JTL's Home Page

University of Manchester
Department of Computer Science

AnotherLevelUp Home Page

Coming soon.... this page will discuss the following implementation issues (and maybe more), when I get around to writing it!

• Self locating: how does AnotherLevelUp find out where it is installed?
• How does AnotherLevelUp kill processes (e.g. xsnow) which are associated with the current login; without affecting those that may be running from a parallel login by the same user on a different X server?
• M4: this macro processor gives you enormous power.
• In-line shell scripts: how can you increase the power of M4 by adding the text of shell scripts in-line? Is it worth the hassle, versus storing the scripts in files?
• Awk scripts: how can you increase the power of M4 by adding the text of awk scripts in-line?
• M4 result cache: how does this work?
• Toggle functions: this general purpose table-driven technique allows the user to persistently switch on and off various attributes at run time (e.g. do I want a console window?). A single global file specifies all the information, including initial on/off values, with just hooks in the M4 files at the right places to provide `Start...' or `Stop...' menus (changed depending on the current setting), with the user's choice being stored in their own file.
• FvwmScripts:
  • These are very under-rated, and the module could do with more support. The XTerm X resource editor of AnotherLevelUp is an example of what you can do. (I bet this example is a contender for the most complex FvwmScript in the world -- or is it?)
  • Sub topic: how do you get around the unreliability of message passing between FvwmScripts? (And why is it unreliable? -- that's my question!)
• FvwmForms: less powerful than FvwmScripts, but ideal in certain situations. So, when should you use which?
• The AnotherLevelUp xlock form: a case study of FvwmForm, awk and M4. The same code is used twice to generate two, multi-page, forms.
• X resources proxy: how does changing your XTerm resources affect emacs and nedit in AnotherLevelUp? Maybe there's a proposal here for a highly useful xrdb extension, prototyped in ALU using a shell script.
• Dynamic menus: how does AnotherLevelUp build menus from the files it finds in the SHARED-PREFERENCES directory and the user's own sets of preferences?
• How does AnotherLevelUp generate a sample icon of the root background, for use on the menu, when a set of preferences is saved?