[GRASS-dev] return of the OSX xterm question

[William Kyngesburye]

On Apr 9, 2007, at 3:56 AM, Glynn Clements wrote:

>>> Can you not just run the command in a separate terminal instance, in
>>> the same way that xterms are used?
>>>
>> Not quite.  Problems (rehash from previous discussion):
>>
>> - doesn't inherit env
>
> So far as this part is concerned, I suggest writing out the
> environment as a shell script, then sending e.g.
> "source /path/to/env.sh" to the terminal, rather than sending
> individual settings.
>
Interaction with Terminal.app from AppleScript is limited to sending  
commands inline. If I sent the temp script file first from the shell,  
then switched to AppleScript control, there is the problem that I  
might connect to the wrong Terminal window due to the Terminal's  
limited AppleScript capabilities.

>> - returns immediately, without waiting for command to finish
>>
>> - leaves Terminal as active application, so one must manually switch
>> back to whatever called it (ie X11/Tcltk)
>
> Can you create a new terminal, send it the command, wait for the
> command to complete, then kill the terminal?
>
> Sending environment settings to an existing terminal might cause
> problems for what you were doing in that terminal.
>
The AppleScript part does this.  AppleScript is needed to do the  
waiting.  It also waits for the env commands, though just with a  
single delay (I may need to loop that for slow Macs).

> Also, isn't there anything like xterm which uses the native GUI? Or is
> there something about the nature of the GUI which makes that
> impossible?
>
I saw an alternative recently, and it claims xterm compatibility.   
It's in beta right now.  One small problem is requiring/suggesting  
yet another extra on a user's system.

But mainly, I can't understand how the xterm compatibility part would  
work: to be able to handle the xterm flags, it has to be able to run  
from the CLI, but when run from the CLI an application executable  
opens a completely new instance of the whole application, not a new  
window (exactly the same problem as the browser issue I'm working on).

The open method which is necessary operates on files, and doesn't  
have a way to pass arguments with that.


-----
William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/

"This is a question about the past, is it? ... How can I tell that  
the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy  
between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"

- The Ruler of the Universe