Re: [RP] Possible bug in handling of rc files.

[Shawn Betts]

Jason Creighton <address@hidden> writes:

> Hey,
> I was in #ratpoison on irc.freenode.com, somebody had a problem with rc files.
> Specifically, the problem was the layout didn't come out right with commands
> in the rc file, whereas they did when the exact same commands are give at the
> colon prompt. Here an rc file that shows the problem:
> 
> colon split
> colon exec xterm
> colon focusdown
> colon exec xterm
> 
> (The colon commands are to show what's going on). On build of ratpoison,
> (Taken a couple days ago from the CVS repository.) It will split just like it
> should, "exec xterm" (but not really exec), focusdown just like it should, and
> then exec both xterms in the same pane! It seems like it waits until the end
> of the rc file to exec! Is this a bug?

Hi Jason,

This is not a bug *exactly*. While it's not the "intended" behavior,
it's what "should" happen. Ratpoison starts processes asynchronously
and xterms take a couple milliseconds to start up, so by the time the
xterm pops up, ratpoison has already changed focus and started the
second process. The conceptual problem this person is having is that
ratpoison will move on to the focusdown command once the 'exec xterm'
command is "done." In this case, "done" meaning when xterm has opened
it's window. There just isn't any easy way to coordinate that sort of
thing, unfortunately.

Here's a slightly sick hack that sort of works:

# boot two xterms, wait a second and split the current frame
exec rxvt & rxvt & sleep 1 ; ratpoison -c split


Shawn