Re: "graphics/xfig" complains about old/missing app-defaults?

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Wed, 19 Jun 2019 15:59:19 -0500 (CDT)
    From:        "John D. Baker" <jdbaker%consolidated.net@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.4.64.1906191452100.8469%spike.technoskunk.fur@localhost>

  | Anyone else use 'xfig' recently and see this?

I have been a long time xfig user, and I used to see that a lot.
It is not new.

It happens because of a combination of two things ... first, for
whatever reason, xfig does not have a default (useful) config
compiled in, like almost all other X applications do.  That is,
xterm, and (well you name it, almost anything) use the resources
file to override resources built into the program.   xfig does
not do that, it always fetches its resources from the resource
file, so when it is not found you notice it.   Like really notice it.

For almost all other X apps, if/when they don't find their default
resource file, you never even notice, as you get the same defaults
eveywhere anyway.   You only need config for things you want to
change, and it is very rare to want to do that by changing the
default resources file - instead you change something local, and
use that.

And second, the app has very little influence over resource file location.
That's all done by the X toolkit - where the standard resources are
sought is controlled by the X libraries the app links against, not
by the app itself - so there is just about nothing that the app can do
(nothing it should do, as it would be overriding user config if it did)
to change things.

That is, there is just about nothing (except changing xfig to compile
its default resources into the binary) that can be done to xfig in pkgsrc
that will have any influence over this.

This is compounded by the pgksrc policy of never installing files outside
of LOCALBASE - which does not usually include /usr/X11R7

If you were using pkgsrc modular X, everything should just work, as that
one should be configured to use /usr/pkg/share/X11/ for everything,

But it seems that you are using the standard X11R7 from the base system
x* sets (so do I).   That is configured to use  /usr/X11R7/lib/X11
as its standard location (not sure if that one can be changed in xorf.conf
or not, but XAPPLRESDIR can do it).

jdbaker%consolidated.net@localhost said:
  | In the meantime, I've sym-linked "/usr/pkg/share/X11/app-defaults/Fig" to "/
  | usr/X11R7/lib/X11/app-defaults/Fig" and 'xfig' doesn't complain anymore.

That way works, but tends to require maintanence - while xfig is the
app in which this problem is most often observed, it is not the only one.

What I do is

/usr/pkg/lib/X11/app-defaults /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/app-defaults union rw,hidden

in /etc/fstab.

That causes everying written into /usr/pkg/lib/X11/app-defaults to be
visible in /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/app-defaults where standard X11 looks for it.
(unless there's a file of the same name already there, in which case the
expectation is that you want that copy, not the pkgsrc provided version.)

I've been doing this for many (many) years now, and all the problems just
go away ... when I have had periods of using pkgsrc xorg, this just stays,
nothing looks in /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/app-defaults in that case, but it also
does no harm (as long as the directory remains existing).

kre