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

["John D. Baker" <jdbaker%consolidated.net@localhost>]

On Thu, 20 Jun 2019, Robert Elz wrote:

>   | Also, the "xfig" package installs the "Fig" resource file to
>   |
>   |   /usr/pkg/share/X11/app-defaults
>   |
>   | while packages like "tightvncviewer", "xlock" and "xscreensaver" store
>   | their resource files to "/usr/pkg/lib/X11/app-defaults".  Perhaps there
>   | is a consistency issue here?
> 
> Yes, that one might indicate a bug that ought to be fixed.

Scanning all the PLIST* files indicates that of all packages installing
into some sort of "X11/app-defaults/Foo" resource file, "graphics/xfig"
is the only one installing to "share/X11/app-defaults/Fig" while all
the others install to "lib/X11/app-defaults/Foo".

> When I look I see that when I last installed xfig (March, last year) it
> also installed the resources file into /usr/pkg/share/X11/app-defaults
> as I apparenltly made a link into /usr/pkg/lib/X11/app-defaults so it
> would be found by my union mount.

Just in case it worked, I also changed the symlink the same way, but
no dice.  If I ran it like:

  $ XAPPLRESDIR=/usr/pkg/lib/X11/app-defaults xfig

it runs without complaint.

I know it used to Just Work(tm) without me having to do anything, or
maybe it just failed silently rather than pop up a complaint window.

It appears the PLIST history is missing.  The current revision is 1.12,
but there are no entries prior to that shown in the cvs-web interface.


>   | (A quick check seems to indicate my next-most-recent use of 'xfig'
>   | was in August of 2017.
> 
> I used to use it all the time - almost daily for many years - when I was
> teaching all the diagrams in my lecture presentations, etc, were made with
> xfig (similarly diagrams for exam papers, etc).
> 
> More recently I have been using it for other purposes.   xfig has its
> "issues" but there is nothing else quite the same that I know of.

I was drawing a shift-pattern diagram for my cousin's Ford 3600 tractor.
It has the rather uncommon "6x4" transmission (6 forward, 4 reverse
speeds).  Right now it's on an adhesive label stuck to the instrument
panel and covered over with transparent packing tape (replacing the
fading one I scrawled with a Sharpie marker).  Would be nice to use it
as a resist mask for etching an aluminum plate.

The last time (late August 2017), I was making custom labels for some
bottles of home-made hot sauce that I then put in the charity auction
at a science fiction convention (raised about $40/bottle).

(And before that I made a custom label for a jar of honey that a friend
recovered from one of his bee hives after they went insane and left it
all behind (Colony Collapse Disorder)).

A number of years before, I hacked up a perl script to generate Fig
output that plotted the approximations of a series of Archimedes spirals
of specified path length between two bounding circles with angular
offsets of pi()/6.  I eventually used it to generate DXF for CAD/CAM,
but the sheer number of line segments made "heekscad" barf.  It was to
be used to drive a CNC mill to make a 4x5 sheet-film adapter that would
fit a four-spool Patterson Super System 4 processing tank.

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