Re: [Bug-XBoard] resources not used for xboard

[h.g. muller]

> Move sound, board and piece colors, ICS text colorization, board size, 
> FICS ip address, path to timeseal, and various flags.

These settings are indeed no longer processed by X, and have all been moved 
to the settings file.


> > Chances are that they should be considered deprecated,
> > and their function has been taen over by ~/.xboardrc .
>
> I copied the relevant portion of .Xresources into ~/.xboardrc.  No 
> indication that this file is even being read from the debug log, and 
> certainly none of the settings are being used.
> > This is configurable, btw: the XBoard-specific user settings can
> > be defined to reside in any file, specified in the system-wide
> > settings file.
>
> If I tell it to save settings now, I get a msgbox titled "Error": 
> /etc/xboard/xboard.conf: Not a directory
>
> When I look there, I see there is a /etc/xboard file, but no xboard.conf.

OK, the way it works in the new version is that the settings file is 
hard-coded as /etc/xboard/xboard.conf.
XBoard attempts to read this file at startup. If no file is found there, it 
will create one, when you save
the settings (by hand or autmatically). But this only works if the 
directory /etc/xboard exists, and you have
write permission there. Normal users would not have that, but running 
XBoard as superuser would allow
you to create one.

The settings file can contain another -ini option to "redirect" the 
settings file, to a location more sutable
for an ordinary user, like ~/.xboard.rc. But that must be written in there 
by hand, and once you redirect,
saving the settings will go to the redirected settings file, basically 
protecting the master settings file
from overwriting by anyone, so that these options you added by hand to 
redirect are permanent.

Now you don't have a master file /etc/xboard/xboard.conf, so there is also 
no redirection to ~/.xboardrc,
which is why the latter is ignored. Another thing that is obviously wrong, 
is that you seem to have an
ordinary file /etc/xboard, which pis not compatible with having a directory 
of the same name. I don't know
how you got that file, and what is in it. It should not happen.

The xboard.conf is supposed to come with the installation; I prepared a 
suitable one, and it should be in git.
In the Debian package I distribute, for instance on hgm.nubati.net, this 
file should be installed in /etc/xboard.
I never really tested this, so if I misunderstand te way the packaging 
proces works, I might have goofed there.
But I simply put a file etc/xboard/xboard.conf in the directory that I 
package with the dpkg command.

This pre-cooked xboard.conf contains the options (at the end):
-saveSettingsFile ~/.xboardrc
-settingsFile ~/.xboardrc

The latter redirects you to the mentioned file for reading, (and if reading 
is succesful, it will also always save
to the last settings file read), while the first one redirects saving there 
even if it did not exist.

So putting the xboard.conf from git in place should basically solve the 
problem.


> Following the syntax of /etc/xboard in my ~/.xboardrc didn't work 
> either.  It clearly isn't being read.
>
>
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