[aplusdev] Kapl.alias?

[Josef Sachs]

>>>>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 01:16:14 GMT, Brian Redman said:

> The rpm file ought to run a post script that concatenates
> Kapl.alias onto fonts.alias.  I'm guessing you're not using "rpm" or
> perhaps the version you downloaded didn't have this feature.

Right.  I'm actually somewhat "shooting from the hip" in this discussion,
since I'm not using the rpm.  (I don't currently have a system running Linux.
I'm trying to compile from source on Solaris/gcc, but I haven't gotten it
to work yet.  I guess you guys use the SunPro compiler on Solaris?  What
do you use on Linux?)

> I haven't seen an indication from people on comp.lang.apl if they
> are installing from the binary rpm or building the source.  In the
> case of the latter we will add instructions to the INSTALL file
> assuming it's not already in the Makefile and simply broken.

I was making an educated guess about font aliases not working, since
apparently Alexander Skomorokhov <askom at my-deja.com> and Alexei Zalivine
<zalivin at krona.obninsk.ru> were able to use
xemacs -fn -*-kapl-screen-*-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
but not
xemacs -fn kaplscreen
Maybe it's only a problem in the Russian version.

But is there any disadvantage to renaming Kapl.alias to fonts.alias?
With a correspondingly modified postinstall script, the rpm users
wouldn't see a difference, and it would allow the font aliases to
work for people who, for whatever reason, decide to access the fonts
via a separate font path entry.  If you don't want to do this, then
there should at least be a README file in fonts/X11/pcf that explains
the purpose of Kapl.alias and suggests the possibility of renaming it
to fonts.alias.  Or this should be in a FAQ, or both.

I think it would be fun to develop a good diagnostic tool to help people
solve font and resource problems, and that could be included in the
distribution or put on the Web site.

By the way, are the Postscript font and the printing utilities available,
or did I overlook them?

Also, I really like the online reference manual and interactive keyboard
chart, but I'd also appreciate versions intended for printing.  Are they
available?

Looking forward to the A+ users group meeting.