The MGR Window System HOWTO: Running MGR

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## 4. Running MGR

The only file required in an MGR installation is the server itself. That would give you terminal emulator windows with shells running in them and cutting and pasting with the mouse, but no nice clocks, extra fonts, fancy graphics, etc. Depending on options, a monochrome server needs about 200K of RAM plus dynamic space for windows, bitmaps, etc.

If `/usr/mgr/bin` is in your PATH, then just type "`mgr`" to start up. After enjoying the animated startup screen, press any key. When the hatched background and mouse pointer appear, hold down the left mouse button, highlight the "new window" menu item, and release the button. Then drag the mouse from corner to corner where you want a window to appear. The window will have your default shell running in it. Hold down the left mouse button over an existing window to see another menu for doing things to that window. Left-clicking on an obscured window raises it to the top. The menu you saw that pops-up over the empty background includes the quit command. For people with a two button mouse: press both buttons together to emulate the missing middle button used by some clients.

The quit submenu includes the "really quit" option, a suspend option which should only be used if you run a job-control shell, and a screen saver and locker option, which waits for you to type your login password when you come back to your machine.

When trying to run MGR, if you get:

can't find the screen

  make sure you have a `/dev` entry for your display device, e.g. on a Sun `/dev/bwtwo0`. If not, as root cd to `/dev`, and type "MAKEDEV bwtwo0". Otherwise, you might need the `-S/dev/bwtwo0` or (on Linux) the `-S640x480` command line option when starting `mgr`. On Linux, you might also make sure that `/usr/mgr/bin/mgr` was installed setuid root.

can't find the mouse

  make sure `/dev/mouse` exists, usually as a symbolic link to the real device name for your mouse. If you haven't permission to write in `/dev`, then something like a `-m/dev/cua0` option can be given when starting `mgr`. Also, make sure you've supplied the right mouse protocol choice when you configured `mgr`. The mouse may speak Microsoft, even if that is not the brand name.

can't get a pty

  make sure all of `/dev/[tp]ty[pq]?` are owned by root, mode 666, and all programs referenced with the "shell" option in your `.mgrc` startup file (if any) exist and are executable.

none but the default font

  make sure MGR is looking in the right place for its fonts. Check the `Configfile` in the source or see whether a `-f/usr/mgr/font` option to `mgr` fixes the problem.

completely hung (not even the mouse track moves)

  login to your machine from another terminal (or rlogin) and kill the `mgr` process. A buckey-Q key can quit MGR if the keyboard still works.

## 4.1 Applications not aware of MGR

Any tty-oriented application can be run in an MGR window without further ado. Screen-oriented applications using termcap or curses can get the correct number of lines and columns in the window by your using `shape(1)` to reshape the window or using `set_termcap(1)` to obtain the correct termcap entry.

## 4.2 MGR Applications (clients) distributed with the server

bdftomgr

  converts some BDF fonts to MGR fonts

browse

  an icon browser

bury

  bury this window

c_menu

  vi menus from C compiler errors

clock

  digital display of time of day

clock2

  analog display of time of day

close

  close this window, iconify

color

  set the foreground and background color for text in this window

colormap

  read or write in the color lookup table

cursor

  change appearance of the character cursor

cut

  cut text from this window into the cut buffer

cycle

  display a sequence of icons

dmgr

  crude ditroff previewer

fade

  fade a home movie script from one scene to another

font

  change to a new font in this window

gropbm

  a groff to PBM driver using Hershey fonts

hpmgr

  hp 2621 terminal emulator

ico

  animate an icosahedron or other polyhedron

iconmail

  notification of mail arrival

iconmsgs

  message arrival notification

ify

  iconify and deiconify windows

loadfont

  load a font from the file system

maze

  a maze game

mclock

  micky mouse clock

menu

  create or select a pop-up menu

mgr

  bellcore window system server and window manager

mgrbd

  boulder-dash game

mgrbiff

  watch mailbox for mail and notify

mgrload

  graph of system load average

mgrlock

  lock the console

mgrlogin

  graphical login controller

mgrmag

  magnify a part of the screen, optionally dump to file

mgrmail

  notification of mail arrival

mgrmode

  set or clear window modes

mgrmsgs

  message arrival notification

mgrplot

  Unix "plot" graphics filter

mgrsclock

  sandclock

mgrshowfont

  browse through mgr fonts

mgrsketch

  a sketching/drawing program

mgrview

  view mgr bitmap images

mless

  start up less/more in separate window, menu added for less

mnew

  startup up any program in a separate, independent window

mphoon

  display the current phase of the moon

mvi

  start up vi in a separate window, with mouse pointing

oclose

  (old) close a window

omgrmail

  (old) notification of mail arrival

pbmrawtomgr, pgmrawtomgr, ppmrawtomgr

  convert raw PBM/PGM/PPM image files to mgr bitmap format

pbmstream

  split out a stream of bitmaps

pbmtoprt

  printer output from PBM

pgs

  ghostscript patch and front end, a PS viewer

pilot

  a bitmap browser, or image viewer

resetwin

  cleanup window state after client crashes messily

rotate

  rotate a bitmap 90 degrees.

screendump

  write graphics screen dump to a bitmap file

set_console

  redirect console messages to this window

set_termcap

  output an appropriate TERM and TERMCAP setting

setname

  name a window, for messages and iconifying

shape

  reshape this window

square

  square this window

squeeze

  compress mgr bitmap using run-length encoding

startup

  produce a skeleton startup file for current window layout

texmgr

  TeX dvi file previewer

text2font, font2text

  convert between mgr font format and text dump

unsqueeze

  uncompress mgr bitmap using run length encoding

vgafont2mgr, mgrfont2vga

  convert between mgr font format and VGA

window_print

  print an image of a window

zoom

  an icon editor

bounce, grav, grid, hilbert, mgreyes, stringart, walk

  graphics demos

## 4.3 MGR-aware clients distributed separately, see "SUPPORT" file

calctool

  on-screen calculator

chess

  frontend to `/usr/games/chess`

gnu emacs

  editor with `lisp/term/mgr.el` mouse & menu support

gnuplot

  universal scientific data plotting

metafont

  font design and creation

origami

  folding editor

pbmplus

  portable bitmap format conversions, manipulations

plplot

  slick scientific data plotting

The Emacs support in `misc/mgr.el` and `misc/mailcap` includes very usable MIME support, via Rmail and metamail.

A general image viewer could be cobbled together from `pilot` and the netPBM filters, but I have not taken the time to do it.

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