3. X libraries and clients

3.1. Xaw

Two versions of the Xaw library are provided in this release. A version with bug fixes and a few binary compatible improvements and a new version with several new features.

New features:

• A displayList resource is available to all Xaw widgets. It basically consists of a list of drawing commands, fully described in the Xaw(3) manual page, that enables a integration of Xaw programs with the new window/desktop managers that allows for configurable themes.
• Some new actions were added to all Xaw widgets, to allow more configurable control of the widgets, and to allow setting resources at run time.
• Since Xpm was integrated into XFree86, programs linked with the new Xaw library will also link with Xpm. This allows for color background pixmaps, and also for shaped widgets.
• The text widget is the widget that will present more changes. These include:
  • Block cursor.
  • Compile time limit of 16384 undo/redo levels (that will automatically grow if the text is not saved when this mark is reached).
  • Overwrite mode.
  • Text killed is inserted in a kill ring list, this text is not forgotten, pressing M-y allows traversing the kill ring list.
  • International support for latin languages is available even if the international resource is not set. Users will need to properly set the locale environment to make complete use of this feature.
  • A better multiply interface is provided. Pressing C-u,<number> (where number can be negative) allows passing parameters for text actions.
  • Text can be formatted to have left, right, center or full justification.
  • Text indentation support is also available.

Bug fixes:

• The simple menu widget geometry management code was improved to solve problems with menu entries not visible in the screen.
• The form widget geometry code was changed to solve problems with integer round problems in the child widgets geometry when resizing the parent form widget.
• Several bugs were fixed in the text code, while some code was rewritten from scratch.

3.2. Xpm

Version 3.4k of the Xpm (X pixmap) library is now integrated into XFree86.

3.3. xterm

New Features:

• Support Unix98 PTY's.
• Support Unicode using UTF-8 input and output. There are a few limitations, this work is still in progress:
  • You must use the -u8 command line option to use this feature, as well as compile with the OPT_WIDE_CHARS definition. (The feature is compiled when using imake).
  • Input (from keyboard) and output (select/paste) are in UTF-8 form. There is no support in Xlib for UTF-8; xterm uses a lookup table to map keysym codes. Select/paste is done either via STRING or using the new atom UTF8_STRING.
• Add optional feature (resource and command-line options) to make xterm use the PTY's sense of erase character on startup, rather than requiring it to be \177, or set the PTY's erase character to match xterm's configuration. Note that while $TERMCAP is modified to reflect the actual configuration, the terminfo kdch1 string is not. (This feature is also in XFree86 3.3.4).
• Revised keyboard handling, making two modes (VT220 and Sun/PC) which are switched by popup menu. This makes the numeric keypad work as expected. Codes sent by the backarrow and delete keys also are affected.
• Add parameters to function key escape sequences to indicate if shift, control or alt are set. This works for Sun/PC keyboard mode.
• Separated command-line and menu settings for reverse video from that done under program control. This is a problem which was introduced by X11R6. Though correct, most users are confused by allowing the reset command to undo the effect of the command-line -rv option.
• Blinking cursor can be specified by resource or popup menu.
• New control sequences for switching between normal and alternate screens maintain separate cursor-save locations for the two screens, avoiding incorrect cursor placement on exit from vi.
• Support line-drawing characters when the font does not include them by drawing them.
• Add support for switching font sizes, by stepping through the font menu using shifted keypad plus and minus.
• New resource trimSelection allows xterm to trim trailing blanks from selected lines.
• Provide user applications a means of determining the version of xterm for feature comparison by returning the patch number (e.g., 111) in the secondary DA response.
• Modify treatment of XK_Delete keysym so it transmits parameterized VT220-style "<esc>[3~" if modifiers (shift, control alt) are given.
• Add ``cacheDoublesize'' resource to limit the caching of font information for double-sized characters, to accommodate X terminals with limited font memory.
• Add ``metaSendsEscape'' resource, with corresponding control sequence and menu entry. Like ``eightBitInput'', this causes xterm to send ESC prefixing the given key, but applies to all keys and is independent of the 8-bit/7-bit terminal setting.
• Implement an 88-color model for systems where 256-colors cannot be allocated.
• Add support for DEC Locator control sequences for xterm. This allows the xterm mouse to be used with applications that use the DEC Locator sequences, such as VAX Tpu, or SMG$ based applications.
• Implement -hold option, allowing users to retain the window after a shell has exited.
• Add an application resource, ``messages'' (and a corresponding -/+mesg option) which controls the initial permission on the terminal.
• Implement UTF-8 translation for Media Copy (print) operations.
• Implement vt320 control sequences for Print Composed Main Display and for Print All Pages. The latter directs xterm to print the current screen as well as the scrollback buffer.

Bug fixes/improvements:

• If colorMode is enabled by default, compile-in default resources to match the colors listed in XTerm-col.ad.
• Deprecate DA answerback string, making it settable via a resource value for applications which may need this.
• Input characters which are mapped when in vt220 National Replacement Character mode.
• Completed support for double size characters.
• Remove kfnd/kll/kslt strings from terminfo, because curses applications do not necessarily return khome/kend pairs.
• Corrected ifdef's for menus, which did not allow tek4014 to be suppressed properly.
• Improved tests for determining if xterm should use overstriking to simulate bold fonts.
• Add test/demo scripts for double size characters, font switching, screen resizing and colors.
• Amend treatment of ALT key so that if ALT is used as a modifier in key translations, then no parameter will be sent in escape sequences for Sun/PC function keys.
• Improved the ptyInitialErase logic to make it work better with a terminfo library.
• Modify treatment of line-drawing characters in UTF-8 mode so that Unicode values are used rather than characters 1-31 for storing the translated characters.
• Modify translation of UTF-8 sequences to reject ``overly long'' variations.
• Correct a case where colors were not rendered properly. This happened when an application inserted several lines, then changed colors. If this was done all in one write, then there would be no intervening refresh, and the new color was applied to the pending scrolling operation which was awaiting the next refresh.
• Corrected misspelled resource name in command-line option for HP function keys.
• Change label on ``Sun/PC Keyboard'' popup menu entry to ``VT220 Keyboard'', since the checked state corresponds to VT220 rather than Sun/PC.
• Two corrections to simulation of bold font via overstriking:
  • use clipping to avoid leaving trash at end of the text, and
  • add brackets so wide-character logic does not fall-through into the overstriking logic.
• Modify checks for repeat-character control sequence to test the character class against xterm's state table, rather than the isprint() macro.
• Modify terminfo entry for ``xterm-xfree86'' to reflect modifiers for shift and control.
• Add several entries to termcap file to make it have the same set of aliases as the terminfo file.
• Scale the color values used for xterm-256color terminfo entry to 0..1000, as expected by ncurses.
• Change xterm-r6 terminfo definitions for F1-F4 to match program.
• Remove obsolete documentation about modifiers which can be returned in mouse tracking mode, and modify logic to ignore modifiers other than the existing ones, e.g., NumLock.
• Use free bit from obsolete shift-modifier coding of mouse tracking button events to encode buttons 4 and 5, e.g., for a wheel mouse. Move the suggested wheel-mouse button translations into charproc.c to simplify customization.
• Modify warning if change-ownership of PTY fails; some configurations may not happen to have old-style PTY's.
• Add more information, i.e., with strerror for some system calls in the main program which may fail due to insufficient permissions.
• Various improvements to configure script, e.g., tests for utmp.

3.4. xedit

Xedit have been changed to use most of the new features added to the new version of the Xaw library, and some xedit only features were added. Emacs users will find that several of the emacs key bindings work with the new version of xedit. These include:

• File name tab completion. Including a Emacs dired like window, that will be shown when there are more than one match, when C-x,d is pressed, or when a directory name is specified.
• An unlimited number of files can be edited at the same time. Including multiple views of the same or different files.
• The line number of the cursor position is always visible. It can also be customized to show the column number, the position offset and the current size of the file.
• There is an autoReplace resource, that enables automatic text replacement at the time text is typed. This feature is useful to create simple macros, or to correct common spelling errors.
• A fully featured ispell interface is also available. This interface is expected to provide most of the features of the terminal interface of the ispell program, with some extra features that include:
  • A compile time limit of 16 undo levels.
  • Terse mode switch.
  • Dictionary change.
  • The interface also checks for repeated words.
• A first tentative to add programming modes was done. Currently, there is one mode:
  • C-mode: this mode is expected to be stable, and fully usable.