Copyright 1990-2016 by Kevin G. Barkes All rights reserved. This article may be duplicated or redistributed provided no alterations of any kind are made to this file. This edition of DCL Dialogue is sponsored by Networking Dynamics, developers and marketers of productivity software for OpenVMS systems. Contact our website www.networkingdynamics.com to download free demos of our software and see how you will save time, money and raise productivity! Be sure to mention DCL Dialogue! DCL DIALOGUE Originally published November, 1990 Bulldogging DECwindows By Kevin G. Barkes The guy was a real cowboy, in every sense of the term. He wore boots, a hand-tooled leather belt with a large brass bovine-inspired buckle, a string tie, and a hat the size of an RA60 disk pack. He called everyone "pardner", chewed tobacco and manipulated the mouse on his VAXstation like a lasso. These characteristics would normally make me a bit wary. You can image what thoughts raced through my mind when his boss told me his name was Rabinowitz and he was originally from Bayonne, New Jersey. I'd managed to avoid him for several weeks. But last Thursday, I made a wrong turn down a seemingly endless wall of cubicles and found myself staring right into his belt buckle. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Rabinowitz is about 7'-2" and weighs a hair under 300 pounds. "Why, there you are, lil' fella!" he exclaimed, lodging a ham-sized hand on my shoulder. I was speechless, mainly because no one in recent memory had called me "lil' fella" and been contextually correct. I muttered an inoffensive welcoming noise and tried to back out quickly. But his grip tighted and he propelled me into the leather chair in front of his VAXstation. "Here's what I want, pardner," he drawled in his peculiar accent. "I need you to bulldog DECwindows for me." "I beg your pardon?" I asked. "Bulldog it, son. Get the sucker to do what I want." He tossed me a copy of "The Authentic Guide to Cowboy Lingo and Annotated Chili Recipes". I opened it to a dog-eared page and glanced at the highlighted entry. "Bulldog (v.) - to grab a steer by its horns and twist its neck, forcing it to fall to the ground in submission." "I want my DECwindows session to start up with everything I use in the right position," Tex explained, "so's I don't have to wrassle moving windows around. That's the clock, the calculator, the calendar, and three DECterm windows. And I want the Session Manager and FileView to come up as icons sos I can just jump right in on a DECterm without havin' to wait for them to start and then have to fiddle with the mouse." Fortunately, Tex was using DECwindows 2.0, so a lot of what he wanted was easy to do. I had him position everything on the screen the way he wanted and customize each application to his taste. Then, using the MB2 mouse button, I clicked on the Icon Box and selected Save Settings, to store its geometry. Next, I clicked MB2 on the clock and similarly saved its settings and geometry. "Now it gets a bit tricky," I explained. "Graphical interfaces often aren't as intuitive as they ought to be." I set the input focus on the calendar, selected "Customize" with the MB1 mouse button, dragged down to Save Settings, then released. I clicked on over to the calculator, used MB1 to click on "File", dragged down to "Save Geometry", and released. "Shoot, that's three differnt ways to save geometry," Tex observed. "Consistent, ain't it?" he asked, sarcastically. "It gets better," I replied. Going into the Session Manager, I picked "Customize", then "Autostart", then removed everything but FileView from the Autostart configuration. "You deef, boy?" Tex snarled. "I said I wanted this stuff to come up automatically." "Hold your horses," I said, clicking on FileView. I selected "Control", then "Any Verb", and finally "Create Public Profile File". When the box appeared, I entered "FileView" as the application. This got me another FileView window. I selected "Customize", "Window", then picked "Icon" as the initial window state. "We all done now?", Tex asked hopefully. "Not quite," I said, switching back to a DECterm and editing SYS$LOGIN:DECW$LOGIN.COM to contain the following: $ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: RUN SYS$SYSTEM:DECW$CALENDAR $ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: RUN SYS$SYSTEM:DECW$CALC $ SPAWN/NOWAIT/INPUT=NL: RUN SYS$SYSTEM:DECW$CLOCK $ CREATE/TERMINAL/DETACH/WINDOW_ATT=(X_POSITION=10,Y_POSITION=375) $ CREATE/TERMINAL/DETACH/WINDOW_ATT=(X_POSITION=110,Y_POSITION=225) $ CREATE/TERMINAL/DETACH/WINDOW_ATT=(X_POSITION=40,Y_POSITION=110) Then I called up SYS$LOGIN:DECW$SM_GENERAL.DAT to make certain the following lines were there: wm*default.startupFocus: true wm*default.autoFocus: true "Now, here's what's going to happen when you start up a new DECwindows session," I explained, saving the changes to his startup files. "First, the command file DECW$LOGIN.COM is executed. It starts your calendar, calculator and clock and creates three DECterm windows. I got the X and Y coordinates buy guessing at them; we can readjust them later if they're wrong." "At this point, the Session Manager fires up and it, in turn, invokes FileView. But they both initialize in their iconified states. In the meantime, you're in a DECterm window doing real work," I said. To prove it, I quit the session. He logged back in and the clock, calculator and calendar appeared, followed by three DECterms. He started editing a file while the Session Manager and FileView started and appeared in the icon box. "Wheeeeoooo! This is slicker'n a snake's belly in a bucket of WD-40!" Tex cheered, somewhat metaphorically. I started out of the office but he grabbed my shoulder again. Actually, he grabbed the entire right side of my torso down to the navel, or so it seemed. "Now, I wantcha to customize my logo. I got rid of the Digital logo (DCL Dialogue, August 1990) but I want my own brand up there," Tex said. "Sorry, I don't have the time," I alibied. "But you have DSNlink, right? Just use interactive text mode and search for the phrase `How to replace the DECwindows 'Digital' logo.' DEC's provided sample C, DCL and UIL code to generate your own." "You mean I need three languages just to customize that start-up screen?" Tex asked, incredulously. "I thought GUIs were supposed to be easy to use." "Easy to use, yes," I said. "Easy to program, no. Personally, I prefer working with DCL from the command line, but you have to know how to get around in graphical environments. My productivity increases from DECwindows use come from the ability to work in several windows simultaneously." Tex reached under his desk and pulled out a thermos. He opened it, and the resulting vapor began to deform the plastic screw-on lid. "Thanks a heap, pardner," he said. "Here, have some chili." The doctor says they'll be able to do the skin graft next week. ---------- Kevin G. Barkes is an independent consultant. He publishes the KGB Report newsletter, operates the www.kgbreport.com website, lurks on comp.os.vms, and can be reached at kgbarkes@gmail.com.