• Previous message: steve wong: "MAGIC to CIF problem."
• In reply to: R. Timothy Edwards: "magic box color"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2002, R. Timothy Edwards wrote:

>    The black box color is a consequence of using 16- or 24-bit plane displays
> (TrueColor).  The best ways to get back to the white color:
> 
>   1) Revert to an 8-bit visual.  Usually this means starting X with 
> 	"startx -- -bpp 8" (see the startx man page).  Note, however, that
> 	a number of programs like Netscape go all to pieces when launched
> 	in an 8-bit visual, which can be an annoyance unless you have a
> 	separate display devoted to the layout (I'm told some people do
> 	this).
> 
>   2) Get a video card and X server which support 8-bit overlays on top of
> 	a TrueColor display (many commercial X servers support this;  I
> 	don't know if the latest XFree86 does).  The X server configuration
> 	file may need to be edited to enable the option, which is often
> 	turned off by default.  Magic tries to grab an 8-bit visual if it
> 	can, and only reverts to 16- or 24-bits if it can't get an 8-bit
> 	visual.  If the X server has a 8-bit overlay available and enabled,
> 	magic will automatically make use of it unless told explicitly not
> 	to by setting the environment variable MAGIC_COLOR to the number
> 	of bits wanted for the visual (normally 8, 16, or 24).
> 
>   3) Use the -dOGL OpenGL graphics option.  But it also requires support
> 	from the video card and driver;  often it's more convenient just
> 	to do number (2) instead, because video cards which are fancy enough
> 	to support OpenGL in hardware usually also support 8-bit overlay
> 	planes.
> 
>    If anybody else has suggestions about X servers, video cards, visual
> modes, and magic, please feel free to extend this message thread.

We're using (2), with "raptor" cards in our Sun Ultra 5's.
But still, lots of applications fight over the 8-bit colors, and you can
only have one magic session running at a time without colormap flashing.

I've developed a patch called the "color snarfer".  One runs a utility
from their .Xinitrc that grabs the color lookup-table entries that magic
wants to use.  All subsequent magic sessions use same set of colormap
entries, and other applications (window managers, cadence tools) get to
deal with what's left over.  If layout is your life, this is for you.

I think I may have sent this patch to you last summer, Tim, but I haven't
seen it in any 7.1 releases.  Perhaps it got lost in the confusion (I know
how it is to be very busy).  Anybody still interested in this?

Steve

--
Steve Tell  tell AT telltronics DOT org 

• Next message: Stephen Arnold: "Magic Install"
• Previous message: steve wong: "MAGIC to CIF problem."
• In reply to: R. Timothy Edwards: "magic box color"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]