[Address for replies is at the end]
pop@cs.umass.edu ( Robin Popplestone ) writes:
> Date: 8 May 1997 12:25:34 GMT
> Organization: CMPSCI Dept, UMass Amherst
I had written
> > If you are running VT100 emulators under X, why not ditch them and
> > use xterm windows instead. If you are using a PC you should be able
> > to use X, and then students can use graphics also. (I have X menu
> > panels that make it much easier for people to start off on VED even
> > without Xved).
>
> > Even Macs can run X.... Maybe the problem is the cost of the X
> > software?
Robin responded
> Which brings me to two of my pet Poplog peeves
>
> (1) Poplog has become much more unreliable under X. The worst seems to be
> OpenWindows (mercifully obsolescent, but some of our Suns run it). I
> suspect it may not be Poplog's fault, but reflects the fact that POPLOG
> uses X more dynamically than most programs, but it is not much good telling
> users that.
While using openlook we simply did not use Xved. We then found the
system very reliable.
I also built a menu/control panel mechanism that allowed students to
drive ved (and other things) with the mouse, while they became
familiar with the facilities and learnt to give direct commands.
This is available from the Poplog ftp directory at Birmingham
ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/poplog
see the README file
More recently we have been using motif poplog. The widgets don't
look as good as the openlook widgets but the system has been far
more robust, so I also started telling students about Xved, and they
have been using it on Dec Alphastations and on Xterminals connected
to sun compute servers running solaris since last september.
This was Poplog version 15.01 on the suns and version 15.5 on the
alphas (V15.01 on the alphas had a bug that was very annoying).
> (2) While performance is fine on a good LAN, Poplog under X is almost
> unusable on a PPP connection because it uses so many windows,
Since version 15 it has been possible to tell ved to stick to a
maximum number of windows that get reused (there's no limit on the
number of buffers though). E.g. in my .Xdefaults file I have
XVed*MaxWindows: 4
Unfortunately this very important change was not announced in
HELP NEWS or HELP XNEWS. It may have been in some paper
documentation, but who reads that? (Making enough copies available
for all users is too expensive: change notes should ALL be online).
> and there is
> little local memory in X. Even so, Poplog does appear to generate
> unnecessary traffic (that's just an impression).
I've never used it with PPP so I cannot comment. But I would expect
that using Xved requires messages to be sent to the X server every
time you move the Ved cursor, insert or delete a character, etc.
But that's also true if you don't use Xved but use Ved in an xterm
window.
Aaron
--
Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs )
School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
EMAIL A. Sloman @ cs. bham.ac.uk(||| MAKE BULK EMAIL ADVERTS ILLEGAL |||)
Phone: +44-121-414-4775 (Sec 3711) Fax: +44-121-414-4281
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