES_BUGS to report their problem with 100dpi
fonts, and how to reproduce it.

I have been thinking about where in the documentation I should expect to
find this information, when I realized that this doesn't belong in any of
the Customization pull-down menus I see on DECwindows.  Even the session
manager can be running on a client, whereas this is a parameter on the
server, and there doesn't appear to be any Set-up menus for the server!

--Simon

P.S.  Reading .COM and .TEMPLATE files in SYS$MANAGER: is for hackers! 
grumble grumble