NAME¶
xkibitz - allow multiple people to interact in an xterm
SYNOPSIS¶
xkibitz [
xkibitz-args ] [
program program-args... ]
INTRODUCTION¶
xkibitz allows users in separate xterms to share one shell (or any
program that runs in an xterm). Uses include:
- •
- A novice user can ask an expert user for help. Using
xkibitz, the expert can see what the user is doing, and offer
advice or show how to do it right.
- •
- By running xkibitz and then starting a full-screen
editor, people may carry out a conversation, retaining the ability to
scroll backwards, save the entire conversation, or even edit it while in
progress.
- •
- People can team up on games, document editing, or other
cooperative tasks where each person has strengths and weaknesses that
complement one another.
- •
- If you want to have a large number of people do an on-line
code walk-through, you can sit two in front of each workstation, and then
connect them all together while you everyone looks at code together in the
editor.
USAGE¶
To start
xkibitz, one user (the master) runs xkibitz with no arguments.
xkibitz starts a new shell (or another program, if given on the command
line). The user can interact normally with the shell, or upon entering an
escape (described when xkibitz starts) can add users to the interaction.
To add users, enter "+ display" where display is the X display name.
If there is no ":X.Y" in the display name, ":0.0" is
assumed. The master user must have permission to access each display. Each
display is assigned a tag - a small integer which can be used to reference the
display.
To show the current tags and displays, enter "=".
To drop a display, enter "- tag" where tag is the display's tag
according to the "=" command.
To return to the shared shell, enter "return". Then the keystrokes of
all users become the input of the shell. Similarly, all users receive the
output from the shell.
To terminate
xkibitz it suffices to terminate the shell itself. For
example, if any user types ^D (and the shell accepts this to be EOF), the
shell terminates followed by
xkibitz.
Normally, all characters are passed uninterpreted. However, in the escape
dialogue the user talks directly to the
xkibitz interpreter. Any
Expect(1) or
Tcl(3) commands may also be given. Also, job
control may be used while in the interpreter, to, for example, suspend or
restart
xkibitz.
Various processes can produce various effects. For example, you can emulate a
multi-way
write(1) session with the command:
xkibitz sleep 1000000
ARGUMENTS¶
xkibitz understands a few special arguments which should appear before
the
program name (if given). Each argument should be separated by
whitespace. If the arguments themselves takes arguments, these should also be
separated by whitespace.
-escape sets the escape character. The default escape character is ^].
-display adds a display much like the "+" command. Multiple
-display flags can be given. For example, to start up xkibitz with three
additional displays:
xkibitz -display mercury -display fox -display dragon:1.0
CAVEATS¶
Due to limitations in both X and UNIX, resize propagation is weak.
When the master user resizes the xterm, all the other xterms are logically
resized. Unfortunately, xkibitz cannot force the physical xterm size to
correspond with the logical xterm sizes.
The other users are free to resize their xterm but their sizes are not
propagated. The master can check the logical sizes with the "="
command.
Deducing the window size is a non-portable operation. The code is known to work
for recent versions of SunOS, AIX, Unicos, and HPUX. Send back mods if you add
support for anything else.
ENVIRONMENT¶
The environment variable SHELL is used to determine and start a shell, if no
other program is given on the command line.
If the environment variable DISPLAY is defined, its value is used for the
display name of the
xkibitz master (the display with tag number 0).
Otherwise this name remains empty.
Additional arguments may be passed to new xterms through the environment
variable XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS. For example, to create xterms with a scrollbar
and a green pointer cursor:
XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS="-sb -ms green"
export XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS
(this is for the Bourne shell - use whatever syntax is appropriate for your
favorite shell). Any option can be given that is valid for the
xterm
command, with the exception of
-display,
-geometry and
-S
as those are set by
xkibitz.
SEE ALSO¶
Tcl(3),
libexpect(3) kibitz(1)
"Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive
Programs" by Don Libes, O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.
"kibitz - Connecting Multiple Interactive Programs Together", by
Don Libes, Software - Practice & Experience, John Wiley & Sons,
West Sussex, England, Vol. 23, No. 5, May, 1993.
AUTHOR¶
Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology
