XSIMBAD release 1.00 94-Jul-11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ================= I. INSTALLATION ================= XSimbad comes in binary form and you must therefore install the version adapted to your hardware. Supported hardware are currently: Dec/mips/ultrix Dec/alpha/OSF-1 Sun/sparc/SunOs 4.3.1 HP/UX To install this package, you should: 1. Put in an adequate place the following files and directory: - XSimbad The User Interface client programme - xsimbad A script calling XSimbad and creating specific directories in the user's HOME directory, the first time xsimbad is called. Adequate places may be: - leave them where they are and use xsimbad only from this directory. - in your ~/bin directory and use 'xsimbad' from anywhere in your directory tree. - in some /usr/local/bin directory and make 'xsimbad' available to any user on your station. 2. Modify the following definitions in the script 'xsimbad' to reflect the location of the files: - XSIMBADPGM: location of the XSimbad programme The default values are for using 'xsimbad' from its current directory. 3. execute: > xsimbad The first time, a directory tree called 'SimbadFiles' is created in your $HOME directory and will contain several kinds of locally created files (filters, formats,...). Eventually if your DISPLAY environment variable is not set to your X-terminal display address, you will be asked to do so. YOU MUST ALSO AUTHORIZE YOUR X-SERVER TO ACCEPT WINDOWS FROM THE STATION FROM WHICH YOU LAUCH THE SIMBAD GUI. THIS IS DONE THROUGH THE COMMAND: xhost +address-of-the-station You may encounter a font definition problem. See below for more details. If you have difficulties in finding the right names, adresses or directories, please ask first your system manager, because all these parameters may be linked to local implementations. ========================== 2. Limitations and bugs: ========================== Sampling criteria: ----------------- Sampling on object types is not possible. Displays: -------- There is no way for this first release to interrupt nicely a long display. There are limitations, depending on the station running XSimbad, and eventually on the Xterminal, in the amount of data which can be queried. Building a sample of over 10000 objects may probably be too large ================== 3. Font problem: ================== When launching xsimbad, you may get the following message and no window display: X Error: BadName Request Major code 45 () Request Minor code 0 ResourceID 0x4400002 Error Serial #14 Current Serial #15 This means that the programme couldn't find the right fonts. XSimbad uses these 5 different fonts: XSimbad.FontNormal : -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-12-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontSimbad : -adobe-courier-bold-r-normal-*-12-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontExample: -adobe-helvetica-bold-o-normal-*-12-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontBig : -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-24-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontWelcome: -adobe-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-*-18-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-* These fonts are defined in a set of 75dpi (dot/inch) fonts. Installing proper fonts can be done in two ways: 1. Finding the right 75dpi fonts, and adding them to the font path and, if this fails: 2. Substituting 100 dpi fonts, which will look a little smaller. 1. Finding the right 75dpi fonts ----------------------------- a) Execute the command 'xset q': This will display something like this: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keyboard Control: auto repeat: on key click percent: 50 LED mask: 00000000 auto repeating keys: ffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffff ffffffffff07f8df ffffffffffffffff bell percent: 50 bell pitch: 400 bell duration: 100 Pointer Control: acceleration: 2/1 threshold: 4 Screen Saver: prefer blanking: yes allow exposures: yes timeout: 600 cycle: 600 Colors: default colormap: 0x27 BlackPixel: 1 WhitePixel: 0 Font Path: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/decwin/100dpi/,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/MIT/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where "Font Path" gives the list of font directories. You should look if the directory which contains the directory 100dpi (here: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/decwin) contains also a directory called 75dpi, and if this directory actually contains fonts. If this 75dpi directory exists, you must add it to your "Font Path" with the following command: xset fp+ /usr/lib/X11/fonts/decwin/75dpi/ (don't forget the last "/") Then launch xsimbad again. If this doesn't work, then you must try ... 2. Substituting 100 dpi fonts -------------------------- 100dpi fonts do not exist with the same pixel size. This is why you have to use 100 dpi fonts which are a little smaller. To make them available to xsimbad, you should add the following X resource definition in your resource database. This can be done by putting these definitions in a file: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- XSimbad.FontNormal : -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-11-*-100-100-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontSimbad : -adobe-courier-bold-r-normal-*-11-*-100-100-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontExample: -adobe-helvetica-bold-o-normal-*-11-*-100-100-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontBig : -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-25-*-100-100-*-*-iso8859-* XSimbad.FontWelcome: -adobe-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-*-20-*-100-100-*-*-iso8859-* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- and executing the command: xrdb -merge file-name Differents labels will be a little smaller that with 75dpi fonts, but this is the only current way to solve the problem, as all positions and sizes are defined in xsimbad in pixels.