Subject: Re: FVWM: xman menus don't work

From: [email-masked] (David Kennedy)
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:25:43 +0100

Lots of people have said xman works fine, or that there is no problem with it.
Odd, I can start xman, get a manual page up, but thats it.

I can't use either menu, so I can't actually get to a manual page or
browse through commands. To me, this is broken! Maybe its not a
widespread problem. Lets see, I have Solaris 2.5 and openwin 3.?
I'll just go and check that using different mouse buttons etc doesn't fix
it. Nope. Xman might as well be a static picture for all the use I can
get out of it. I have the last fvwm beta, compiled as normal, no patches.
I can get the menus up in xman, I just cannot select anything in either
options or sections. Hence, no use! :-)

I thought that xman would be a better example than say, the Sun tools,
many of which exhibit problems, especially with menus. The menus
problem is really annonying! Maybe I was a bit rash saying it renders many
programs useless, but it certainly inhibits their full use. :-)

In filemgr for example (Sun's fine File Mangler) some option menus
just vanish behind the main window. Hard to set options then!
-- 
David Kennedy, Dept. of Pure & Applied Physics, Queen's University of Belfast
Email: [email-masked] | URL: http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~dcjk/
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---

From: Michael Tiefenback <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:54:41 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996, David Kennedy wrote:

> ...
> .... 

Just a note here that certain Motif pulldowns (I have noted only those 
that are "within the window special function things" malfunctioning; when 
the same menus are bound to buttons in the menu bar they work properly) 
also drop behind the main window.  As a note which may be a clue to the 
knowledgeable, this behavior used to be an "all the time" thing. Of late, 
with greater loading of the machines I use, it often happens that the 
menus do not always drop behind the windows.  This indicates that the 
behavior is influenced by timing and machine load (which is a bad thing 
in itself).

Michael Tiefenback

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From: <[email-masked]> (Charles Hines)
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 10:01:52 -0400

>>>>> "David" == David Kennedy <[email-masked]> writes:

David> Lots of people have said xman works fine, or that there is no
David> problem with it.  Odd, I can start xman, get a manual page up,
David> but thats it.

Works for me too (under AIX).

David> I can't use either menu, so I can't actually get to a manual
David> page or browse through commands. To me, this is broken! Maybe
David> its not a widespread problem. Lets see, I have Solaris 2.5 and
David> openwin 3.?  I'll just go and check that using different mouse
David> buttons etc doesn't fix it. Nope. Xman might as well be a
David> static picture for all the use I can get out of it. I have the
David> last fvwm beta, compiled as normal, no patches.  I can get the
David> menus up in xman, I just cannot select anything in either
David> options or sections. Hence, no use! :-)

David> I thought that xman would be a better example than say, the Sun
David> tools, many of which exhibit problems, especially with
David> menus.

Since I actually have ready access to xman, I have to agree there.

David> The menus problem is really annonying! Maybe I was a bit rash
David> saying it renders many programs useless, but it certainly
David> inhibits their full use. :-)

David> In filemgr for example (Sun's fine File Mangler) some option
David> menus just vanish behind the main window. Hard to set options
David> then!

Are you using FvwmAuto?  If so, if you don't use it do you still have
the problem?  How about if you use a shorter time value for it?

I know a lot of people have seen problems like this with FvwmAuto.
I'll have to see if I can come up with a fix, but since I have trouble
reproducing the problem, that may be difficult.

Opps - may have spoke too soon.  I was just able to reproduce it, but
only when I first give the window focus (I use click to focus) and
click on the menu to give it focus and pop up the menu at the same
time.  If the window already has focus, the menus pop up fine for me.

I switched xman to SloppyFocus and it was harder to reproduce, but I
got it to do so once.

I'll have to play with FvwmAuto some more when I get a chance to see
if I can prevent this problem.

Chuck

---

From: Todd Tyrone Fries <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 22:37:35 -0500 (CDT)

> Lots of people have said xman works fine, or that there is no problem with
> it. Odd, I can start xman, get a manual page up, but thats it.

here is a couple of questions for my own curiosity.

What X resources do you have set?  Some window managers (olvwm) run a
special init script or something (.openwin-init) that will setup special
X resources...

Try comparing the X resources while running fvwm to olvwm...perhaps xman
doesn't have anything bound to the menu options?  I have toyed with x
resources and rendered menu options usless without understanding how...so
that would be my best guess there..

It isn't specially fvwm's fault, but the fact that window managers (ahem)
openwin, tend to do a little more cludgy X startup than just putting things
in .xinitrc where they belong...

Another question.  Would those people who use xman that have problems please
mention the version?

I have xman 3.1.6, linux 2.0.0, running the latest X11R6.1 XFree86 3.1.2e 
beta X server (whew!), and fvwm-2.0.42 without any problems...and since there
are others in the world who don't seem to have problems, my first hunch
is there are several X resources /  environment variable differences.

Try doing an 'xrdb -merge /usr/openwin/lib/app-defaults/Xman' and see if
that does any good.

> just vanish behind the main window. Hard to set options then!

Hrm, what happens if you mess with click-to-focus and such for these apps?  Are
you having the app itself raise when it gets focus and push-pinning the menu
to the desktop underneath the app?

Just some curiosities of my own on the matter..
--
Todd Fries .. [email-masked] .. [email-masked] .. [email-masked]