[2866] in Release_Engineering
notes for release notes...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (vanharen@MIT.EDU)
Tue Jun 9 14:08:42 1992
From: vanharen@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 92 14:08:26 EDT
To: rel-eng@MIT.EDU
More notes are sure to follow (for xolh and xolc), but this should keep
someone busy for a little while at least.
-C.
---- Changes that apply to Dash, Console, and Xcluster -----------------------
- Some color support has been added -- different display depths may be
specified with one resource. For example:
*foreground: black, gray75, red
Color resources may have up to three comma-seperated colors,
which are applied as follows:
- if three colors are given, they specify the color to use on
mono, grayscale and color monitors, respectively.
- if only two colors are given, the first is used for both
mono and grayscale, and the second is for color.
- if only one color is given, it is used for all three visual
classes.
*NOTE*: this comma-seperated list is a feature found ONLY in
Dash, Console, and Xlogin. It is NOT a standard
converter, and will not work with other X applications.
Standard X applications will generate an error if a
resource of the form described is used.
- Dash/console/xcluster tries harder to substitute a valid font if a
named font fails to load correctly (ie. if an invalid font name
is specified).
- Support for the Sun4 architecture was added.
- Dash/console/xcluster should not redraw as much as they used to.
Previously, they would sometimes redraw when it wasn't
necessary, which, while not noticeable to the end user, wasted
time and CPU.
- The "icon" jet no longer exists. It has been superseded by the
Label jet, which now contains the code to handle bitmaps as well
as strings. If the resource "icon" is specified for a label,
the bitmap pointed to by that file is used instead of a string.
All references to "icon jets" in resource files should be
replaced with "label".
(The Icon jet had been used in Console in its window-manager
icon window to display the picture of an old-fashioned console,
and used in Dash to display the Dash logo in dialog boxes.
This change should affect few users, if any.)
- The resources "centerX" and "centerY" (booleans) which existed in
the Label jet no longer exist. They have been superseded by
"justifyX" and "justifyY", which take values of "left", "right",
"center", or "top", "bottom", "center", respectively.
(This change should affect few users, if any.)
- The Label jet now supports a "leftIcon" and "rightIcon" as well as
either a string or icon in the middle.
---- Dash --------------------------------------------------------------------
- Startup time has been reduced by a factor of approximately 2 or 3.
This was accomplished via two techniques -- the dash window is
stored as a property on the root window instead of linearly
searching the window tree in order to find dash, and the menu
file can be stored in a compiled form which loads faster than
the plain ascii form.
- The clock in the menubar did not refresh immediately when exposed,
rather it would wait until the next time the clock updated (by
default, every 5 seconds). This has been corrected, so that it
redraws immediately.
- Dash uses the color support mentioned to come up in shades of blue
on color machines, and in shades of gray on grayscale machines.
Colors may be over-ridden in user's .Xresources or .dashrc
files.
---- Console -----------------------------------------------------------------
- "cut" looks more like xterm - newlines are indicated by
highlighting to the end of the line when they are selected.
- When cutting text, dragging mouse outside of window causes text to
scroll automatically so that more text may be selected.
auto-scrolling works at 2 speeds - slow when near the edge of
the window and fast when farther away.
- Arrow buttons have been added to the ends of the scrollbar so that
users can more easily scroll through the text (the operation of
the thumb works exactly like xterm, but this can be confusing
until one is used to it, so the arrows should ease operation).
Arrow will auto-repeat if held down, after a slight initial
delay.
- The color support mentioned has been used when filling the arrow
buttons as they are held down, by default they appear red on
color displays, and gray on grayscale machines.
- Several bug have been corrected which may have caused console to
display text incorrectly (although these problems may never have
actually been witnessed).
- It is now possible to specify "character classes" -- characters
which are considered to be the "same" for the purposes of
cutting words or lines. For example, currently an at-sign ("@")
is considered to be different from alphanumeric characters and
will end a word. This can be changed if the user wishes.
---- Xcluster ----------------------------------------------------------------
- Xcluster now displays phone numbers for a cluster when a given
cluster is selected.
- Machine totals, both by cluster and machine-type, are now
displayed.
---- Cview -------------------------------------------------------------------
- Typing "cview phones" will also give phone numbers for all public
clusters.
