[xcrysden] XCrySDen on Linux, X-Server on Windows

[Martin Kroeker]

I wonder if this can be automated further by relying on the presence
of the environment variable DISNO that XMing seems to use to store
its display number, rather than having to define your own ?
Also with 1.6.2 it should be possible to specify Togl options in 
your private configuration file (.xcrysden/custom-definitions)
rather than having to mess with the global settings in the tcl
scripts directly.

Regards
Martin

> Dear XCrySDen user,
> 
> in times of Covid-19 and home-office you sometimes have to proceed
> unconventionally.
> 
> I'm running XCrySDen (1.6.2) on a Linux node in the institute, using the
> X-Server on my Windows-PC at home (Xming).
> 
> This is of course not the most efficient way to display 3D-graphics. A
> local Cygwin installations is surely faster. However the remote
> execution as described above may be reasonable, if e.g. the CRYSTAL
> integration is needed, e.g. with the properties menu.
> 
> Using the standard distribution of XCrySDen does not work in this way.
> It is known, that the accumulation buffer has to be disabled, if
> XCrySDen is running on Windows. This is captured in the file
> $XCRYSDEN_TOPDIR/Tcl/toglOpt.tcl. However in the above case, XCrySDen
> runs on Linux with accumulation buffer enabled, only the x-server on
> Windows, giving the error 'Couldn't configure togl widget'.
> 
> In order to cure this behaviour, I added the following lines to toglOpt.tcl:
> 
>     # XCrysden running in Linux with X-Server (like Xming) on Windows
>     # toglOpt(accum) = false (set environment variable IF_XMING to Xming)
> 
>     if { [info exists env(IF_XMING)] } {
>         if { [string match -nocase *Xming* $env(IF_XMING)] } {
>                 # disable accumulation buffer
>                 set toglOpt(accum) false
>                 puts stderr "   accumulation buffer disabled"
>         }
>     }
> 
> If I now define (and export) the environment variable IF_XMING=Xming,
> the accumulation buffer will be disabled, and XCrySDen is running
> properly with my local Windows X-server.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Ulrich
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Ulrich Wedig                              Tel. 0711/6891535
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer Festkoerperforschung FAX  0711/6891502
> Heisenbergstr. 1
> 70569 Stuttgart                               U.Wedig at fkf.mpg.de
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
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-- 
Dr. Martin Kroeker            martin at ruby.chemie.uni-freiburg.de
c/o Prof.Dr. Caroline Roehr
Institut fuer Anorganische und Analytische Chemie der Universitaet Freiburg