comp.windows.x.apps FAQ

Herein lie frequently asked questions (and the answers) that are posted to comp.windows.x.apps, a group dedicated to the discussion of applications that run under the X Window System.

If you've never been on the receiving end of a merciless flame, and wish to experience this, then post a question about Windoze95 to this newsgroup. This is considered fair warning; so don't come crying to me.

Last modified: Tue Jul 30 20:04:54 2002

NOTES:
This entire FAQ is available, as one single document (updated once a month; meant for hardcopy, caching, etc.), at: www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/xapps/thefaq.html

Because of the transient nature of the Web, some of the links may, at times, point to an endless void. On such an occasion, the reader is urged to avail themselves of one of the numerous search engines and find alternate sites for the particular package; the Google engine merits a mention (if you are searching for an application by name, then this site will find it the fastest, as the Altavista index grows, it becomes too cluttered with useless stuff).

FTP URLs that locate files, have been split up into 2 components: the host-path and the file-name. Click on the file-name component of the URL to download the file; click on the host-path component, to browse the directory where the file resides.

Visit the FAQ Consortium (www.faqs.org)for centralized access to other USENET FAQs.

INDEX

I. Where do I get X programs?

  1. The X Consortium's contrib ftp site
  2. X11R6 distribution (standard X & contrib manifest)
  3. comp.sources.x archives
  4. HP/UX Archive Centres (great for keyword-based searches)
  5. Sunsite
  6. Various catalogs

II.Does anyone know of any good editors other than xedit?

  1. GNU Emacs
  2. XEmacs (previously known as Lucid Emacs)
  3. aXe
  4. xcoral
  5. asedit
  6. Misc. Tcl/Tk editors
  7. sam
  8. wily
  9. vile/xvile
  10. NEdit
  11. ce (time-limited binaries; unconditional Linux binary)
  12. xwpe (IDE, see IV, below)
  13. xed
  14. vim

III. Does anyone have any suggestions for X-based news-readers?

  1. Gnus (with Emacs)
  2. xrn
  3. mxrn (Motif)
  4. xvnews (OpenLook)
  5. Netscape/Mozilla (Web-browser)
  6. nn-tk (tcl/tk)
  7. Misc Tcl/Tk news readers
  8. Knews

IV. Any good debuggers (or front-ends) out there?

  1. xxgdb, xdbx (gdb/dbx front-ends)
  2. ups
  3. tgdb (shareware, with source; tcl/tk)
  4. DDD (Motif front-end to gdb/dbx)
  5. xwpe

V. Can anyone suggest any good calendar programs?

  1. xcal
  2. xkal
  3. ical (tcl/tk)
  4. calentool (OpenLook)
  5. k-lenders
  6. plan (Motif)
  7. xdiary (Motif)

VI. Are there any (CAD-type) drawing programs for X?

  1. xfig
  2. tgif
  3. Misc. Tcl/Tk drawing editors

VII. Any virtual window managers out there?

  1. fvwm (mwm-like (workspaces & virtual desktop))
  2. piewm (twm based)
  3. tvtwm (twm based)
  4. vtwm (twm based)
  5. olvwm (OpenLook)
  6. ctwm (twm based (workspaces))
  7. gwm (rooms)
  8. scwm (fvwm2 based (multiple virtual desktops))

IIX. Project Management Software

  1. comp.software-eng FAQ

IX. Where can I find icon libraries?

  1. xpm-3 distribution
  2. Anthony's X Icon Library
  3. Really Humungous Library of Icons
  4. Tony's Icon Collection
  5. Erin's Icon Collection
  6. Building Blocks and Icons
  7. Graphic Element Samples
  8. Yahoo's Archive

X. Are there any editors/paint-programs for xpm/GIF/TIFF/etc. image-formats?

  1. xpaint
  2. pixmap
  3. gimp

XI. Are there any apps that can display files in parallel, highlighting (in color) the differences between them?

  1. ediff (emacs/xemacs)
  2. mgdiff (Motif)
  3. tkdiff (tcl/tk)
  4. xdiff (Motif)
  5. tkxcd (tcl/tk)
  6. yaxp (Motif)

XII. How do I make a screen-dump of my window and/or print it out?

  1. xv (3.x is shareware, with source; also an excellent general- purpose image-browser)
  2. xwpick
  3. ImageMagick (also an excellent general-purpose image-browser)

XIII. Are there any mail-readers for X?

  1. xmail
  2. xmh
  3. exmh (tcl/tk)
  4. ml (Motif)
  5. Rmail; MH-e; VM; Gnus (Emacs/XEmacs)
  6. xfmail (Xforms)

XIV. How do I view AVI, MPEG, etc. movies/animations?

  1. XAnim

XV. Is there any graphing/plotting or data-analysis software available?

  1. gnuplot
  2. Grace (Motif)
  3. Herng-Jeng Jou's compendium of URLs
  4. S. Baum's compendium of URLs

XVI. Is there any software that simultaneously duplicates an X display on multiple workstations?

  1. xmx
  2. Question 105 in the comp.windows.x FAQ

XVII. Are there any word-processors available for X?

  1. StarOffice
  2. Thot
  3. SciText (Motif)
  4. LyX (XForms)
  5. Cicero (Tcl/Tk)
  6. Question 88 in the comp.windows.x FAQ (includes commercial versions)
  7. AbiWord

XVIII. Is there any software that can record and playback X events?

  1. xrecord
  2. xscript
  3. xmon

APPENDIX

COPYRIGHT

This FAQ is Copyright 1994-2000 by Luis Fernandes. Only NON-COMMERCIAL distribution and reproduction is permitted and on the condition that this copyright message appear unchanged and in its entirety.

This FAQ is updated when I have the time. The text version of this FAQ is posted to comp.windows.x.apps and uploaded to the archive on or about the 15th of every month; the html document will always be the most up-to-date version. Additions, corrections, criticisms, marriage proposals and other suggestions are welcome and encouraged (especially marriage proposals; it's not like I'm desperate or anything, but I've been doing this for a few years now, and I've yet to receive a single proposal. Are there no women out there that find FAQ maintainers sexy?); please email them to the maintainer of this FAQ. If you are mailing a note about a new package, remember to include either the package's README or the URL to the package's home-page.

comp.window.x.apps FAQ / Luis Fernandes

I. Where do I get X programs?

  1. X Consortium's contrib ftp site X clients (as the applications are normally referred to) are available for ftp from many sites; the most popular of these being the X Consortium's (now part of the Open Group) contrib archive at ftp.x.org.

    Note that there is a limit on anonymous-ftp users on ftp.x.org, so try a mirror (below).
    The contrib directory, organized into sub-directories by category; e.g. editors/, audio/, games/, fonts/, etc., archives clients that have been tested with X11R6.

    With the release of R6, the H U G E collection of clients in R5contrib is considered "old" (although they will still work with R4 & R5 servers). The file 0ftpxorg.dir, maintained by Daniel S. Lewart, is a concerted attempt at organizing the plethora of packages available. It contains descriptions of the more popular (and sometimes obscure) packages.

    New releases and updates to contributed packages will be placed in /contrib/; /R5contrib/ will eventually be deleted.

    If you cannot connect to ftp.x.org, you may wish to try a mirror:

  2. X11R6 distribution The X11R6 distribution, available for ftp, also contains clients written by the X Consortium, in:

    ftp.x.org:/pub/R6untarred/xc/programs

    and clients contributed by others, in:

    ftp.x.org:/pub/R6untarred/contrib/programs.

    The complete R6 distribution, including contibuted clients, is also available on CD-ROM. Information on purchasing the CD-ROM is available in the file:

    ftp.x.org:/GettingR6

  3. comp.sources.x archives No clients have been posted to comp.sources.x in recent memory but those that were, a long time ago, are archived and available at various sites.

  4. HP/UX Archive Centre, is a joint initiative by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool and Hewlett-Packard. The centre and its official archive sites undertake the porting of public domain software to run under HP-UX systems and act as a repository for this software worldwide. All archived software has been successfully compiled and tested for the HP 700 series. Much of it will also run under the 300/400/800 series. (Use this archive to search for applications by keyword or name since it is very well organized.)

    Please use the geographically closest one:

  5. MetaLab (formerly SunSite), at the University of North Carolina, archives a ton of X stuff, including mailing lists and some Usenet newsgroups, GNU software, Linux, Internet talk radio, etc.

  6. Various catalogs list notable (popular) software organized into different categories.
Most archive sites usually have an index file that briefly lists the contents of each volume in the archives. New packages or patches and bug-fixes are announced in comp.windows.x.announce; it would be worth your while to subscribe to this newsgroup.

(Op-Ed: If at all possible, try not to ftp large packages during prime-time (08:00 - 18:00 ftp-site local-time) so as not to load-down the computing resources at the sites that graciously make these facilities available. Also, try to use a ftp-server that is geographically near your own site.

Now, I don't expect everyone to stay-up past their bed-time just to ftp a package in the middle of the night. I have some nifty shell-scripts to perform unattended ftp'ing using cron(1). If anyone wants a copy of these scripts, mail me a note and I will mail them off to you) or you can download them directly from here (21K shar-file).

II. Does anyone know of any good X-based editors other than xedit?

(Religious wars have been fought on this extremely sensitive topic; flames about the merits of *your* favourite editor will be summarily ignored, though submissions of additional editors will be gladly accepted.)

  1. +Snapshot+ GNU Emacs, an extensible, customizable real-time display editor, is The One True Editor. It was developed and is maintained by Richard Stallman. It offers true Lisp--smoothly integrated into the editor--for writing extensions, and provides an interface to the X Window System (it works equally well on a dumb-terminal (VT100, etc.)).

    In addition to its powerful native command set, extensions which emulate other popular editors (vi, EDT (DEC's VMS editor) Wordstar, and Gosling (aka Unipress) Emacs) are distributed. An extermely short list of features making emacs a full computing-support environment include: pull-down menus, multiple fonts, multiple windows with multiple views into the same file, on-the-fly syntax highliting for various languages including C.

    Users seeking help or guidance with using or installing Emacs can post queries (after consulting the GNU Emacs FAQ (please!)) to gnu.emacs.help (a mailing-list gatewayed to USENET), comp.emacs.xemacs and comp.emacs. (alt.religion.emacs offers support for the truly devout seeking enlightenment.)

    Donald Knuth is an Emacs user.

    User contributed additions in the form of LISP packages (games (tetris), PIM's, databases, calendars, mailers, news-readers, binary hex-editors, etc.) are available from the definitive LISP archive:

    archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/

    GNU Emacs (or sometimes, a less feature-laden derivative) is available for every system on this earth; the latest version 20.4 is available for ftp at various GNU archive sites around the world.

    What's GNU? GNU's Not Unix!

    (Note that various media, containing all the sources (of course) and pre-compiled binaries (all major platforms) of all their applications (emacs, gcc, gdb, gnuchess, etc.) and utilities (groff, flex, gmake, etc.) in addition to the latest release of X), may be ordered from the Free Software Foundation (for more information, send email to fsforder@gnu.org or refer to the order form (www.gnu.org/order/order.html)).
    William Smith has made the source and binaries for GNU EMACS available via ftp on:

    das.wang.com:/ftp/wjs/gnu/emacs

    Binaries are avilable for:

    1. IBM RS6000 3.2.0-3.2.5 with X11R4 or X11R5;
    2. HP-UX 9.00-9.04 series 800 with X11R5;
    3. Solaris 2.3 with X11R5;
    4. SCO 3.2.4.0 (ODT 2.0) - 3.2.4.2 (ODT 3.0) with X11R5; and
    5. MSDOG (oemacs 4.1 GNU Emacs 19.19).

  2. +Snapshot+ XEmacs 20.3, formerly Lucid Emacs 19.10, developed by Jamie Zawinski, now maintained by Chuck Thompson, is derived from GNU Emacs version 19. Pre-compiled binaries are available for most popular platforms; the reader is encouraged to check-out the XEmacs home-page for details about the specific files to retrive. The XEmacs FAQ is available at: www.xemacs.org/FAQ/index.html

    Some of XEmacs' popular features include:

    The latest version is available for ftp from the canonical distribution point:

    ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs

    Since ftp.xemacs.org has a 10-user limit on simultaneous users, you are advised to seek the distribution at one of the following mirror sites:

  3. aXe (an X editor) was developed by Jim Wight. It is a simple to use text editor that represents a significant improvement over xedit. Built around the Athena Text Widget it features, amongst other things:

    The latest version of aXe, 6.1.2, is avaliable for ftp from:

    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/editors/ aXe-6.1.2.tar.Z

  4. +Snapshot+ xcoral, developed by Lionel Fournigault, Bruno Pages and Dominique Leveque is a multi-window text editor. It features:

    The latest version of xcoral, 3.14, is available for ftp at:

    ftp.inria.fr:/X/contrib-R5/clients/xcoral-3.14.tar.Z

    bode.ee.ualberta.ca:/pub/unix/HPUX/hpux9/Editors/

    dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl:/pub/other_sites/dutepp0/Unix/Editors/

    ftp.csis.dit.csiro.au:/pub/SEG/jon/

    lune.csc.liv.ac.uk:/hpux9/Editors/

  5. asedit, developed by Andrzej Stochniolis, is a text editor built around the Motif text widget. It includes support for the following languages: English, Dutch, French, German, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish. All commands and messages are localized for each language; the context sensitive, hypertext on-line help, however, is only available in English. It features:

    Version 1.3 of asedit (International Free Release) is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/contrib/editors/asedit-1.3.tar.Z

    src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/packages/X11-contrib/editors/asedit-1.3.tar.Z

  6. Refer to part 4 of the comp.lang.tcl FAQ for an extensive list of editors that have been written with Tcl/Tk.
  7. sam, developed by Rob Pike, is a hybrid command-oriented/GUI multi- file editor for Bell Labs Plan 9, that has been ported to X.

    sam was developed as an editor for use by programmers, and tries to join the styles of the Unix text editor ed(1) with that of interactive cut and paste editors by providing a comfortable mouse-driven interface to a program with a solid command-language driven by regular expressions.

    sam extends the regular expression paradigm beyond line-oriented ASCII files by introducing "structural regular expressions", which can partition a file into arbitrary textual units.

    sam supports the UTF-8 file-format-- an 8-bit encoding of the 16 bit Unicode character set which has nice properties like ASCII being preserved. This feature allows sam to simultaneously represent multiple languages in a single file. Although full Unicode support is unavailable, sam's flexibility with international text is still beyond that of most text editors.

    The latest version of sam is available for ftp from:

    http://cm.bell-labs.com/netlib/research/sam.shar.gz

  8. +Snapshot+wily (The Wile E. Interface), developed by Gary Capell, is an emulation for the Unix/X environment of Acme, the Plan 9 editor. Wily (and acme(1)) integrates some of the functions of editor, window manager, file browser and shell, as well as providing an interface for external programs such as mail and news readers.

    The latest version of wily may be fetched from:

  9. +Snapshot+ vile/xvile , (VI Like Emacs), developed by Paul Fox now maintained by Thomas E. Dickey, is a vi workalike. It works in an xterm (vile) and as a true X client (xvile).

    vile features:

    xvile features all the features of vile and additionally:

    The latest version, 8.3, is available for ftp at:

    ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile

    ftp.phred.org/pub/vile

    Pre-built DOS, Win32, and OS/2 (requires a 386 or better) executables (vile52b.zip) are sometimes available.

  10. +Snapshot+ NEdit, developed by Mark Edel, is a Macintosh/MS Windows style text editor for Unix and VMS systems.

    It provides users who are accustomed to modern GUI-based environments with the standard dialogs, menus, graphics, and keyboard shortcuts that are absent in most other X-based editors. NEdit is also one of the most mouse-interactive text editors available, with support for both primary and secondary quick-action selections, rectangular selections, interactive dragging, and complete integration into the X/Motif environment.

    Supported executables are available for Silicon Graphics, Sun (Solaris & SunOS), HP, OSF/1, DEC Ultrix, IBM AIX, Linux, and VMS systems. Contributed executables and makefiles are available for many other systems.

    Sources and executables of the latest version, 5.0.2, are available from:

    ftp.fnal.gov:/pub/nedit/

    ftp.x.org/contrib/editors/nedit/

  11. ce, developed by Enabling Technologies Group, is a full-screen, text editor that was originally developed for users migrating from Apollo's Domain environment and was modelled after the Display Manager editor. It features:

    ce is available for IBM AIX, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, Sun SunOS & Solaris, HP Apollo Domain/OS, DEC OSF/1 & Ultrix, SGI IRIX, and Linux.

    Evaluation binaries, that normally expire 30-60 days after downloading (see the README file for more details), are available for various platforms, at:

    ftp://ftp.std.com/ftp/vendors/ETG/

    Note: The Linux version of ce has no expiration. It is a FREE copy.
  12. xwpe, developed by Fred Kruse, is a programming environment similar to the Borland C++ or Turbo Pascal IDE; the difference being that, unlike the Borland IDE, different compilers and linkers may be invoked. See Question IV for details.

  13. +Snapshot+xed, developed by Randolf Werner, is an editor based on the Athena text widget. It features the usual amenities like on-line help, search/replace, piping the text through a Unix command, etc.

    The latest version is available at:

    ftp.x.org/contrib/editors/xed1.3.tar.Z

  14. vim, developed by Bram Moolenaar, is the "Vi IMproved" editor. It is so compatible with vi - it even simulates Vi's bugs! The improvements include different modes (C, HTML, LaTeX), fontification, drop-down menus, multiple buffers, multi-level undo, online-help, &c.

    The latest version is available at the primary site (and various mirrors):

    ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/misc/editors/vim/

III. Does anyone have any suggestions for X-based news-readers?

Note: Dedicated news readers may be interested in the GroupLens Project, "a collaborative filtering system that helps you work together with other people to find the quality news articles out of the huge volume of news articles generated every day", available for gnus, tin and xrn.
  1. +Snapshot+ Gnus 5.0 (threaded) if you have Emacs 19.25+ or XEmacs (toolbar support is included), developed by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen.

    Gnus 5.x is designed to be a drop-in replacement, and thus fully compatible, with GNUS 4.x (developed by Masanobu Umeda). Almost all key bindings have been kept. More key bindings have been added, of course, but only in one or two obscure cases have old bindings been changed.

    The gnus FAQ is at: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/software/contrib/gnus/

    You need Emacs 19.30/XEmacs 19.13 (or better) to use versions after 5.1. Gnus 5 features:

    The latest version of Gnus, 5.2, is available at:

    www.gnus.org/distribution.html or

  2. +Snapshot+ +Snapshot+ xrn (not threaded) is a NNTP-based newsreader, (originally developed by Ellen M. Sentovich & Rick L. Spickelmier) now maintained by Jonathan I. Kamens, based on rn (a termcap-based news-reader written by the reverend Larry Wall); it is popular with novice users and looks rather elegant when compiled with the 3D Athena Widgets developed by formidable Kaleb Keithley.

    The latest version 9.02, is available for ftp from:

    ftp://sipb.mit.edu/pub/xrn/xrn.tgz

    ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/xrn/xrn-9.02.tgz

    A mailing-list dedicated to announcements of new releases and bugs is available; see the README accompanying the distribution.

  3. mxrn (not threaded) Motif-based NNTP news reader that has had part of the functionality of `rn' added since a number of users are `rn' users. Much of the `rn' functionality that mxrn currently has was not in the original plan; e.g. kill-files.

    The latest version is 6.18, but 6.17 seems to be the only one widely available for ftp at the following sites:

    geocub.greco-prog.fr:/pub/X11/mxrn.tar.Z

    sun.soe.clarkson.edu:/pub/src/mxrn/

  4. +Snapshot+ xvnews (not threaded) is a simple, intuitive Open-LOOK compliant NNTP-based newsreader that uses the XView libraries.

    The latest release, 2.3, is available for ftp from:

    ftp.twi.tudelft.nl:/pub/news/xvnews-2.3.tar.gz

    ftp.uu.net:/networking/news/readers/xvnews/xvnews-2.3.tar.gz.

  5. Netscape is a Web-browser, developed by Netscape Communications (consisting mostly of the developers of the popular NCSA Xmosaic Web-browser), that includes a built-in threaded news-reader, mail-reader, coffee-maker, &c.

    On March 31st, 1998, the source code to the Netscape browser, Mozilla, was made available and in true Californian style, there was a party to celebrate the occasion. Netscape is available from the Netscape Comm. home-page at:

    http://www.netscape.com

    or via ftp at:

    ftp://ftp.netscape.com.

    Support for kill-files still missing from Netscape but now that it's in the hands of the proles, this may soon be a thing of the past.

  6. +Snapshot+ nn-tk, developed by Toivo Pedaste, is based on the NN newsreader (NN commands should still work). nn-tk provides a GUI interface with command menus and buttons, the use of the mouse to select articles, a scrolling panel for displaying articles and group selection using either of scrolling panel or cascading menus. Support for MIME messages if EXMH is installed.

    The latest version is available for ftp from:

    ftp.uwa.edu.au:/pub/nn/contrib/nn-tk.beta.12.1.tar.gz

  7. Refer to part 4 of the comp.lang.tcl FAQ for an extensive list of other newsreaders (tknews, arTCLs) that have been written with Tcl/Tk. The latest version of the FAQ is always available for ftp from:

    ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/languages/tcl/alcatel/docs/tcl-faq.part04.gz

  8. Knews (threaded), developed by Karl-Johan Johnsson, features:

    The latest version, 1.0b.1, is available at:
    http://www.matematik.su.se/~kjj/knews-1.0b.1.tar.gz

IV. Any good debuggers (or debugger front-ends) out there?

  1. An excellent C source-level debugger is gdb 4.16, the GNU debugger. gdb may either be used as a stand-alone debugger or nicely integrated, from within Emacs itself. It can be found at any GNU archive site.

    +Snapshot+ xxgdb is an X front-end to the gdb debugger. Some people prefer using gdb through this front-end rather than via the command-line. mxgdb is a Motif front-end to the gdb debugger. xdbx is an X front-end to the the popular dbx(1) debugger; xxgdb, xdbx, etc. are available for ftp from:

    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/utilities/xxgdb-1.12.tar.gz

    colonsay.dcs.ed.ac.uk/export/X11R5/Misc-contrib/xdbx

    colonsay.dcs.ed.ac.uk/export/X11R5/Misc-contrib/mxgdb

  2. +Snapshot+ ups is another source-level C debugger, (originally developed by Mark Russell) now updated by Rod Armstrong. It also comes with its own theme song! Ups includes a C interpreter which allows you to add fragments of code simply by editing them into the source window (the source file itself is not modified). This lets you add debugging printf calls without recompiling, relinking or even restarting the target program.

    Version 3.35) has many enhancements and bug fixes. It supports C, C++ and limited FORTRAN debugging on SunOS, Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD. It has been compiled and tested on Solaris 2.5, Solaris 2.6 and SunOS 4.1.3, with the Sparc Compilers SC4 and SC4.2, gcc/g++ 2.7.2 and 2.8.0 and the Centerline C and cfront/C++ compilers; and also for Linux ELF 2.0.31 (Red Hat 5.0).

    The latest version, 3.35 is available from:

    ups-3.35.tar.gz

    The theme-song is available at:

    ftp://ftp.x.org/R5contrib/ups-song.au

  3. tgdb is a Tcl/Tk-based GUI front-end to the gdb debugger with similarities to commercial debuggers such as Borland's "Turbo debugger" or MicroSoft's "CodeView". Some of its features include:

    The latest version, 1.4, is available at:

    ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/debuggers/tgdb-1.4.src.tgz

    Pre-built binaries are available from:

    ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/tcl/code/

  4. +Snapshot+ DDD, developed by the DDD Development Team, is a Motif user interface to gdb, xdb and dbx which, features:

    The latest version, 3.1.4, is available at:

    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/utilities/ddd-3.1.4.tar.gz

    ftp://ftp.ips.cs.tu-bs.de/pub/local/softech/ddd/ddd-3.1.4.tar.gz

    Pre-compiled binaries (for Sun, Linux, etc.) are available for ftp; see the DDD home-page for details.

    Note: a C++ compiler (e.g. g++), and Motif (or LessTif) are required to compile ddd
  5. +Snapshot+ xwpe, maintained by Dennis Payne, (originally developed by Fred Kruse, is a programming environment similar to the Borland C++ or Turbo Pascal IDE; the difference being that, unlike the Borland IDE, different compilers and linkers may be invoked. It features, among other things:

    xwpe can also be used as a simple editor (when run as 'xwe') without the programming environment, and may be run under vt100 terminals as 'we'.

    The latest version, 1.4.2, (see xwpe website for 1.5 alpha) is available at:

    ftp://softdis.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/pub/systems/unix/xwpe/xwpe-1.4.2-1.tar.gz

V. Can anyone suggest any good calendar programs?

There are several popular calendar packages with more features than the standard calendar client xcalendar.

  1. +Snapshot+ xcal, written by Peter Collinson, is an interactive calendar program, meant as a companion to the xclock program. It features:

    xcal is available at any comp.sources.x archive (See Question 1).

  2. +Snapshot+ xkal, developed by George Ferguson, is a graphical appointment calendar that allows you to maintain many types of reminders (system, personal (with colour-coded criticality levels)), displays them in several different formats, and allows you to add and edit them. Silent and non-graphic modes are provided to allow xkal to be used to check for appointments without interaction.

    The latest version, 1.20, is available at:

    ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de/pub/unix/X11/R5/contrib/clients/xkal/xkal-1.20.tar.Z

  3. ical, developed by Sanjay Ghemawat, is a calendar manager featuring:

    Release 2.0 of ical is designed to work with Tk4.0. If you are using older versions of Tcl/Tk, you will need to upgrade.

    See the Appendix, for information about obtaining Tcl/Tk.

    The latest version of ical can be ftp'd from:

    ftp.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/sanjay/common/ical-2.0p2.tar.Z

  4. +Snapshot+ calentool, developed by Bill Randle, is a day/week/month/year- at-glance tool. It also features recurring appointments (e.g every Monday or every 1st & 3rd Tuesday), as well as a reminder of future appointments. calentool also permits other user's schedules to be accessed and also provides interesting information about the sun and moon.

    The interface uses XView (2.X or 3.X) to present an Open Look style user interface (including the Help key!).

    The latest version of calentool, 2.3X, is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/contrib/office/calentool-2.3.tar.gz

  5. k-lendars, developed by Jean-Michel Leon, is a multi-user/multi-calendar diary with a Motif interface. Multi-user functionality, is optional and k-lendars may be used in single-user mode with one or more calendars.

    Requires procmail, slocal, etc. for multi-user communications.

    The latest version, 1.2, is available for ftp at:

    ftp://avahi.inria.fr:/pub/k-lendars-1.2.tar.gz

    ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/k-lendars-1.2.tar.gz

  6. plan, developed by Thomas Driemeyer, is a Motif-based calendar and group scheduler application.

    The latest version, is available for ftp at:

    ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/graphics/plan

  7. +Snapshot+ XDiary, developed by Roger Larsson, is a personal organizer that combines the functions of a desktop calendar, an appointment book and an alarm clock; it can also be used as a group calendar to plan meetings, distribute information to specific groups etc. It features:

    The latest version, 3.0 is available for ftp at:
    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/office/xmdiary-3.0.tar.gz

VI. Are there any (CAD) drawing programs for X?

  1. +Snapshot+ xfig (Facility for Interactive Generation of figures), originally written by Supoj Sutanthavibul, is a menu-driven drawing program that may be used to draw and manipulate objects interactively in an X window. It comes with a translator package (transfig, also available at ftp.x.org) that allows xfig drawings to be converted to sundry other formats including LaTeX, PostScript, PiCTeX, etc. xfig can also import encapsulated PostScript files that can be annotated. xfig features primitive objects: circles, ellipses, arcs, etc. that may be grouped into complex objects and scaled, rotated, and manipulated in various ways.

    xfig is now maintained by Brian V. Smith (he certainly answers all the queries posted); the latest version, 3.2.2, is at:

    epb1.lbl.gov/xfig

    ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/xfig/

    You also need to get the TransFig package which contains the post-processor needed by xfig to convert fig files to one of several output formats.

    The TransFig package is in:

    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/transfig/

    I'm including the url for a list of CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network) archives here because it's handy.

    Ian MacPhedran maintains a page about other software that use the FIG protocol.

  2. tgif, developed by William Chia-Wei Cheng, also features primitive objects: circles, ellipses, arcs, etc. that may be grouped into complex objects and scaled, rotated, and manipulated in various ways. It also supports "building-block" objects that can be made part of a library of objects which are stored as Prolog code. tgif can also generate PostScript, and xbm (x-bitmap files) compatible output.

    tgif also supports the retrieval of tgif (obj and sym) files from HTTP servers. Hypertext jumps are supported using the old tgif teleporting or traveling mechanism.

    The latest version, 4.1.22, is available at:

    ftp://bourbon.cs.umd.edu/pub/tgif/tgif-4.1.22.tar.gz

    ftp://cs.ucla.edu:/pub/tgif/tgif-4.1.22.tar.Z

  3. Refer to part 4 of the comp.lang.tcl FAQ for an extensive list of drawing editors (picasso, for one) that have been written with Tcl/Tk. The latest version of the FAQ is always available at:

    ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/languages/tcl/alcatel/docs/tcl-faq.part04.gz

VII. Any virtual window managers out there?

The "Virtual Desktop" feature of these window managers effectively makes the monitor into a window, onto a screen that is larger than the physical limits of the monitor itself.

Also see the Guide to Window Managers

  1. fvwm, developed by Robert Nation then maintained by Charles K. Hines, Brady Montz and now a collective effort, seems to be the most ubiquitous of the virtual window-managers in use (especially in the Linux community,; hey, Linus uses it). It borrows heavily from Tom LaStrange's famous twm window manager. (Actually, any self-respecting window-manager will borrow from twm since it was the first ICCCM-compliant window-manager to be written. It should also be noted that Tom LaStrange also wrote the first virtual window-manager (swm) for Solbourne Corp. (is this guy brilliant or what?))

    fvwm is a derivative of twm, redesigned to minimize memory consumption, provide a 3-D look (indistinguishable from Motif's mwm) and provide a simple virtual desktop.

    The latest version of fvwm is available at:

    http://www.fvwm.org/download.html

  2. piewm, developed by Don Hopkins, is a virtual window manager with the look-and-feel of tvtwm, with the additional of pie-shaped menus. It is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/R5contrib/piewm.tar.Z

  3. vtwm is a virtual window manager with the look-and-feel of twm. Now maintained by D.J. Hawkey Jr. It sports a configurable 3D look, supports XPM images, multi-headed systems and is still backward compatible with twm for the purists. It is available from:

    ftp://ftp.visi.com/users/hawkeyd/X/vtwm-5.4.5a.tar.gz

  4. olvwm, developed by Scott Oaks, is a virtual window manager with the look-and-feel of OpenLook (Sun's windowing environment). It is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/R5contrib/olvwm4.tar.Z

  5. ctwm, developed by Claude Lecommandeur, is an extension to twm, that features up to 32 multiple virtual screens, called workspaces.

    You switch from one workspace to another either by clicking on a button in an optional panel of buttons (the workspace manager) or by invoking a function. Each workspace can be customize by choosing different colors, names, and pixmaps for the buttons and root windows. It also features:

    The latest version of ctwm, 3.5, is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/contrib/window_managers/ctwm-3.5.tar.Z

  6. GWM, developed by Colas Nahaboo, is an extensible Window Manager for the X Window System that is customized using a dialect of Lisp. This was the very first WM I was exposed to on a Sun 386i and I enjoyed immensely the ability to configure it in infinite dimensions (very much like the Emacs editor) and its ability to display milti-colour pixmaps in the title-bar. However, at the time, it was very buggy and I settled on twm, which I used until recently (1998); I now use fvwm2. The author has fixed the bugs and it should be very stable now. If you are a hacker, this is the WM for you.

    The latest version, 1.8, is avilable at:

    ftp://koala.inria.fr/pub/gwm

  7. Scwm, is the Scheme Constraints Window Manager, jointly developed by Greg J. Badros and Maciej Stachowiak. This is a highly dynamic and extensible window manager and scripting facility for X, based on fvwm2 (fvwm2 modules are supported), but now much enhanced with Guile Scheme as the configuration/extension language. Nearly all decorations can be changed at run-time or per-window and support for Themes is included. The .scwmrc configuration file can be edited in Emacs, and the results evaluated immediately, without restarting. You'll also enjoy using this wm if you are a hacker; it also has some neat new features like the constraint-based window-layout system.
    Note: you have to install Guile to use this wm.

    The latest version (stable alpha) is available at:

    ftp://scwm.mit.edu/pub/scwm/scwm-0.99.2.tar.gz

    Various binary RPMs are available at: ftp://scwm.mit.edu/pub/scwm/RPMS/

IIX. Project Management Software

Pete Phillips maintains a Project Management Software FAQ that is posted regularily to comp.software-eng. The FAQ, reviews and glossary documents are available at:

http://www.wst.com/library/index.html

IX. Where can I find icons?

  1. The xpm-3 distribution has a set of icons available. They may be ftp'd from:

    ftp.x.org:/R5contrib/xpm3icons.tar.Z

  2. Anthony's X Icon Library is a large collection of monochrome bitmaps and color pixmaps for general use by the X community. These icon-images are small (usually less than 100x100 pixels) and can be used as:

    The latest version, 1.5, is available for ftp from:

    ftp.x.org:/R5contrib/AIcons/

  3. The Really Humungous Library of Icons (http://www.cli.di.unipi.it/iconbrowser/)
  4. Tony's Icon Collection (http://www.bsdi.com/icons)
  5. Erin's Icon Collection (http://kaos.erin.gov.au/icons/)
  6. Building Blocks and Icons (http://www.nas.nasa.gov/RNR/Education/icons.html)
  7. Yahoo's Archive of Icons (http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Programming/Icons/)
  8. Graphic Element Samples (http://www-cs.stanford.edu/gifs/)

X. Are there any editors/paint-programs for xpm/GIF/TIFF/etc. image-formats?

  1. +Snapshot+ xpaint, developed by David Koblas, is a incredibly versatile mono-bitmap and/or colour-pixmap editing tool. It features, among other things:

    The latest version, 2.1.1, is available at: ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/xpaint-2.1.1.tar.gz

    Xpaint 2.4.4, has been released by Torsten Martinsen. It has some nifty filters built-in and bug fixes.

  2. pixmap, developed by Lionel Mallet, is an editor for XPM version 3.4 pixmap-format files, derived from Davor Matic's bitmap editor. It can be optionally be compiled with a Motif interface.

    The latest version, 2.6, is available at:

    ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz

    ftp://avahi.inria.fr:/pub/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz

  3. +Snapshot+ The Gimp, developed by Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis, is an extensible (via third-party plug-ins) image manipulation tool, that out-features xpaint.

    The current version is 1.0 and available at:

    ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/

    It requires the GTK, available at:

    ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gtk/v1.0/

    or

    http://www.gimp.org/download.html

    There are 3 gimp related mailing majordomo lists available: gimp-user@scheme.xcf.berkeley.edu, gimp-developer@scheme.xcf.berkeley.edu, gimp-announce@scheme.xcf.berkeley.edu.

XI. Are there any apps that can display files in parallel, highlighting (in color) the differences between them?

  1. +Snapshot+ ediff, developed by Michael Kifer, is a visual interface to diff and patch, accessed within emacs, that highlights the differences between two files in color. It features:

    Ediff is part of the standard Emacs and Xemacs distribution.

    Periodic updates are available at:
    ftp://ftp.cs.sunysb.edu/pub/TechReports/kifer

  2. mgdiff, developed by Daniel Williams, is a graphical front-end to diff. When the user selects two files for comparison, it runs the diff command, parses the output and presents the results graphically. This presentation can also be used to generate a user-specified merge of the two files into a third file.

    This program's appearance is based upon a program called gdiff, available for Silicon Graphics workstations.

    The latest version of mgdiff is available for ftp at:

    ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/mgdiff.tar.gz

  3. +Snapshot+ tkdiff, developed by John Klassa, is a graphical front-end for the standard Unix diff utility, based on Tcl/Tk. Its features include:

    The latest version, 1.0b9, is available at:

    ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/languages/tcl/alcatel/code/tkdiff-1.0b9.tar.gz

  4. xdiff, developed by Paul Lucas, is another graphical diff tool based on the SGI gdiff utility.

    It is available at:

    ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/pjl/software/xdiff-1.1b3.tar.gz

  5. +Snapshot+tkxcd, is a diff front end that has a look and feel similar to Atria ClearCase's xcleardiff.

    Available at:
    ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/RPMS/tkxcd-1.1.0-1.i386.rpm
    ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/SRPMS/tkxcd-1.1.0-1.src.rpm

  6. +Snapshot+ yaxp, developed by Rudy Wortel, is yet another xdiff program based on the SGI gdiff utility. It can display the differences of a file and up to four revisions of that file. The text is presented side by side with the differences aligned and highlighted in colour. xdiff can be used to produce a merged version combining any or all of the differences.

    The latest version, 3.3 is available at: http://reality.sgi.com/rudy/xdiff/

XII. How do I make a screen-dump of my window and/or print it out?

  1. xv, developed by John Bradley, is a full-featured program for displaying and manipulating images in the GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PBM, PGM, PPM, X11 bitmap, Utah Raster Toolkit RLE, PDS/VICAR, Sun Rasterfile, BMP, PCX, IRIS RGB, XPM, Targa, XWD, PostScript (if GhostScript is available) and PM formats. It can also convert between most of those formats.

    It features:

    xv 3.10a is shareware for personal use with a suggested registration fee of US$25. Commercial, industrial and institutional sites require a license fee of US$25.

    The latest version, 3.10a, including a PostScript manual, is available via ftp from:

    ftp.cis.upenn.eduL/pub/xv

    A less restrictive (wrt license), and older version, is available at:

    ftp.x.org:/R5contrib/xv-2.21.tar.Z

  2. xwpick, developed by Evgeni Chernyaev, allows a rectangular image of a window to be captured and saved as PostScript, GIF, PCX (IBM PC), PICT (Macintosh), PPM (PBMPlus). Note that the generated PostScript code is more compact than other utilites of this sort, so if file-size is an issue, then get this app.

    The latest version, 2.20, is available at:
    ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/xwpick2.20.tar.gz

  3. ImageMagick, developed by John Cristy, is a suite of tools for displaying and interactively manipulating (image conversion, annotation, compositing, animation, and creating montages) images. ImageMagick can read and write JPEG, TIFF, PNM, XPM, Photo CD image formats.

    The various tools allow:

    The current version of ImageMagick, 4.0.5, is available at ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-4.0.5.tar.gz

    and ftp.x.org and its mirrors:
    ftp://crl.dec.com:/pub/X11/contrib/applications/ImageMagick

XIII. Are there any mail-readers for X?

  1. xmail, developed by Michael C. Wagnitz, is a GUI to the Berkeley Unix mail program and includes support for the X-face header (see entry for exmh, below, for ftp info).

    The latest version, 1.6 is available at:

    ftp://ftp.x.org:/contrib/applications/xmail_1.6.tar.gz

  2. xmh, is an X front-end for the MH mail system. It should be part of the standard X11 distribution.
    The latest version, used to be available at:

    ftp://ftp.uni-trier.de:/pub/unix/X11/R6/xc/programs/xmh

    Note that most other sites still archive the R5 version and the patches to take it up to R6.

  3. +Snapshot+ exmh, developed by Brent Welch, is a Tcl/Tk-based (3.3 to 4.1) wrapper to the MH (6.7 or 6.8) mail-handling system. The latest version, 1.6.7, is available at:

    ftp://ftp.sunlabs.com:/pub/tcl/exmh/exmh-1.6.7.tar.Z The following packages are also required:

  4. +Snapshot+ ML, developed by Mike Macgirvin, is an IMAP mail client. It features, among other things:

    ML requires X11R4, Motif 1.2, IMAP2bis, and optionally PGP 2.6.2.

    The latest version, 1.1.1a is available at:

    ftp-camis.stanford.edu:/pub/ml/ml.tar.Z

    Pre-compiled binaries are available for SunOS, Solaris and linux in:

    ftp-camis.stanford.edu:/pub/ml

  5. Several mailers are also available for Emacs/XEmacs: Rmail (standard), Mh-e and Vm (the latter pair standard in XEmacs). Additionally, the Gnus newsreader also incorporates a mail-reader.
  6. xfmail, is developed by Gennady B. Sorokopud, is an XFroms based mailer. It's features, among others, are:
    The latest version, 1.3, is available at:
    ftp://burka.netvision.net.il/pub/xfmail/

XIV. How do I view AVI, MPEG, etc. movies/animations?

  1. +Snapshot+XAnim, developed by, Mark Podlipec, supports a variety of animations/movies (FLI, FLC, IFF, AVI, Quicktime, MPEG, etc.). XAnim can even play an audio file (WAV format) with an animation that doesn't already contain audio. It has a handy remote-control window with buttons for volume-control and frame-stepping control.
Alternate sites:

The latest version of xanim, 2.70.6.3, is available at:

ftp://xanim.va.pubnix.com/xanim27063.tar.gz

Also see the Moving Pictures coding Experts Group home-page.

XV. Is there any graphing/plotting or data-analysis software available?

  1. Gnuplot is the standard in plotting packages. It is a command-driven interactive software plotting package which can plot pre-computed data or standard mathematical functions. It features:
    It supports countless devices (everything from the lowly Epson 8-pin dot-matrix printer to colour PostScript printers) for hardcopy and display. comp.graphics.gnuplot is available for comments and questions about gnuplot.

  2. Grace (previously known as xmgr), originally developed by Paul Turner, is also a very popular package (considering the number of people that have recommended it for inclusion in this FAQ) for XY plots.

    It features:

    The latest version, 5.0.1, is available at:
    ftp://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/pub/grace/

  3. Herng-Jeng Jou (http://lusk1.mines.edu/hjjou/linux_prg.html) has pointers to various packages (both commercial and free).

  4. S. Baum (http://www-ocean.tamu.edu/~baum/ocean_graphics.html) has made available, a collection of pointers to various packages (both commercial and free).

XVI. Is there any software that simultaneously duplicates an X display on multiple workstations?

  1. XMX, developed by John Bazik, allows an X display to be duplicated on multiple workstations providing a WYSIWIS (What You See Is What I See) environment.

    The latest version is available at:

    ftp://ftp.cs.brown.edu/pub/xmx-2.1beta.pl0.13nov.tar.g

  2. Also see Question 105 in the comp.windows.x. FAQ

XVII.Are there any word-processors available for X?

Christopher B. Browne has a comprehensive discussion of word-processors for Unix.

  1. StarOffice is available for several, but not all, platforms (Solaris, Linux, etc.). It is a complete office suite that includes a word-processor, spreadsheet, and drawing tool. It does a reasonably good (but not perfect-- especially padding within table cells, headers/footers, most all complaints are cosmetic in nature) jobs of importing MS Office files. It is noted here because Sun has released the source-code (Oct. 13, 2000) thus enabling the port to other architectures. Be forewarned that it needs a decent (100 MHz RISC minimum) workstation to run responsively otherwise it feels sluggish (it just flies on a 450MHz Ultra 10 =:o).
  2. +Snapshot+ Thot is a structured document editor, offering a graphical WYSIWYG interface for X. Thot offers the usual functionality of a word processor, but it also processes the document structure (it was used as a test-bed for HTML 3.x style-sheets). It includes a large set of advanced tools, such as a spell checker and an index generator, and it allows to export documents to common formats like HTML and LaTeX. (This is a really cool editor but it needs a touch more effort to make it flawless).

    The source is available at:
    ftp://opera.inrialpes.fr/pub/sources/thot/

    Pre-compiled binaries for common paltforms are available at:
    ftp://opera.inrialpes.fr/pub/binaries/thot/

  3. +Snapshot+ SciText. It features:

    Pre-compiled binaries are available for Solaris, Irix, & Linux 2.0. The latest version of SciText is available at:

    http://www.uni-paderborn.de/~SciTeXt/archives/getSciTeXt.html

  4. +Snapshot+ LyX is an WYSIWYG front-end to LaTeX.

    Current features are:

    It is available at:

    ftp://fiwi02.wiwi.uni-tuebingen.de/pub/LyX/

    It also requires the XForms library.

  5. +Snapshot+ Cicero is a WYSIWYG wordprocessor that is written in Tcl/Tk and the TIX library; a previous version was written in C++.

    It's available at:

    ftp://ftp.rz.fh-hannover.de/pub/linux/local/cicero/

  6. Question 88 in the comp.windows.x FAQ
  7. AbiWord is an Open Source wordprocessor (part of an desktop suite). Features include:

    Version 0.7.7 is available for download.

XVIII.Is there any software that can record and playback X events?

  1. xrecord, developed by Martin Vicente, records, the contents of a screen, a window or a part of window. Playback is achieved via xplay.The latest version, 0.1, is available at:
    http://www.vicente.org/pub/xrecord/0.1/

  2. xscript is a reasonably working working record/playback facility. It's available at:
    ftp://ftp.x.org/R5contrib/xscript.tar.Z

  3. xmon (a X protocol monitor) contains an optional record/playback facility; the author claims that it is unfinished. The latest version, 1.5.4, is available at:
    ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/devel_tools/xmon.1.5.4.tar.gz

    Tcl/Tk

    Tcl and Tk were developed by John Ousterhout, UCB/Sun/Scriptics/Ajuba/etc. Tcl stands for "tool command language" and is pronounced "tickle". Tcl is actually two things: a language and a library. Tcl is a simple textual language, intended primarily for issuing commands to interactive programs such as text editors, debuggers, illustrators, and shells; it can also be used as a library package embedded in application programs.

    Tk is an extension to Tcl which provides an interface to the X. Note that many users will encounter Tk via "wish", a simple windowing shell which permits the user to write Tcl applications interactively.

    The latest versions of Tcl/Tk can be obtained via ftp from:

    Additional Resources

    Tcl/Tk related announcements may be mailed to to the moderator of comp.lang.tcl.announce at <tcl-announce@mitchell.org>.

    GNU Archives Around The World

    Misc. X things

    Misc. X things

    Every conceivable online X resource should be available either in this FAQ or within the following documents:

    Acknowledgements

    Notable corrections, additions and suggestions to this FAQ were kindly contributed by:

    Per Abrahamsen, Jamshid Afshar, Rod Armstrong, Bob Bagwill, Thomas Bahls, Greg Badros, Steve Baur, John Bazik, Scott Berg, Roderick Boem, Karel De Bruyne, Kevin Buettner, Gary Capell, Jeffrey David Cohen, Mike Davis, Brian Decker, Bertrand Decouty, Mark Edel, Ian Edwards, Stephen Eglen, George Fleming, Lionel Fournigault, Castor Fu, Sanjay Ghemawat, Stephen A. Gilbert, Stephen Gildea, Joel S. Gillman, Denis Girou, Scott Goehring, Matthew Hall, Guy Harris, Amancio Hasty, D.J. Hawkey Jr., Charles K. Hines, Jasper van der Horst, Damjan Janev, Webmaster Jim, Jonathan I. Kamens, Selimir Kustudic, Roger Larsson, Marty Leisner, Craig Leres, Per Lewau, Torbjörn Lindgren, Peter Lowe, Mike Long, Orjan Lundberg, Thanh Ma, Mike Macgirvin, Alexander Mai, Ken Martin, Robert J. McNamara, Bruce Mitchener, Joe Moss, Duane T. Mun, John A. Murphy, Ralphe Neill, Aliza R. Panitz, Alan Peery, Mark Podlipec, Bill Randle, Chuck Robey, Kevin Rodgers, Tim Rowley, James Spath, Sam Steingold, Mark Stoutjensdijk, Philip J. Tait, Nathan Urban, Gioacchino La Vecchia, Vegard Vesterheim, Martin Vicente, Larry W. Virden, Larry Wall, Craig Wasielewski, Brent Welch, Jim Wight, Daniel Williams, and Andreas Zeller.

    Colophon

    Version 1 Release 1 of this FAQ, was compiled entirely from within GNU Emacs 19.23 (on a lazy Sunday afternoon, sometime in July '94 (via a VT100-terminal dialup yet!)). GNUS was used to access relevant USENET FAQ's in news.answers and the ange-ftp and crypt++ packages made it possible to visit the README's of the various packages mentioned, at ftp sites around the world, after searching for them with archie (from within emacs, of course).

    The hyper-FAQ (Release 1.8) was marked-up from the original text-version using Emacs' massively useful macro-facility (and thus the conversion was painlessly automated) and the html-mode package.

    The plain-text version of this FAQ is now generated from the hyper-FAQ, with the html-to-ascii perl-script written by James R. Davis.