Subject: Better `psterm' ; ws_lock_limit ; `psview'

From: Greg Earle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 87 20:43:47 EST

But Elizabeth, the Sam Leffler-ized `psterm' *is* better, and you can get it
now, from Columbia.EDU.  Supports X-Y placement, backgrounding (great for
doing `rsh somewhereelse psterm'), frame labels, icon labels, etc. etc.

One caveat; the vt100 psterm is still brain damaged (don't run `vttest' in
it, or watch as unhandled escape sequences litter your window etc.).  Stick
with the h19 or sun.

On another note (really should be a seperate message), look out for a problem
if you use a highly intricate color rasterfile as your root background.  Any
need to redisplay exposed clipping regions will take quite a while, and more
often then not will cause those wonderful `Window display lock broken by pid x'
messages to appear.  If they appear in the wrong place, it can `solarize' your
background.  One can bump up the kernel variable `ws_lock_limit' (default 2) a
little higher to help deal with that; but be careful when you do (I originally
had to do so because a GKS application was so CPU intensive when it needed to
redisplay that it got `Window *data* lock broken' and was nuked by SIGXCPU).
Then again, having to take a coffee break while your root background gets
re-drawn might be a good excuse to use a simpler root ... :-)

We end this little misive with that Rhetorical Question,
	Has Anyone Gotten `psview' To Work Successfully?

[ Most of the time, I get a psview window up, no output, my mouse disappears,
  and the server hangs.  An external `ps' shows no `psview', but my screen's
  dead.  Under these circumstances, I am a bit hesitant to keep trying ... ]

	- Greg		[email-masked]