Ubuntu
xterm package

"xterm -into <id>" not working correctly

Bug #806969 reported by Duncan Ferguson on 2011-07-07

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	xterm (Ubuntu)	Opinion	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

When re-parenting xterm into another window using '-into <id>' the term ignores all input.

When using a different terminal such as "urxvt -embed <id>" it works as expected

Attached scripts shows the problem when typing into the new window when using xterm and urxvt

$ dpkg -l |grep xterm
ii xterm 268-1ubuntu1
$ more /etc/debian_version
squeeze/sid

system is up to date

Related branches

lp:debian/xterm

Revision history for this message

Duncan Ferguson (duncan-j-ferguson) wrote on 2011-07-07:

Script showing the problem Edit (626 bytes, text/plain)

Revision history for this message

Thomas Dickey (dickey-his) wrote on 2011-07-08:

thanks - I can reproduce the problem, will investigate

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Thomas Dickey (dickey-his) wrote on 2011-07-10:

Investigated, found that the essential difference between xterm and urxvt in this aspect is that xterm initializes using one of the functions such as XtOpenApplication, which does resource initialization, etc., on a shell widget that it creates. Later, it uses XReparentWindow to handle the "-into" option. urxvt on the other hand, processes its "-embed" option before creating its first window, using the parameter directly as its parent window. While Tcl/Tk handles the XReparentWindow, Gtk does not, it seems.

Given the nature of the problem (a bug in Gtk), revising xterm's initialization to work around Gtk's problems would seem to be a wish-list item for xterm rather than a bug in xterm.

Revision history for this message

Thomas Dickey (dickey-his) wrote on 2011-08-23:

hmm - the problem is actually a little different (appears to be still a problem with Gtk).
There was an issue with reparenting which is more obvious with the Gtk script that I used.

However -

The bug that you're reporting is that is that Gtk is (according to the event information)
using the send-events feature to send data to xterm. In xterm, that's controlled by the
allowSendEvents resource (also a menu entry). Enabling that lets xterm see the data.

I'll have some fixes in this general area for #272, but for this specific issue, it is
a "feature" rather than a bug, which has a workaround.