Cygwin/X - doorknock like behaviour for new windows

Cygwin/X - doorknock like behaviour for new windows

[Shaddy Baddah]

Hi,

I've now noticed this across two different installations, both Windows
10 and Windows 11. I've refrained from attaching a cygcheck output for
the moment, because I'm confident this is reproducible.

What I am seeing is that for Cygwin/X, in multi-window mode (and it
just occurred to me it would be helpful to check the behaviour in
rooted(? manual page terminology) mode. I'll follow-up on this)...
in multi-window mode (Xwin -multiwindow), when I try to open an X window
for any given app, it is not displayed on the first run.

Either nothing happens, and I must ctrl-c the command line and retry, or
a non-visible Window is created, so that the icon tray displays an icon
with the generic X image, but not the icon of the X app itself.

What I understand to be the base control test is to use xbiff. So just
for completeness, this is how I reproduce for xbiff:

terminal 1
===
$ /usr/bin/XWin :1 -nolisten tcp -ac -multiwindow

terminal 2
===
$ DISPLAY=:1; export DISPLAY
$ xbiff
Warning: Cannot convert string "flagup" to type Pixmap
Warning: Cannot convert string "flagdown" to type Pixmap
^C
$ xbiff
Warning: Cannot convert string "flagup" to type Pixmap
Warning: Cannot convert string "flagdown" to type Pixmap
<xbiff displays>

I'll follow-up with my rooted mode observations.

-- 
Regards,
Shaddy

Re: Cygwin/X - doorknock like behaviour for new windows

[Shaddy Baddah]

On 20/10/2023 11:50 am, Shaddy Baddah via Cygwin wrote:
> What I am seeing is that for Cygwin/X, in multi-window mode (and it
> just occurred to me it would be helpful to check the behaviour in
> rooted(? manual page terminology) mode. I'll follow-up on this)...
> in multi-window mode (Xwin -multiwindow), when I try to open an X window
> for any given app, it is not displayed on the first run.

For completeness, rooted mode does not have this issue.

Also, a further note, once reproduced, further reproductions may require
exiting XWin, and restarting it.

-- 
Regards,
Shaddy

Re: Cygwin/X - *bizarre discovery* doorknock like behaviour for new windows

[Shaddy Baddah]

Hi,

On 20/10/2023 12:40 pm, Shaddy Baddah via Cygwin wrote:
> 
> 
> On 20/10/2023 11:50 am, Shaddy Baddah via Cygwin wrote:
>> What I am seeing is that for Cygwin/X, in multi-window mode (and it
>> just occurred to me it would be helpful to check the behaviour in
>> rooted(? manual page terminology) mode. I'll follow-up on this)...
>> in multi-window mode (Xwin -multiwindow), when I try to open an X window
>> for any given app, it is not displayed on the first run.
> 
> For completeness, rooted mode does not have this issue.
> 
> Also, a further note, once reproduced, further reproductions may require
> exiting XWin, and restarting it.

I've found a bizarre, and to me, a hilarious, reason for this behaviour.

So my assertion that it happens once per app is wrong. It happens only
on the very first run of an X11 app on a newly started Xwin server. I
guess I noticed this when I ran different X11 apps as the first run app
against the Xwin server, and drew that longbow. Apologies for any
confusion. But it still happens that very first time.

*And* the app is actually displayed. Bizarely though, it is trapped
within the confines of the ConEmu (https://conemu.github.io/) command
session Xwin was started under. So if that ConEmu session is not at
the front of the visible stack, you have no idea the app has been
displayed/rendered.

I haven't looked, but I speculate ConEmu, which is feature rich, has
some feature that makes it act as a "rooted" X window? It feels like a
reach though... the other theory is that something with it's DLL
injection perhaps. I'll look at that separate from Cygwin/X though.

I have tried using regular Windows command prompt, and this doesn't
happen. Nor with the Windows (Metro) Terminal app.

Again, sorry for any confusion this has caused.

-- 
Regards,
Shaddy