[GRASS-dev] Re: New xterm wrapper not working on Mac build

[Michael Barton]

Fiddling around I found out that the following command will open a new
terminal window (assuming that it's where Apple put it), though it's kind of
messy.

open /applications/utilities/terminal.app/contents/macos/Terminal
__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton



> From: William Kyngesburye <woklist at kyngchaos.com>
> Reply-To: William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos at kyngchaos.com>
> Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2006 16:16:46 -0500
> To: Michael Barton <michael.barton at asu.edu>
> Cc: <grass-dev at grass.itc.it>
> Subject: Re: New xterm wrapper not working on  Mac build
> 
> Hmm, when I saw the xterm wrapper thread, I kinda wondered how it
> might affect GRASS running from a Mac Terminal.  I'm not sure about
> the details on how the wrapper is used, but when an xterm is needed,
> would a Mac Terminal work?
> 
> One thing I added to my custom GRASS.app startup is a
> GRASS_OS_STARTUP env var.  I set it to "Mac.app" and it was initially
> used when I added to the existing grass6 startup shell, but now I use
> a completely custom grass startup shell because I couldn't figure out
> how to pass args from the open command.  I left GRASS_OS_STARTUP in
> the startup, so maybe grass-xterm-wrapper can use this to set
> GRASS_XTERM to open a Terminal instead of an xterm?
> 
> It would be kinda tricky - exec'ing a Terminal directly would
> actually run Terminal.app again instead of creating a new window in
> an already-running Terminal (not good, most Mac apps are only meant
> to be run once), instead it would need to be run from 'open' (this is
> how I start GRASS in my python startup).  But this will only work to
> run a script from a file, not open an empty Terminal window, unless
> there is no window currently open.
> 
> For running a script in a new window (open doesn't need to run from
> exec, and returns immediately without waiting for the script to run -
> it's just 'opening' a file in an application):
> 
> /usr/bin/open -a Terminal some_script_file.sh
> 
> Without a script file, it just opens the Terminal, and if there is no
> window open, it will open a new one (what we want), but if there is
> already one open (there is because GRASS was started in one) it will
> just activate the frontmost window.
> 
> I thought about doing an inline AppleScript, but the Terminal's
> scriptability is surprisingly limited - there is no way to open a new
> window.  It could be done with the System Events scripting to
> manually choose a menu item, but that's messy and requires a user to
> activate Universal Access.
> 
> 
> If the xterm usage needs specific xterm options, then a Terminal
> probably won't work, since it doesn't have startup options except for
> running a script.  Which makes me wonder - if an xterm is explicitly
> needed, that makes it difficult to separate the GUI from X11 if a
> user wanted to use Tcl/Tk Aqua (or a native Windows TclTk, if that
> option works).
> 
> 
> Or, if the GUI is running in an X11 Tcl/Tk, you probably want xterms
> for a consistent look.
> 
> 
> For running from the CLI, I did a search and the only place an xterm
> is used is r[3].mapcalculator, to run in 'expert' mode (and without
> grass-run.sh).  That doesn't sound right - won't it be missing the
> GRASS running environment?  Why should it run in a separate window in
> the first place?
> 
> 
> Do you have a specific example of grass-xterm-wrapper use in the CLI
> that fails?
> 
> 
> On Sep 4, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Michael Barton wrote:
> 
>> I just discovered that the xterm wrapper script does not work for
>> Willaim Kyngesburye¹s framework build binaries for the Mac, and
>> won¹t work for Lorenzo¹s binaries either in some circumstances.
>> 
>> The issue is that the Mac BASH terminal is used as the GRASS
>> terminal rather than an xterm. The Mac terminal is much easier to
>> use. But when grass-xterm-wrapper.sh is run from the BASH terminal,
>> it doesn¹t realize that x is running and returns a command not
>> found error. This is not a problem when an xterm is launched from
>> TclTk, which IS running in X-windows.
>> 
>> Solutions?
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
> -----
> William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos at kyngchaos.com>
> http://www.kyngchaos.com/
> 
> "We are at war with them. Neither in hatred nor revenge and with no
> particular pleasure I shall kill every ___ I can until the war is
> over. That is my duty."
> 
> "Don't you even hate 'em?"
> 
> "What good would it do if I did? If all the many millions of people
> of the allied nations devoted an entire year exclusively to hating
> the ____ it wouldn't kill one ___ nor shorten the war one day."
> 
> <Ha, ha> "And it might give 'em all stomach ulcers."
> 
> - Tarzan, on war
>