Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gis
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 17:59:18 EDT
              <GIS-L@UBVM.BITNET>
From:         Rob Smyser <smyser@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Arc/Info version 6 and OpenWindows via MacX
X-To:         GIS-L@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu

Joe Frizado writes: (the entire message is copied below)
>  Is there something in Arc/Info that will not allow it to run
> on "generic" X terminals?

We at MIT have just finished encountering and "solving" the new
difficulties with Mac/PC X servers and Arcinfo 6's "disp 9999" windows.
The problem is new in Arc 6 and is really annoying.  It takes slightly
different form on Suns, Decstations, and RS6000s.  We have encountered it in
using MacX and Hummingbird's Exceed/W, as well as a variatino of it when using
remote workstation X servers (such as logging in to Suns from Decstations...).

Basically, it seems, when you run Arcinfo from a Sun, you must use the OpenLook
Window Manager or else "disp 9999" hangs.  You must not use the Mac Finder or PC
Windows native environments as the window manager.  Instead you have to use a
"rooted window" (in MacX parlance, or "single window" mode in Exceed/W) and then
run olwm from the Sun inside the one large X server window.  In effect you end
up with a workstation screen running inside the one large MacX window.
The Sun is doing the window managing, not the Mac.

To connect to the rooted window under MacX use "setenv DISPLAY address:0.3"
where the ".3" refers to the colro rooted window.  Under Exceed/W you pick
"Options... Window Mode ... Single" from the Windows menu under the dash thing
in the upper left corner...

It's hard to know exactly why Arc is so particular about window managers, other
than maybe some aspect of the Motif-based tools (dialog boxes, etc) now
available in AML requireing something in mwm or olwm and thus dying without it.

We spent weeks hashing this out.  We thought at first that it might be a server
problem so we didn't ask ESRI about it.  The problem is definitely with ESRI
code, though.  It is very annoying  not to be able to use your favorite
workstation window manager.  And PC and mac users buy their servers *expecting*
the Mac OS or Windows to manage their X windows and they can't.

I hope Redlands reads this list and will do something about it; mixed
computing environments are only going to become more common, and *many*
manager-types and others who authorize budgets will be using X servers from PCs
and Macs.  They will expect Windows or Finder to do the Window management for
them, and this can't happen as things are now.

- Rob Smyser
  Manager, Computer Resource Laboratories
  MIT School of Architecture and Planning
  smyser@athena.mit.edu	   (617) 253-3535


------- Forwarded Message


   I need some help configuring MacX and Arc/Info Ver. 6.  My
setup is as follows:
        Sun 4/470 SunOS 4.1.1 and OpenWindows ver. 2.0
        MacX 1.1 under A/UX 2.01 on a MacIIfx
My MacX configuration is fine.  I can run xterm, all of the Island series
of programs and S Plus.  I can run several of the smaller programs, like
xclock,
xeyes, etc.  I just cannot get Arc/Info version 6 to run under MacX.
   I have tried the foloowing options so far:
       1.  I start xterm and start arc under it.  The greeting from Arc/Info
           appears. However when I type in &stat 9999, two new ESRI windows
           appear and the system is dead until I Ctrl-C out of it.
       2.  I start a cmdtool window (with or without starting arc as
           part of the command).  When arc starts under this system,
           the same result occurs.
   My questions center around how closely tied is Arc/Info to OpenWindows
versus OpenLook versus X11.  If I open via xterm, the TERM variable is set
to xterm, if I open via cmdtool, the TERM varibale is sun-cmd.  Both produce
the
same condition.  Is there something in Arc/Info that will not allow it to run
on "generic" X terminals?  In the Device Supported document, it does place X
terimnals in a 3 category.  Does this really mean you can only run Arc/Info
via X protocols under OpenWindows (i.e. Sun only), or only under OpenLook,
or only under ???.
   Any help will be very much appreciated.

Joe Frizado
*********************************************************
Dept. of Geology, Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403
Tel. 419-372-2490                       FAX 419-372-7205
email  frizado@granite.bgsu.edy  or frizado@andy.bgsu.edu
*********************************************************

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