From: terry@venus.sunquest.com (Terry R. Friedrichsen)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: new release of xsky
Summary: no more seg-faults on Suns (I hope)
Keywords: xsky   bugfix    X11    sky
Date: 30 Sep 92 14:41:50 GMT
Followup-To: sci.astro
Organization: Sunquest Information Systems, Tucson

Anonymous FTP on arizona.edu is now carrying an updated xsky.tar.Z.  This
update fixes the segmentation faults many Sun workstations were seeing.
I would like to thank all those folks who patiently tested updated copies
of xsky and sent me stack traces while I tried to hallucinate what the
problems could be.  A few people even went to the trouble of perusing
the code involved on their own, and accurately reported the problems in
the code.  Thanks again, folks - the net is great, as usual!

The FTP directory contains a file called sky.cz, which is a compressed
version of the corrected C source for sky.c.  This should be all you need
to get xsky running if you're experiencing seg-faults now.  Additionally,
the new xsky.tar.Z contains minor corrections and additions to the man
page, and a few words about font names in BuildInstall.txt.

I've received several suggestions for improvements; these have been noted
for a possible version 1.1 release sometime later.  Thanks to all for
taking the time to make the suggestions.

I replied to everyone who sent me mail about xsky.  A few of those replies
bounced (hi to those at Amdahl who think I'm ignoring them :-), so if you
didn't get a reply, please know that I am *not* being rude.

Other items of note:

1)  xsky was conceived, designed, and written under X11R4 on a DECstation
running Ultrix

2)  xsky runs under X11R5 on my DECstation, but I don't think it will run
under X11R3 at all - it depends on R4 menu widgets

3)  xsky has been observed to run on DECstation, Sun, HP, and SGI.  If
you're running it on something other than that, I'd like to hear from you.
An RS/6000 report would be especially welcome.

4)  I've been asked about problems building xsky on Suns running OpenLook
but was unable to help.  I'd like to hear from anyone who's done this.

5)  xsky doesn't run under VMS; anyone who'd like to try is welcome, and
please send me the changes.  DEC's new Alpha machines, when available,
will probably be more than fast enough to run xsky well.

6)  there will *not* be a Motif version, at least not from me.  Personally,
I think it's ugly, and would rather draw on my screen with a crayon.  But
I'll be happy to answer questions for anyone out there who'd like to try
to do the conversion.

Finally, a plea:  please read BuildInstall.txt and the XSky resource file.
For those who don't like the labels on the panel buttons, please note that
the labels are specified in the first few lines of the resource file.  You
can change them at will.

As always, questions, comments, etc., are actively solicited.  In a few days,
if there are no reports of major problems with xsky, I would appreciate it
if other anonymous FTP sites would make xsky available from their locations.

Thanks to all of you who've tried xsky; I hope you enjoy it.

Terry R. Friedrichsen

terry@venus.sunquest.com  (Internet)
uunet!sunquest!terry      (Usenet)
terry@sds.sdsc.edu        (alternate address; I live in Tucson)

Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.physics