Re: emacs not finding Xdefaults

[James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>]

>>>>> "rustom" == rustom <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

rustom> I have a .Xdefaults file containing things like

rustom> Strangely when X starts it does not use these settings but if I
rustom> start emacs-snapshot-gtk from the shell it finds them.

There are two ways an ~/.Xdefaults file can get used.

Many server startup script merge any ~/.Xdefaults files into the
server's resource db.  This finds ~/.Xdefaults files on the box where
the X server process runs.  (That distinction becomes relevant whenever
remote clients are run using the local server for their DISPLAY.)

Also, libX11 will load in any ~/.Xdefaults files it finds whenever a
client starts up.  Except that it will ignore ~/.Xdefaults if any
resources are already in the server's resource db.

Finally, libX11 will also look for and load resources from
any ~/.Xdefaults-$(hostname) files it finds.

In the case of remote clients, libX11 of course only sees files on the
box where the client is running.

If you use ~/.Xdefaults-$(hostname) (of course replacing $(hostname)
with the output of /bin/hostname) instead of ~/.Xdefaults you can be
sure it is loaded every time a client starts.

I usually keep a symlink ~/.Xdefaults-$(hostname) pointing to .Xdefaults
to make management easier.

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6