Re: NSPasteboard on X, what to do?

[Wim Oudshoorn]

You wrote:

> That rather raises the question of what you were referring to as a
> machine
> did you mean some sort of back-end computational engine located at a
> distance
> from the users workstation?  The OpenStep AppKit is very much
> designed/used
> as a workstation tool, so it's rather unusual to use the term machine
> that
> way in this context.
>
> By the way ... I think the X term 'display' can easily be misleading ...
> in
> normal english I think it's pretty synonymous with 'screen'.  I'd prefer
> to
> use the term 'workstation' for the chunk of equipment that a person sits
> in front of and physically interacts with.

Ok, lets try again:

Workstation - The chunk of equipment you are sitting behind
    that is:
           - keyboard
           - XDisplay

And the Workstation - User interaction is managed by an X server.
So from a software point of view, the Workstation is identified by
an XDisplay.

Machine - Just an ordinary computer, which is capable of running
        GNUstep programs.

Note that because there are dumb X-terminals,  the collection of
Workstations is not a subset of Machines.  But in most cases
a Workstation is a Machine.  (So I probably should use
the term Computer here, but I do not want to introduce
again a new term)


> > Please no.  A display is NOT associated to one machine!
>
> display == workstation == machine
>

This is something I still disagree with.  Assume the following fictional
session on my computer:


----------------------------
 XTerm (1) running on S

 telnet A.is.a.computer
 > setenv DISPLAY=S:0.0
 > openapp GWorkspace.app

----------------------------
  XTerm (2) running on S

  telnet B.is.a.computer
  > setenv DISPLAY=S:0.0
  > openapp TextEdit.app

---------------------------

Now at this moment I have on my Workstation S
two GNUstep applications.
and the equality

display == workstation == machine

does not hold, workstation != machine
for both GNUstep applications.

Another potiental problem arises when
S is really a Computer, but without GNUstep installed.
In this case it is also impossible to use S as an Pasteboard server.

> How about ... because you didn't say where any other servers were?
> The pasteboard servers have to run somewhere,

Well, no.
I am not sure anymore that we really need a pasteboard server.
If the pasteboards are associated with an XDisplay (talking about
the xgps backend) it makes sense use the XSelection mechanism
to represent the PasteBoards.
I can see that this can be tricky, but I do not see any fundamental
problem.  But I have to reread the section on selections in the
X-programming books.


Wim Oudshoorn.