Subject: Help with xfaces questions/problems/enhancements...

From: [email-masked] (Paul Smith)
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 95 17:59:46 EST

This list is pretty slow, so here's some pleas for help to pick it up :)

 1) How do I turn a pixmap into a bitmap?  I have a bunch of stuff like
    xpmtoppm, etc. but no xpmtoxbm.  Does such a thing exist?

Here are a few things faces used to do that xfaces still doesn't; one
I've asked for before but got no response:

 2) faces used to beep when new mail arrived.  I know xfaces has
    netaudio support but I don't want to go through that hassle; can't
    someone add a simple beep for those of us who don't want a sermon
    or aria for new mail? :)

 3) faces used to pop up to the front on my window when mail arrived.
    Can I get xfaces to do the same?  Please?

Here's (I think) a bug in xfaces:

 4) I have some users who use elm (blech!  VM all the way :) and xfaces
    will recognize they have new mail, but after they read it xfaces
    still says they have new mail (they set their update to 15 seconds
    and xfaces just never updates).

    It's not until *more* new mail comes in that xfaces updates their
    mail (deleting the old mail faces and adding the new ones).

    I don't know much about elm, but I think it's one of those grody
    mail agents that keeps your read mail in your system mail spool
    instead of moving it; somehow xfaces can't tell that you've read
    that mail.

    However, faces works correctly for them in the same environment.

Here's a much needed, simple enhancement:

 5) Please, can someone add a -v option or something to print out the
    xfaces version!  I can't figure out any way to tell what version the
    executable is.

Anyone have any joy for me?  Thanks for listening...

                                                                paul
 _____________________________________________________________________________
/                                                                             \
 Paul D. Smith                   | There's a fine line between fishing, and
 <[email-masked]>          | standing on the shore like an idiot.
 Bay Networks, Inc.              | 
 Network Management Development  |                            -- Steven Wright
\_____________________________________________________________________________/

---

From: [email-masked] (Charles Owen)
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 18:56:16 -0500 (EST)

Here's some help...
| 
| Here are a few things faces used to do that xfaces still doesn't; one
| I've asked for before but got no response:
| 
|  2) faces used to beep when new mail arrived.  I know xfaces has
|     netaudio support but I don't want to go through that hassle; can't
|     someone add a simple beep for those of us who don't want a sermon
|     or aria for new mail? :)
| 
|  3) faces used to pop up to the front on my window when mail arrived.
|     Can I get xfaces to do the same?  Please?
| 
I'll second both of these.  What I would still prefer is the ability
to run any desired executable on mail arrival.  Then I could play audio
or pop up notices or detonate the world or whatever.  Seems a reasonable
approach to me.

| Here's (I think) a bug in xfaces:
| 
|  4) I have some users who use elm (blech!  VM all the way :) and xfaces
|     will recognize they have new mail, but after they read it xfaces
|     still says they have new mail (they set their update to 15 seconds
|     and xfaces just never updates).
| 
|     It's not until *more* new mail comes in that xfaces updates their
|     mail (deleting the old mail faces and adding the new ones).
| 
|     I don't know much about elm, but I think it's one of those grody
|     mail agents that keeps your read mail in your system mail spool
|     instead of moving it; somehow xfaces can't tell that you've read
|     that mail.
| 
|     However, faces works correctly for them in the same environment.
| 
I don't think it's a bug.  Faces works by checking the status of a mail
message by checking for a line:  Status:.  Elm adds that after you've read
the mail, but does not synchronize the mail folder to itself until either
you tell it to or new mail arrives.  The solution I use is to hit $ after
reading a mail message.  This forces synchronization.  (I think it's $.
I'm in elm, so I can't check and did you ever have one of those keystrokes
you hit several times a day but can't be sure of when you tell it to 
someone?)  If anything, this is an idiosynchrosy with the way elm works.

Hope this helps...
-- 
Charles B. Owen                           [email-masked]
Dartmouth College                                Office:  603-646-3297
6211 Sudikoff Laboratory, Rm 108                   Home:  603-448-5677
Hanover, NH  03755                 http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~cowen/

---

From: Chris Liebman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 20:32:17 -0500 (EST)

Excerpts from mail: 14-Feb-95 Re: Help with xfaces questi.. Charles
[email-masked] (2382*)

> |     or aria for new mail? :)

This presents to design/coding problems to add....only time.... I wish
that there were more hours in a day!

> or pop up notices or detonate the world or whatever.  Seems a reasonable

XFaces 3.3 does that now!   :^) :^)  

> someone?)  If anything, this is an idiosynchrosy with the way elm works.

This is correct.  Elm also uses utime() to set the time on the file back
so that it looks unmodified....yuck :^(

	-- Chris (Wanting more time so that we can add other sound support and
usenix facesaver image support.......been trying to make time for a long
time now.... :^(      )

Chris Liebman		Work			Home
E-Mail:		[email-masked]	[email-masked]
Phone:		1-703-902-8214		1-703-830-1641

---

From: "Steve Kinzler" <kinzler>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 12:37:36 -0500

Sent 14Feb95 from [email-masked] to faces
+---------- Help with xfaces questions/problems/enhancements... ----------
|  1) How do I turn a pixmap into a bitmap?  I have a bunch of stuff like
|     xpmtoppm, etc. but no xpmtoxbm.  Does such a thing exist?

Here's one way:

	xpmtoppm | pnmdepth 255 | ppmtopgm | pgmnorm | pgmtopbm | pbmtoxbm

The pgmnorm is optional and the pnmdepth may not really be needed.

Plus, there's a good xpm2xbm script in
ftp://server.berkeley.edu/pub/AIcons/support.tar.gz.

-sk