Re: Siag's app-defaults files

[Ulric Eriksson <ulric@edu.stockholm.se>]

The app-defaults are compiled into Siag and friends, so that it is not
necessary and certainly not recommended to install the app-default files
separately. In fact, this is a sure way to sooner or later run into
problems when the widget layout changes and no longer matches what is in
the old installed files. Been there, done that. ;-)

The Netscape.ad file distributed with Netscape has this comment. I
couldn't have said it better myself:

8<------
! This file lists the default resources built in to Netscape.
! You can use the stuff in this file for examples of how to customize
! Netscape for your environment; normally you will do this by
! copying the few lines you want to alter to your private resource
! database, which usually lives in a file called .Xdefaults in your home
! directory.
!
! Site administrators **may** want to make changes here and install this
! file as the global app-defaults file for the site.  To do this, one
! would copy this file to /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Netscape, or on SunOS,
! /usr/openwin/lib/app-defaults/Netscape.  (But actually this directory
! could be anywhere; only the person who installed X knows for sure.)
!
! It is **STRONGLY RECOMMENDED** that you not install this file in the
! app-defaults directory unless you are really sure you know what you are
! doing.  There are a whole slew of version-skew problems associated with
! app-defaults files, which are best avoided by simply not using them.
! In particular, if the app-defaults file for a program is installed, and
! you get a new version of that program, you can't properly test out the
! new version without actually installing it, since it will pick up the
! resources for the previous version, and will quite likely malfunction.
!
! In short, app-defaults files are bad.  Don't use them.  This file is
! provided for informational purposes, and so that I don't get a lot of
! complaints from people who think they understand this stuff better than
! I do.
8<------

In Siag's case, the app-defaults are specified in several files for file
selector layout, dialogs et al, so that they can be shared between
applications. This means that the Siag.ad file doesn't contain all the
info required to layout the application. It is still safe to add minor
modifications to the personal .Xdefaults file. For example, this makes the
scrollbars a little wider, which looks much better for neXtaw:

Siag*viewport.xLayout:          25 25 50% 50% 20
Siag*viewport.yLayout:          20 100% 20


Original message follows below.

Ulric

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hello!

The Siag components come with the .ad (app-defaults) files, but they are
not installed by ``make install''. Hand installing of xsiag/Siag.ad into
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Siag  causes siag  to  fail  to come  up
with:

	mi@misha:~ (154) siag
	Error: Widget btnColor has zero width and/or height
	mi@misha:~ (155) echo $status
	1

Is this a bug? Should the files be installed? Thanks!

	-mi