XTerm scrollbar issue

XTerm scrollbar issue

[webmaster]

All releases of xterm newer that 229 (i.e. since June '08) have a
broken scrollbar.  It never bothered me enough to post a message, but
I've been setting up some new systems and have found it annoying to
dig up xterm-229 and manually install it.

These images show what the scrollbar used to look like (and what it
still looks like in all recent Linux distributions, even with latest
xterm builds):

http://www.donsbox.com/~dfelicia/cygwin-xterm/xterm-229-1.jpg
http://www.donsbox.com/~dfelicia/cygwin-xterm/xterm-229-2.jpg

The 1st one shows the gray scrollbar "shrinking" as the history buffer
gets filled.  The 2nd shows the gray scrollbar moving with a
middle-button click-n-drag upwards to view history.

These images show what the scrollbar looks like, now, in version 260
(and all versions in between 229 and 260):

http://www.donsbox.com/~dfelicia/cygwin-xterm/xterm-260-1.jpg
http://www.donsbox.com/~dfelicia/cygwin-xterm/xterm-260-2.jpg

The 1st one shows the gray scrollbar as a constant tiny rectangle
always at the top, regardless of how many lines of history there are.
The 2nd one shows what happens when you do a middle-button
click-n-drag.

Seemingly a minor nit, especially since we live in an age of wheel
mice, but annoying for those of us accustomed to scrolling the old
fashioned way.

BTW, here's my ~/.Xdefaults, though even without it the behavior is the same:

! Font
XTerm*VT100*font:  -xos4-terminus-bold-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

! These affect apps like man
XTerm*VT100*highlightSelection:  true
XTerm*VT100*highlightColorMode:  true
XTerm*VT100*colorBDMode:  on
XTerm*VT100*colorBD:  green
XTerm*VT100*colorULMode:  on
XTerm*VT100*underLine:  on
XTerm*VT100*colorUL:  yellow

! Pretty colors.
XTerm*VT100*dynamicColors:  on
XTerm*VT100*foreground:   white
XTerm*VT100*background:   black
XTerm*VT100*cursorColor:   white
XTerm*VT100*highlightColor:   orange

! I need to scroll
XTerm*VT100*scrollBar:  true
XTerm*VT100*saveLines:  2000
XTerm*VT100*scrollTtyOutput:    false
XTerm*VT100*scrollKey:          true
XTerm*VT100*JumpScroll: true

! Run login scripts
XTerm*VT100*loginShell:    true

! Make use of that big monitor
XTerm*VT100*geometry:   110x25

! Allow backspace to work on wrapped lines
XTerm*VT100*reverseWrap:        true

! I hate beeping
XTerm*VT100*visualBell:         true

! This resource specifies whether or not to ignore the alternate screen
! of applications such as vi.  When it is on, these applications will restore
! the contents of the screen when they are exited to what they were before
! they were started.  When it is off, the contents of vi will remain on the
! screen after the program is quit.
XTerm*VT100*titeInhibit:  true

! New cygwin xterm includes a toolBar by default.  Disable it.
XTerm*toolBar:    false

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Re: XTerm scrollbar issue

[Thomas Dickey]

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, webmaster wrote:

> All releases of xterm newer that 229 (i.e. since June '08) have a
> broken scrollbar.  It never bothered me enough to post a message, but
> I've been setting up some new systems and have found it annoying to
> dig up xterm-229 and manually install it.
>
> These images show what the scrollbar used to look like (and what it
> still looks like in all recent Linux distributions, even with latest
> xterm builds):

Problems like that shown with the scrollbar are usually a compile-time
mismatch on floating-point.  There's a configure option for xterm to
address this (--enable-narrowproto or --disable-narrowproto), since
the mismatch is not detectable via automatic checks.

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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Re: XTerm scrollbar issue

[Thomas Dickey]

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, Thomas Dickey wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, webmaster wrote:
>
>> All releases of xterm newer that 229 (i.e. since June '08) have a
>> broken scrollbar.  It never bothered me enough to post a message, but
>> I've been setting up some new systems and have found it annoying to
>> dig up xterm-229 and manually install it.
>> 
>> These images show what the scrollbar used to look like (and what it
>> still looks like in all recent Linux distributions, even with latest
>> xterm builds):
>
> Problems like that shown with the scrollbar are usually a compile-time
> mismatch on floating-point.  There's a configure option for xterm to
> address this (--enable-narrowproto or --disable-narrowproto), since
> the mismatch is not detectable via automatic checks.

The issue is documented in xterm's INSTALL file.  Packagers have to 
essentially ensure that the prototype for XawScrollbarSetThumb is compiled 
properly.  For instance, the package for xterm in Debian uses 
--enable-narrowproto

That turns on a #define for NARROWPROTO which may be missing (or not not 
coordinated with Xfuncproto.h, which in turn sets #defines used in Xaw, to 
choose between a "float" and a "double" for the type of one of its 
parameters).

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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