DECwindows defaults when display is on another system

From different accounts on VMS, including one which has not used
decwindows before:

$MC DECW$MAIL

<exit but stay logged into that process>

$SET DISP/CREATE/TRANSPORT=TCPIP/NODE=<macintosh>
$MC DECW$MAIL


In the first instance, I get the desired colours. That workstation's
window manager's colours for window decorations, and black on white for
the menu bar as well as main window pane.

In the second instance, I get the Mac's window decorations (as
expected). But inside the window, the menu bar is black on blue, and the
main pane is also black on blue.

CREATE/TERM also has the black/blue menu bar, but normal black/white
main pane.

AKA: those colours are not tied to just one application, not tied to a
single user.

Those apps are runned from the $ so no session manager involved. No CDE
running.


So it points to some common file being read which sets that background
to blue, and when targetted to that workstation, is overriden by a
resource in the window manager.

Would that be a correct assumption ?

doing a SET WATCH FILE while starting decw$mail shows only DECW$MAIL.DAT
being searched. There are a couple of I8N.LOCALE files, SYSUAF.DAT etc
(and MAIL.DAT, of course).

The DECW$MAIL.DAT file doesn't contain any colour definitions. (besides,
that colour isn't tied to a specific application).


There are a gazillion .L_PM and .PM files in some CDE directory.

Could that blue have been defined by CDE when I toyed with it and apps
still pick it up ? If so, how do I know which fil to look for in the CDE
directories ?

Any other hints on what to look for to find the file guilty of setting
that blue background when output is targetted at a different machine ?

Local X apps on the Macintosho don't display blue stuff, so it wouldn't
be any defaults on the mac that did this. Besides, I had seen that blue
before.

On Dec 10, 8:24 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:[color=blue]
> From different accounts on VMS, including one which has not used
> decwindows before:
>
> $MC DECW$MAIL
>
> <exit but stay logged into that process>
>
> $SET DISP/CREATE/TRANSPORT=TCPIP/NODE=<macintosh>
> $MC DECW$MAIL
>
> In the first instance, I get the desired colours. That workstation's
> window manager's colours for window decorations, and black on white for
> the menu bar as well as main window pane.
>
> In the second instance, I get the Mac's window decorations (as
> expected). But inside the window, the menu bar is black on blue, and the
> main pane is also black on blue.
>
> CREATE/TERM also has the black/blue menu bar, but normal black/white
> main pane.
>
> AKA: those colours are not tied to just one application, not tied to a
> single user.
>
> Those apps are runned from the $ so no session manager involved. No CDE
> running.
>
> So it points to some common file being read which sets that background
> to blue, and when targetted to that workstation, is overriden by a
> resource in the window manager.
>
> Would that be a correct assumption ?
>
> doing a SET WATCH FILE while starting decw$mail shows only DECW$MAIL.DAT
> being searched. There are a couple of I8N.LOCALE files, SYSUAF.DAT etc
> (and MAIL.DAT, of course).
>
> The DECW$MAIL.DAT file doesn't contain any colour definitions. (besides,
> that colour isn't tied to a specific application).
>
> There are a gazillion .L_PM and .PM files in some CDE directory.
>
> Could that blue have been defined by CDE when I toyed with it and apps
> still pick it up ? If so, how do I know which fil to look for in the CDE
> directories ?
>
> Any other hints on what to look for to find the file guilty of setting
> that blue background when output is targetted at a different machine ?
>
> Local X apps on the Macintosho don't display blue stuff, so it wouldn't
> be any defaults on the mac that did this. Besides, I had seen that blue
> before.[/color]

The X server reads a set of resources from XRESOURCES.DAT under VMS;
the names are similar but different under flavors of UNIX, perhaps
including MacOS X. I cannot speak for classic Mac OS X servers. These
resources can indeed include overrides. Window managers also use local
copies of resource files, not those read from the client. (In other
words, both of these are server-side resources -- or, in the case of a
window manager, whatever machine the window manager is running on,
which may be client, server, or some other machine. That's where you
look.)

If you want to force the colors for DECW$MAIL, do it in DECW$MAIL.DAT;
don't rely on the server & window manager setup to do the work for you.