From: CRDGW2::CRDGW2::MRGATE::"SMTP::CRVAX.SRI.COM::RELAY-INFO-VAX" 20-MAR-1992 09:23:02.54 To: ARISIA::EVERHART CC: Subj: Re: VMS MOTIF - problems&resolutions From: RELAY-INFO-VAX@CRVAX.SRI.COM@SMTP@CRDGW2 To: Everhart@Arisia@MRGATE Received: by crdgw1.ge.com (5.57/GE 1.123) id AA23409; Fri, 20 Mar 92 08:42:53 EST Received: From UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU by CRVAX.SRI.COM with TCP; Fri, 20 MAR 92 05:36:14 PST Received: by ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (5.63/1.43) id AA17738; Fri, 20 Mar 92 05:27:28 -0800 Received: from USENET by ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU with netnews for info-vax@kl.sri.com (info-vax@kl.sri.com) (contact usenet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU if you have questions) Date: 18 Mar 92 23:06:47 GMT From: infopiz!mark@decwrl.dec.com Organization: INFO COMM - Computer Consulting, Redwood City, Ca Subject: Re: VMS MOTIF - problems&resolutions Message-Id: <1992Mar18.150647.11352@infocomm.com> References: <55556@cup.portal.com>, <1992Mar9.094408.331@cmkrnl.com> Sender: info-vax-request@kl.sri.com To: info-vax@kl.sri.com In article <1992Mar9.094408.331@cmkrnl.com>, jeh@cmkrnl.com writes: > I have one client where I do a LOT of work on their workstation, and I have > moderately customized my DECw environment. Typically I have four DECterms > on the screen, all with small font, three of them with condensed font and > one with normal. In this size, I can "tile" these so that I can completely > see all of three out of four of the windows, like this: > > 1 2 > > 3 4 > > 1 is the normal-font window and it overlaps 2 horizontally by about 1/3, all > others are condensed-font, and 3 and 4 don't have to overlap. There's also > plenty of room for the icon window up above. In general, your complaints are related to issues in 3 separate areas: DECwindows X11 server issues, Motif Window Manager UI issues, and Motif Application UI issues. DECwindows X11 Server: ====================== > - the title bars and menu bars on the DECterms are so tall that it > is no longer possible to stack them two-high on the screen without > overlapping, nor to arrange them two-wide on the screen without > overlapping. (The latter is possible with slight overlapping > of the scroll and resize border, but vertical stacking is right > out.) Most of the complaints with the terminal window sizing arrived with VMS V5.4-3 and are related to numerous misc changes that were fixed with the DECwindows X11 Server and it's related fonts. The X11 server is considered to be considered similar to device support, and not explicitly related to the layered product DECwindows Motif. DECwindows Motif does depend on the latest "device support", and hence ships with the X11 Server pieces and these will be installed on a version of VMS back to V5.4 which Motif requires. Anyway, what you are observing/complaining about is the fact that the Font Metrics for the DECterm fonts have changed. Someone at Digital told me that they were "fixed", but this "fix" bothered me at least as much as it bothered you since it was the only "change" I was faced with at the time, and I had users who were complaining about the system changing when it shouldn't have been noticable to them (except for V5.4-3 showing up in the SHOW SYSTEM display). Ultimately, the good news is that there is a workaround to get back the use of the old versions of the DECwindows Fonts. You can go back to a backup of your system disk prior to your upgrade to Motif (or VMS V5.4-3 or V5.5), and extract the contents of SYS$COMMON:[SYSFONT.DECW.100DPI] and [.75DPI] and place the files you extract in your current system's directories: SYS$COMMON:[SYSFONT.DECW.USER_100DPI] and [.USER_75DPI] respectively. Then execute the procedure: $ @SYS$UPDATE:DECW$MKFONTDIR I'm pretty sure all you'd have to do after this is to either reboot or to restart the DECwindows X11 Server: $ @SYS$MANAGER:DECW$STARTUP RESTART The worst that could happen is no difference (and some extra disk space used by the fonts you've loaded). If all goes well, your DECterm's will now have a chance of fitting on the screen as they did before. Motif Window Manager: ===================== > - The icon window is gone, and things that are iconized now take up > HUGE amounts of space in the lower-right corner of the screen, rather > than a small amount of space up top. > > A really nice feature of the icon window was that you could instantly > "bring back" *all* of your iconized processes as long as *any* portion > of the icon window was visible, even if it was peeking out from behind > other windows. Now we have these HUGE icons which are all apart from > one another. I want a quick way to look at all iconized windows, and > "quick" does not mean "pushing to bottom" all of the other windows that > might be on top of the icon I want. Others have noted that the Motif Window Manager (MWM) is very customizable and can be configured to have an Icon box, which is very different than what you are used to, the borders width can be set smaller to not waste screen realestate on what is essentially decorations. Overall the MWM is a different beast than the XUI DECwindows window manager. If you really like the XUI window manager, you can run it instead (as someone also already pointed out). Motif Application UI: ===================== > - I now need a SEPARATE window for messages along with the session > manager window. > > I like the new bookreader but other than that I think that Motif is a net loss. > I want my icon window with its small icons back. I also want my combined > session manager/messages window back. Well, this one is the only one that I had to really compromise on myself. :-) The best I could come up with was to size the session manager menu-bar to be the same as the Message Window Menu Bar, and to place the Session Manager on on top of the Message Window Menu Bar. It doesn't always stay on top, depending on what else is going on, but I always know where it is and I sometimes have to "lower" the message window to get to the Session Manager. This gets much easiler if you use MWM's keyboard accelerators effectively. > I suppose that upgrading to a 1280x1024 display would help with some of these > issues. However, I would have hoped that buying a larger number of pixels on > the screen would increase the number of things I could keep on the screen. It > is not reasonable to need to buy a higher-priced monitor and display card just > to be able to keep doing what one was doing before. I suppose this is no > different, though, than the situation with processor speed, memory, and system > disk space, which is to say that each new release of VMS needs more of all of > them in order to maintain the same level of performance. I guess the principle > has now been extended to "real estate" on workstation display screens. I agree with you completely, but I could see someone in DEC marketing trying to argue this, but the it wouldn't stick very well since it isn't hard to realize that: - more functionality takes more programs -> more disk space - more functionality takes more data structures, & programs -> more memory - more functionality with more programs takes more CPU -> faster CPU But If all you are interested in is 16 bit numbers, you DON'T need more paper (or Screen) to display the results of computations that may have had fancier or faster programs to produce them! If you want to put more stuff on the screen then you need more real estate, but if you don't, then you shouldn't (and actually don't if the above suggestions are acceptable to you). -- Mark Pizzolato - INFO COMM Computer Consulting, Redwood City, Ca PHONE: (415)369-9366 UUCP: decwrl!infopiz!mark or uunet!lupine!infopiz!mark DOMAIN: mark@infocomm.com