HEPiX X11 Scripts - Version 3.1

This is a description of all the changes made in the %hx since the version 3.0.6.


General Changes

There are no major functional changes so the global behaviour should be the same. However, many things changed "behind the scene", mainly because of the split between the shell and the X11 parts of the HEPiX scripts.

Warning: because of the ksh requirement, you must put a ksh-compatible shell under /bin/ksh on SunOS 4 machines, for instance a link to /usr/local/bin/zsh. This "hack" is not needed on all the other operating systems and will therefore disappear with SunOS 4...

Because of the split, there are now a templates and a tools directories under /usr/local/lib/hepix/X11. They contain the files needed/used only by the X11 part.

The installation works fine at CERN with SUE and ASIS but still needs some work...


xdm Wrappers

They now use a C program (%is_hepix) to know if a user should run the HEPiX scripts or not. It replaces the dirty shell code that was buggy when NIS was used...

The code is a bit stronger and more informative in case of problems.

The Xresources changed a bit:


Tools

The new tools directory contains all the programs needed by the X11 scripts at some point and that can be used "standalone".

quota-warn
a simple copy of the program that was in 3.0.6, to be isolated in case of changes in the shell part
%xinfo
a C rewrite of the Xinfo script from 3.0.6, the changes are documented below
%xkillwm
a program to detect (and optionally kill) a window manager
%xmessage
the tool from the X consortium with a small patch to make it disappear automatically, also two "shortcuts": xmessage-ack (display a message that must be acknowledged) and xmessage-tmp (display a temporary message)
xsession-fake
almost the same as the one from 3.0.6


HEP

There is a new variable containing the version of the scripts: %HX_VERSION.

Some useless files have been removed (e.g HEP_special.keyboard), others renamed (e.g. HEP_desktop.CDE was previously HEP_xsession.CDE) but this should be harmless. Also, the code to prepare the fvwmrc file has been moved to the site part.

The Xsession is now a single file (HEP_Xsession) and contains what was previously in HEP_xsession.default.

Many messages changed to be more informative. The code also moved a little to be more "intuitive". The code should also be more robust in case of errors.

Some new tools are used:


Site (CERN) Part

Apart from the cosmetic cleanups described above, the only "visible" change is the name of the fvwmrc preparation script, now called prepare_fvwmrc.

Related to this fvwmrc preparation, the HEP level scripts used to do the job "transparently". Now it's really part of the site level customisation, the CERN %xprofile contains:

	HX_WM='fvwm -f `/usr/local/lib/hepix/X11/site/prepare_fvwmrc`'
This is now more flexible (because you can start fvwm without this preparation) but may require a line similar to the one above if you modify %HX_WM.

Also, the program guesskbd from ASIS is used to set the variables $HX_KEYBOARD and $HX_KBD_TYPE.

More information can be found in the page describing the CERN customisation of the HEPiX X11 scripts.


xinfo

%xinfo is a major component of the X11 architecture. It collects various pieces of information about the X environment and put them in shell environment variables. This new C version is roughly compatible with the old shell script. Here are the changes:


X Policy

The X policy handling checked by ProcessInfo in 3.0.6 has been completely rethought. The global behaviour should be the same but there are many more possibilities... not yet documented.

Note: ProcessInfo used some files like desktop-types or window-managers to modify the "policy". This was not documented. The new apply_policy uses other file names with another syntax and gives more possibilities.


Lionel Cons, 21-Jun-1996