[1966] in testers
Re: OLH display not wide enough
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (kcunning@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Fri May 29 13:08:03 1992
From: kcunning@Athena.MIT.EDU
To: Chris VanHaren <vanharen@MIT.EDU>
Cc: testers@Athena.MIT.EDU, bug-olh@Athena.MIT.EDU, lwvanels@Athena.MIT.EDU,
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 27 May 92 11:52:27 -0000.
Date: Fri, 29 May 92 13:07:30 EDT
>> In 7.4, the built-in text window for OLH ("internal viewer") now only
>> displays 76/77 characters in its text area, rather than a full 78. ...
>
> Yep, you are right, this can be fixed easily enough. I think I know
> what caused the spacing difference -- I'll play with it a while and see...
Great! Let me know when you figure it out.
>> Also, with regard to the text area for OLH, it still doesn't support standard
>> cut/paste extension (i.e., extending the selection area using the right mouse
>> button). This was also true in the past, but I'm surprised it hasn't been
>> fixed yet in the Motif text widget. Are we not toggling some switch right,
>> or is this truly not fixed yet?
>
> I'm not sure it'll ever be "fixed". It's not broken, really. You are
> implying that xterm's cut&paste bindings are the "standard" -- this was
> never the case. There are no UI standards caovering all of X, unlike
> the Mac, for example. Each toolkit can implement whatever UI it likes.
> Motif chose not to use the same bindings as xterm -- even the Athena
> text widget is different from xterm.
>
> We could *make* it work like xterm, however, I was told to port olh to
> motif 1.1, and no other changes were spec'ed. Also, I'm not sure I
> agree that it should work like xterm, since then it would not work like
> any other motif program.
I guess it seems "standard" to me because all the typical applications I use
(xterm, xmh, xdsc) allow re-defining the "selected" area by using the right
mouse key. This makes it possible to select in one shot a whole text that is
only visible in several screensful; otherwise you have to select/paste
repeatedly, increase the window height, etc., to get a screen at a time, which
strikes me as unnecessary.
For the OLH text widget, I would like to allow the right-button re-selection,
if that's possible and reasonable. (But you might be able to talk me out of
it...)
>> In covering the OLH issue [see my previous message], I noticed that lots of
>> the graphical aspects of the OLH display seem fuzzier in 7.4 than they did in
>> 7.3. For example, the toggle square next to the Use External Viewers item on
>> the Options menu is not at all as crisp as in 7.3; the elements of all the
>> scrollbar displays are also not as crisp; etc.
>> [... more omitted ...]
>
> The change in appearance is due solely to the change from motif 1.0 to
> motif 1.1. Several other graphical aspects were changed as well. The
> ones you point out are the more obvious changes.
>
> This has nothing to do with color vs. black&white. Again, we may be
> able to change the look slightly, although it is probably tricky in this
> case, and again, it would then make OLH different from all the other
> motif1.1 programs, etc. Are the differences really *that* distracting?
> Is is something that you think users will care a whole lot about? I
> mean, after the initial feeling that "something looks different"?
So it's not a color effect? Hmmm. Do you know why they would deliberately
create LESS crisp display elements after they'd gotten them to look so clean?
Is there some other gain for the change? (Compare the black box in the
Options pop-up menu in 7.3 and in 7.4 and see what I mean -- the new one is
really significantly less precise; every time I look at it I wonder whether
the apparent blurriness is in my eyes or in the image!)
I'm really just intrigued. If it's standard Motif-ness on this point,
I guess we'll have to live with it.
Thanks for your response, Chris.
--Kevin
