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Re: XWin design suggestion


On Mon, 5 May 2003, Sam Edge wrote:

> Traditionally Xfree86 uses /etc/X11/XF86Config for system-wide
> settings so why not add a section there, perhaps after discussing it
> with the rest of the XFree86 development bods? 

Rewriting the file (and losing changes a user has made) is not an option
for this file. 

> Alternatively have a Cygwin-specific file, say, /etc/X11/Xcygwinrc and
> a user-specific version $HOME/.Xcygwinrc.

> Keep the format simple, maybe along the lines of OpenSSH with simple
> "<keyword> <value>" pairs separated by newlines. A simple parser
> shouldn't be too difficult to write or to snag from elsewhere, and the
> file should be small enough to rewrite in its entirety when saving
> changes from any GUI configuration utility. (You could use the Win32
> INI-file API if you wanted a little more structure, although that
> would force DOS line-endings.)

Name it better win16 ini-file api. With win32 the registry should be used
instead of ini-files.

> I think that it's preferable to have people using a text editor rather
> than regedit if/when they do manual configuration and I'd prefer to
> use normal POSIX tools (ex, sed, awk, grep, perl etc.) rather than the
> riskier regtool method when automating configuration tasks.

echo "Some value" > /proc/registry/HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Cygnus/XFree86/TweakMe
would be cool *g*

> Biju's point is also valid. It's nice to be able to just copy
> c:\cygwin and the mount table to backup or duplicate a Cygwin
> installation.

I prefer having options (which are now on the commandline) moved to 
XF86Config. I dislike having to rewrite a file where window positions 
are stored from within Xwin because of complexity
- race conditions
- multi-user usage
- multi-instance usage
- merging of options from commandline, user config and XF86Config
- merging into existing code
- speed (parsing the file when a value is needed) vs complexity
  (parsing the file at startup and access values in memory)

bye
	ago
-- 
 Alexander.Gottwald@s1999.tu-chemnitz.de 
 http://www.gotti.org           ICQ: 126018723


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