Re: Can someone explain this code in xterm.c?

[Alex Schroeder <alex@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     This setting is used in the calculation of the total width of the
>     frame window (in macro CHAR_TO_PIXEL_WIDTH), but in other parts of the
>     code, the width of the scroll bar _area_ is always calculated as the
>     number of scroll bar colums multiplied by the font width (canonical x
>     unit).
>
> I think that in some cases the actual display of the scroll bar is
> determined by the number of columns.  You can specify a non-integral
> width, but it leaves the excess blank.
>
> I don't remember the reason it is done this way, but I do remember 
> there was one.

Perhaps because we want scroll-bars to always look the same even if
the frame-width is not a multiple of of the column-width.  This
happens in window managers that have only one maximized window such
as ratpoison.  You cannot change the width of frames under such a
window manager, therefore you can either shrink or expand the
scroll-bars, or you can leave some space.

This is just a guess in the dark because I happen to use the
ratpoison window manager.

Alex.
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