Response Summary Re: Respecting standard X options (diatribe)

["David T. Bath" <bathd edipost auspost com au>]

Re my "Gnome ain't X diatribe"
   While people tried helping, its worth noting that
   I knew the quickfix for the "-display" problem
   anyway: I've been X-ing for over a decade, and programming
   multiuser boxes for a more than a quarter-century.
   Maybe that's why I'm such a grumpy bastard.
   **** I RESPECT THE OFFERS OF HELP, HELPFULNESS IS THE
   GREAT THING ABOUT THE USENET TRADITION **** 
   but the "diatribe" in the subject line should have been a
   dead giveaway that I didn't want a quickfix.
   Rather than comment about responses one by one, I waited
   for a while after posting initially and comment
   below on all the responses together.

Gareth B wrote:
  >  [me beta]$ DISPLAY=alpha:0.0 /opt/gnome/bin/sol &
  >then this should work. This overrides $DISPLAY only for the current
  >command.
Nope - I wanna call exec() not system() -- this needs interpretation
by a SHELL.  (At least Gareth's solution kinda works)

Ian C wrote:
  > Or you could run /opt/gnome/bin/sol --display=alpha:0.0
  > I think -- is used because that is the standard prefix for long options in
  > GNU (a single dash introduces a sequence of single character options).
Nope, this just opens it up on my LOCAL display  (Yep, I tested this before
posting).  I understand the difference between SVID and getopts-long and
libpopt, but this option is just plain ignored, at least on helix-gnome
1.2 on SuSE 6.4/7.0 and my custom Solaris 2.6 and 2.7 gnomes.

Alan Shutko <ats acm org> wrote:
  >The problem is that standard X options use a single dash, whereas
  >standard gnu long options use a double dash (so you can still stack
  >single-character options).  Most/all gtk apps will understand
  >--display
Well neither "sol --display=alpha:0.0" nor "sol --display alpha:0.0"
work for me.  Either way, it opens on the local display.
But Alan's comments showed that he had read the note and thought about
the wider issue I raised before pushing the reply button.  But then,
his email virtually certifies him as a thinker.

Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com> wrote a little later
   >Alan Shutko <ats acm org> writes: 
   >>Beyond that, you start getting into trouble.  --geometry and
   >>--geometry should be easy to support, but doesn't appear to be.  (I
   >>guess the reason gtk doesn't support it by default is that it doesn't
   >>know what window that should apply to, so it's an app issue.) 
   >Exactly. People keep saying "GTK should just support this" but no one
   >has ever come up with an explanation for how that's possible. ;-) 
   >Unless you want all windows for the app to get the --geometry, or the
   >first one, neither of which makes any sense.
Again, a thought-out response.  No wonder I voted for this guy!
Even though he seems to be beating on me with a dereferenced stick!
I agree that the "geometry" option makes *NO* sense for multi-window apps
like glade, gimp, et al, which is why I chose "sol" as the example.  The
"gless" program, however should (and does) respect standard input and
--geometry.  (While it says via "--help" it respects "--display", it does
not.  This might be forgivable in beta, but probably not at version 1.2.1)
Its a case of respecting options when they make sense.  These things are
certainly *not* the fault of glib/gtk library developers, but reflect
upon the applications.  I *know* it's not my inability to build tools
correctly because gvim (with GTK as the bound gui) opens up on "foreign"
displays OK.

It wasn't like I was saying "GTK should support the editres protocols"
or anything that tricky.  I realize that lots of things are in TODO lists
while Gnome plays catch-up to KDE, but the sort of stuff I was bitching
about was, I consider, pretty basic.  And I know that sending to "foreign"
displays opens up criticisms about security with xhosts and the like,
but what if I'm either using kerberos or some as-yet-to-be-invented
decent X authentication scheme?

So, I pose questions:  What flags SHOULD be nearly universally respected?
How can we implement the best ideas from the new Gnome without losing the
best of the old X resources (pun intended).

John Flux wrote:
   >How much work would it be for me to just quickly go thru all the apps
   >and make them all standard??  So make them all obey both --display and
   >-display, --version, --title, --geometry $DISPLAY, --help etc ?
I am shamed by John's helpfulness.  However, without fairly strong and
well-placed-cannot-miss-them hints in the central developer doco, his 
good efforts will be thwarted with the next batch of programs uploaded
to sourceforge or wherever.  *With* strong recommendations in the central
standards doco, hopefully most projects will keep in step.

Back to the mesothelioma ward.....
-- 
David T. Bath bathd edipost auspost com au
+613 9204 8713 (W) 0418 316 634 (Mbl)
Andrew must have visited Mrs Gnome one night.