Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The on-line help within Glove will answer most of your questions. (If you find an omission, please report it.)

Table of Contents

1. General installation
2. General configuration
3. Window manager issues
4. Miscellaneous

If you have a question that isn't answered here, please ask us.

If you have a 64 bit computer, then you will need to install support for 32 bit applications. On Ubuntu, this page explains that you need ia32-libs. Other distributions usually provide similar support.

If you are missing a system library (e.g. libucb.so on Solaris), then search for it on your system and add its directory to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

Otherwise, the answer is yes. Please contact us.

When I start the program, it crashes with the message The X server does not have any PostScript fonts at all, not even Helvetica. How do I fix this?

Install the xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi package.

When I start the program, it crashes before I even get a window. How do I fix this?

Try deleting the file ~/.program_name.pref and the directory ~/.jx/. Also, make sure that you have write permission on your home directory. If this doesn't fix the problem, please contact us.

When I start the program, it complains that the preferences cannot be used. How do I fix this?

This is normally caused by not having write permissions to your home directory or to the .program_name.pref file inside your home directory.

When I run the program, it is very slow. How do I fix this?

Try hiding the toolbar below the menu in Editor windows. Select Toolbar buttons... from the Preference menu and uncheck Show toolbar. This will produce a dramatic speed increase if you work on an NFS-mounted volume.

When I start the program using MI/X on Windows®, it crashes in JXFontManager.cc. How do I fix this?

Install the fonts Helvetica and Courier. (None of the defaults fonts provided by MI/X are PostScript fonts.)

Why can't you make the installation process as easy as it is on Mac and Windows?

We would like to, but web browsers on UNIX don't allow you to automatically run a program after you have downloaded it. This is primarily for security reasons. You have to set the executable flag on the program after you have downloaded it.

You also have to switch to root before you can install any RPM packages. (If you are running your web browser as root, you are really asking for trouble. For security reasons, you should never do anything as root unless you absolutely must.)

In addition, browsers on Windows think that .rpm files are Real Player files, so we have to use the .tgz suffix to allow people to download our software to a Windows computer (from which they then transfer the file to their UNIX computer).

That said, we are always open to suggestions for improving and simplifying the installation process!

This script will display the file in the Finder. Update the \"Shell cmd to view file in file manager\" command in the Web Browser Preferences dialog to execute the script.

When I type in an input area in a dialog window, buttons and checkboxes get activated. How do I avoid this?

We are not sure what causes this. We think that it may be the result of strange bugs in particular window managers. What is happening is that the program is somehow being told that the Meta key is pressed. Apparently, if you hold down the Meta key, this toggles the setting, i.e., turning the Meta key off, so that you can type normal characters. The best solution is to switch to a different window manager.

All programs that are written with the JX Application Framework will work with any window manager, except for the bugs mentioned below. We at New Planet Software prefer fvwm2 because it supports icons for iconfied windows. This allows Drag-and-Drop onto iconfied windows as well as visible ones.

Many people consider fvwm2 to be too raw, however. A good alternative is Openbox, when configured to run gnome-panel at startup. To do this, create ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh with the following content:

. $GLOBALAUTOSTART
(sleep 2 && gnome-panel) &

Why do my windows keep appearing in random places, even after I use the "Save window size as default" option?

Your window manager is ignoring the program's attempts to place the windows. We know how to fix this for the following window managers:

fvwm

Comment out "NoPPosition" from ~/.fvwmrc

fvwm2

Use "UsePPosition" instead of "NoPPosition" in ~/.fvwm2rc

sawfish

Select the Placement item for Sawfish in the Gnome control panel and change the Method to "None".

twm

Set "UsePPosition on" in ~/.twmrc

Why do I get the error:

Error detected in JXWindow::HandleMapNotify():
Your window manager is not setting the WM_STATE property correctly!

As the error says, the problem is that your window manager is not fully compliant because it doesn't set the WM_STATE property on every window. Our only advice is to notify the developers and then switch to a window manager that works.

Why do the windows move when I use the Windows or Files menu?

Every window manager seems to have a different way of placing windows. The program attempts to deduce the behavior at run time, so you can use it with any window manager. If your windows jump around more than once or twice, please notify us.

Why do my windows migrate across the screen from one session to the next?

This problem has only been reported for fvwm2. The fix is to create the file ~/.jx/wm_offset. This must contain the x and y offset caused by your window manager. For fvwm2, this file should contain "1 1" (without the quotes).

No. We have a design, but there are still unresolved issues, and everybody seems to be satisfied with the current appearance. Please note that implementing Themes is one of the Bazaar projects for JX. If you want to see it happen, please consider volunteering!

Have you considered porting the program to Gnome/GTK+ or KDE/Qt?

No. The program already runs correctly in both environments, and porting it would require a complete rewrite from scratch.