Need information on SunView 2.0 and compatibility

[Aled Morris]

>> The X11/NeWS server provides full and complete binary compatibility for
>> SunView applications....
>
>Gadzooks, this is frightening.  I thought SunView took a lot of space.
>The memory taken out by this newfangled windowing system when it starts up
>must be truly awesome on a Sun OS 3.* machine.

Not quite.  The way I undestood it was that old SunView binaries will
continue to run, since the SunView 1 library is built on top of Pixrect.
Since the Sun product-version X/NeWS server is also built on top of
Pixrect, the two happly cohabitate on the same screen.  I believe (though
I've never seen it) that the current NeWS product (1.1?) has this property
also (i.e. with NeWS running, you can still run old SunView code).

The effect on the screen is that the SunView window is always the "top"
window in the heirarchy, it kind of floats on top of whatever window
system you are running underneath.  I don't understand Pixrect properly
(and I don't know how the X server Sun ddx code is implemented), but my
guess is that there are rules for "well-behaved" Pixrect applications
which if you obey them, you will automatically get this backwards
compatability.

The MIT X server for Suns does not obey these rules, so you don't have
full compatability with SunView code.  If anyone out there knows how to
fix this, I for one would be extremely grateful!

In the meantime, fire up your MIT X server, and to an xterm, type

	setenv WINDOW_PARENT /dev/win0
	shelltool &

and have fun!

Aled Morris
systems programmer

    mail: awm at doc.ic.ac.uk    |    Department of Computing
    uucp: ..!ukc!icdoc!awm    |    Imperial College
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