Chapter 2: Environment Customization

Organization of This Chapter

This chapter will explain how you can control characteristics of your edit sessions by way of command line options and X resource specifications.

This chapter describes the following:

• Command line options and X resource specifications
• The $HOME/.Xdefaults file
• Option precedences
• The "cv" command
• Ce resources vs. ce, ceterm, and cv resources
• Option descriptions

Command Line Options and X Resource Specifications

On many systems, X resource specifications are stored in your "$HOME/.Xdefaults" file. As the table below shows, most options can be set both as command line options and X resources, while others can be set only in one way. The installation of Ce creates "file /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Ce" or the file Ce in a directory of the installers choosing. This file may be inspected to see if any of the default values have been overridden for your site. You may also execute the UNIX command, "ce_oplist" to see modified values.

Table 2-1. Command Line Options and X Resource Specifications

Descriptions for each of the above options can be found in the Option Descriptions Section of this Chapter.

The $HOME/.Xdefaults File

After installation of ARPUS/Ce, the app-defaults file "Ce" file contains a template that lists the above resources along with their descriptions. All of theCe resources in that template are disabled except for "Ce.CEHELPDIR" and ones enabled as site wide defaults by the system administrator. To enable a desired resource setting in that file, copy the line to your ".Xdefaults" file and remove all leading `!' characters from the beginning of line. The default location for the Ce app-defaults file is "/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults". The person performing the installation of Ce may choose to place the file elsewhere. See Appendix E, Installation Summary for more details if you are this person. If the file is not in the directory "/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults" you can check each of the directories in the environment variable XFILESEARCHPATH for a file is named "Ce" (upper case 'C' lower case "e"). You can view the contents of this variable from any shell (sh, ksh, or csh) by executing the UNIX command "echo $XFILESEARCHPATH". If you, and especially Ce, cannot find the app-defaults file, Ce will pick up its internal defaults. Typing "ce -help" will produce a list of all the options and a one line description of each.

Once you determine which options you want to change, add them to your "$HOME/.Xdefaults" file and place the desired values in place. These will become the defaults for your account. You can view the options Ce is using (assuming no command line options) by executing the command "ce -oplist".

NOTE: Anytime you modify the resource specifications in your "$HOME/.Xdefaults" file, you must run the command "xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults" to update the X server with the new settings. The location of "xrdb" varies from system to system. If you have difficulty locating it, contact your system administrator.

Option Precedence

The following rules determine how resources settings are determined:

• If neither the command line form nor the ".Xdefaults" form are used, the default setting takes effect.
• If the command line form is used, the specified setting takes effect for that edit session only.
• If only the ".Xdefaults" form is used, the specified setting takes effect for every edit session.
• If both forms are used, the command line setting overrides the ".Xdefaults" setting for that edit session only.

The "cv" Command

The "cv" command behaves in exactly the same way as "ce", except that when the edit window is created it is initially in read-only mode. This is a handy way of browsing through a file without risking accidental changes to that file, since changes are not allowed in a read-only window. The "cv" window can be converted to a ce window with the "ro" Ce command, the "<ctrl>-m" key sequence, or the "read-write" option in the "Modes" pulldown. You cannot convert a "cv" to a "ce" unless you have write access to the file.

Ce Resources vs. ce, ceterm, and cv Resources

The ".Xdefault" forms of the options shown in Table 2.1 take effect for "ceterm", "cv", and "ce" windows. However, if you would like one set of options to apply to "ceterm" windows and another set ce windows, you can vary the .Xdefault option prefixes as follows:

• For an option to apply to all three, use "Ce.", e.g., "Ce.lineno: yes".
• For an option to apply to ce only, use "ce.", e.g., "ce.lineno: yes".
• For an option to apply to cv only, use "cv.", e.g., "cv.lineno: no".
• For an option to apply to ceterm only, use "ceterm.", e.g., "ceterm.lineno: no".

Case is important -- ce and cv recognize the difference between "Ce" and "ce" and ce takes precedence over Ce.

Option Descriptions

The .Xdefaults forms below all show the "Ce." prefix for the sake of brevity. Unless otherwise specified, "Ce." can be replaced by "ce." or "cv." to make the option apply specifically to "ce" or "cv" respectively. Also, Ce recognizes unique abbreviations of the command line forms; those abbreviations are underlined. For your convenience, these option descriptions also appear in the on-line help file titled "Xresources".

-autoclose {y|n}
Ce.autoclose: {y|n}
If this option is enabled, Ce will automatically close a "ceterm" window once its corresponding shell process is terminated.

-autohold {y|n}
Ce.autohold: {y|n}
If this option is enabled, Ce will automatically place a "ceterm" window in hold mode when a window full of output is received by the window.

-autosave n
Ce.autosave: n
If this option is enabled, Ce will automatically update the file changes to disk after every n keystrokes which modify the file.

-background color
-bg color
Ce.background: color
Set the background color to color upon invocation. "color" must be a valid color found in the X server's "rgb.txt" file. (The directory in which that file resides varies between platforms and is probably one of "/usr/X11/lib", "/usr/lpp/lib/X11/lib", "/usr/lib/X11", or "/usr/lib/X11/ncd.)". Note that on Apollo Domain/Os systems, "color" must appear in double quotes. If you are going to use the "wdc" command in your ".Cekeys" file to rotate through a set of colors, explicitly set background color to a null value, eg. "Ce.background:".

-bkuptype {dm|vi|none}
Ce.bkuptype: {dm|vi|none}
Set the mode in which Ce backup files are created. "-nb" is a valid abbreviation for "-bkuptype none".

In "dm" mode, the original file edited is renamed to "file.bak" and a new file is created. Note that this means that any hard links that originally pointed to original file will subsequently point to "file.bak".

In "vi" mode, file is copied to file.bak. This means that hard links will still be valid, pointing to the changed version of file.

Use "none" if backup files are not desired.

Ce.cekeys : <path>
Path to file containing site wide key definitions. During key definition loading, Ce does an implied include (cmdf) of this file to pick up site wide definitions. The users personal ".Cekeys" file can override these. The lookup is actually a search. First a check is made for the specified file with either a ".A" or ".U" attached depending upon whether the user is in Aegis regular expression mode (.expr resource) or UNIX regular expression mode. If that file does not exist, the name as specified in the file is checked for. This allows for expression mode dependent key definitions. You can of course include (via cmdf) the base file from the expression mode specific files. DEFAULT: Set at install time.

-cmd "cmd[;...]"
Ce.expr: cmd[;...]
When Ce starts up, it will automatically execute the specified commands before giving control to the user.

-display display
Use the specified display. This must be a valid X host display specification. If the display is not specified via the command line or the ".Xdefaults" resource, the X server selects the display based on the value of the "$DISPLAY" environment variable.

-envar {y | n}
Ce.envar: {y | n}
This parameter controls the processing of environment variables found in path names for the "cv" and Ce commands executed in the "Command:" window. When set to yes, clicking on a name such as "$HOME/.profile" will expand "$HOME". It is possible to escape the dollar sign on the name to avoid expansion if the "cv" command is typed in as opposed to being generated by clicking on the name. When set to no, dollar signs are ignored. This allows clicking on names which contain dollar signs.

-expr {aegis|unix}
Ce.expr: {aegis|unix}
Ce understands both AEGIS and UNIX regular expression syntax. See Chapter 4, Advanced Use for a detailed treatment of AEGIS and UNIX regular expressions.

-font font
Ce.font: font
Use the specified font, which must be a valid X font. Most systems provide the command "/usr/X11/bin/xlsfonts", which produces a list of fonts available on the host system. The use of variable-width fonts is discouraged.

-foreground color
-fg color
Ce.foreground: color
Set the foreground color to color upon invocation. The "color" must be a valid color found in the X server's "rgb.txt" file. (The directory in which that file resides varies between platforms and is probably one of "/usr/X11/lib", "/usr/lpp/lib/X11/lib", "/usr/lib/X11", or "/usr/lib/X11/ncd".) Note that on Apollo Domain/Os systems, "color" must appear in double quotes. If you are going to use the "wdc" command in your ".Cekeys" file to rotate through a set of colors, explicitly set foreground color to a null value eg. "Ce.foreground:".

-geometry [c]WxH+x+y
Ce.geometry: [c]WxH+x+y
Use the specified geometry when sizing and locating the window. The geometry must be a valid X geometry specification. The leading "c" is optional; if specified, Ce interprets the width and height geometry values as character columns and rows instead of x and y pixels. If you are going to use the "wdf" command in your ".Cekeys" file to rotate through a set of window geometries, explicitly set geometry to a null value, eg. "Ce.geometry:".

-help
This option causes Ce to print a summary of the command line options and exit. This option is not available from the "Command:" prompt.

-iconic
Start Ce as an icon. This option is useful in startup scripts (such as the .xinitrc file) to start some ce or ceterm windows as an icon.

-isolatin {y|n}
Ce.isolatin: {y|n}
If this option is set to "yes", Ce will interpret certain keystrokes as isolatin character representations.

-lineno
Ce.lineno: {no|yes}
If this is set to "yes", file line numbers are shown along the left margin. If you include "-lineno" on the command line, Ce forces the line number column to appear regardless of the X resource setting or the default setting.

-load
When Ce is invoked during a new login session, it must parse your key definitions file and store the definitions in the X server database. Files containing many key definitions may take a few seconds to process. You can avoid that delay by putting the command "ce -load" in your ".xinitrc", ".dtprofile", of ".vueprofile" startup fle as appropriate. The "-load" option tells Ce to process your key definitions file, store the definitions in the X server database, and terminate without opening an edit window. Subsequent Ce commands will create the edit window more quickly since the key definitions are already loaded.

-ls
Ce.loginShell: {y|n}
This option indicates that the shell that is started in the ceterm window be a login shell (i.e. the first character of argv[0] will be a dash, indicating to the shell that it should read the user's ".login" or ".profile").

Ce.LSHOST: <node_name>
This option assists in the use of the license server. The license server client code checks the environment variable "LSHOST" to find the node running the license manager. If the environment variable is NOT set in the environment at the time Ce is started, the value in this resource is placed in the environment for use by the license server client code. This option is usually set in the "app-defaults" file for Ce by the system administrator. Note that if the "LSHOST" variable is already set in the environment, this value is ignored.

-man
ceterm.man: {y|n}
Numerous systems have "man" pages that contain embedded backspaces for the sake of underlining and other expressive text constructs. Ce normally does not process backspace characters specially, making files that contain them difficult to read. You can use the "-man" option to tell Ce to eliminate those backspace characters and the accompanying "overstrike" characters to make the file more readable. This option also causes Ce to ignore null characters (hexadecimal value 00) in the file being viewed. For ceterm, this option indicates that vt100 control sequences sent to the terminal by the shell when the ceterm is not in vt100 emulation mode should be ignored.

-mouse {y|n}
Ce.mouse: {y|n}
You can use this option to indicate that the mouse cursor and text cursor should follow each other. If you set this to "no", the cursor move independently; the "sic" command can then be used to move the text cursor to the mouse cursor's current position. By default the M1 key is defined as "kd m1 sic ke".

-noreadahead
Ce.noreadahead {no|yes}
Normally, Ce reads in enough data from the file being edited to display the first screen, displays the screen, and spends the time in between user actions reading the file in a background mode. The "-noreadahead" parameter instructs Ce not to do this and only read in data as it is needed. This is useful when looking at the top few lines of very large files.

-pbd directory
Ce.pasteBuffDir: directory
Use the specified directory to hold paste buffer files. Note that the default paste buffer directory resides in "$HOME.CePaste".

-readlock
This option tells Ce to operate in read only mode and disables the ro command. Thus you cannot toggle out of read only mode in that window. This feature is used by programs which invoke Ce and do not want the user to enter edit mode.

-reload
This option tells Ce to reload your key definitions into the X server database even if the database already contains your key definitions. This option forces the X server to accept a new set of key definitions and is useful if you are experiencing problems with the X server.

-sc
Ce.sc: {no|yes}
Set case sensitivity for searches. Once Ce is started, case sensitivity can be changed via the "sc" command. If you include "-sc" on the command line, Ce forces case sensitivity on regardless of the X resource setting or the default setting.

-scroll: {y|n}
Ce.scroll: {n|y}
If set to "yes", a ceterm window is scrolled one line at a time as output is produced by commands running in the ceterm session. If set to "no", the output is scrolled one windowfull at a time.

-ts: "ts [s1 [s2 ... sn] [-r]]"
Ce.tabstops: ts [s1 [s2 ... sn] [-r]]
Set tab stops in columns s1, s2, sn. If "-r" is present, add additional stops spaced according to the difference between the last two specified stops.

-title: "<string>"
Ce.title: <string>
Set the Ce session's Window Manager window title to the specified string. If this is option is not used, the default window title is "ARPUS/ce Version 2.5".

-ut
Ce.utmpInhibit: {True | False}
This options performs the same function as the xterm "-ut option". It affects ceterm only. Normal operation calls for ceterm to generate a Unix utmp entry which is viewable via the Unix "who(1)" command. Specifying this option inhibits the generation of the utmp entry. On some platforms, specifying "-ut" allows a ceterm to be started without the program having special setuid privileges.

-version
This option causes Ce to print its version identification and terminate.

-vt: {y|n|auto}
ceterm.vt: {y|n|auto}
This option applies only to ceterm windows. If set to "auto" ceterm will automatically enter vt100 emulation mode whenever the shell requests that the "echo" line discipline is disabled. This more accurately reflects the behavior of the terminal windows on an Apollo Domain system. Use of this feature will cause ceterm to enter vt100 mode whenever a password is being requested and whenever a telnet or rlogin is performed. The value "auto" disables the toggle action of the "vt" command. The value "on" will cause ceterm to start in vt100 emulation mode. The value "off" will cause ceterm to start in normal mode. The "vt" command may be used to change this state on the fly.

-w
Normally the Ce, cv, and ceterm shell commands spawn a separate editor process, and the shell in which the command was entered returns immediately with the shell prompt. "-w" instructs the editor to not return control to the shell until you close the edit window. This allows you to use this editor inside of a mail program, for instance.