[2790] in Athena Bugs
Re: /usr/athena/lib/init/xsession & resources
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John E Elsbree (Athena Doc Staff))
Fri Aug 11 10:46:55 1989
To: epeisach@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bugs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: bugs[2773]
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 10:46:22 EDT
From: John E Elsbree (Athena Doc Staff) <elsj@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
> This means to customize the first window requires 1) Setting the
> variable skip_initial_xterm and then inserting the proper stuff in
> .startup.X
>
> This is not intuiutively obvious.
This should be fixed by beefing up the comments in the xsession file and by
providing the "How to Customize your Athena Account" document.
Before people go making changes, let me explain why I think the current
implementation isn't necessarily a bug...
When designing the xsession file, it seemed to us (kcunning, qjb, elsj),
that it didn't fit the xlogin model to designate one window as "special",
in the sense that you could only customize it by using a specific name in
your .Xresources file. This reasoning was similar to the rationale for
eliminating the concept of a "login" window.
There are really two orthogonal issues:
- If you don't want the default window, you can disable it
(set skip_initial_xterm).
- You can place whatever windows you want on the screen
(commands in .startup.X).
That is, the only kind of customization you can make to the initial xterm
is to get rid of it. In addition, you customize everything else to your
heart's content. This, I think, is in keeping with the xlogin philosophy
of a "clean slate".
- John
