Colors change when switching between apps

[Jeroen_D]

Hi,

I have a colorchange problem. When I work in a CAD program, then launch a Citrix Metaframe session (X), and then return to the CAD program, I sometimes see a shift in colors. I have to click on a window inside the CAD program and then the colors are okay.

I have heard something about X colormap...

Does this ring a bell with anyone ?

Thanks in advance,
Jeroen.

[Alex Glennie]

Overview of X color use and the Technicolor Effect
Generally, X applications will use the default colormap, which, by default, has
256 colormap slots available for color allocation and is shared by all other
clients that use the default colormap.
As unique colors are allocated, the map slots are marked "in use" and after 256
unique colors are allocated (between all users using this colormap) the
colormap is full and no more colors can be allocated.
The map slots are shared (by default) and users requesting colors that are
already allocated will use the already allocated map slots (however, users can
attempt to allocate private color cells in the color map and these color cells
will not be shared with other users, even if the colors are the same as already
allocated colors).

Applications that are color intensive sometimes create their own colormap (this
is what netscape does when invoked with the install option) and will have all
256 colormap slots available to them. There is no practical limit to the
number of private colormaps that can be created; however, depending on the
graphics hardware (as mentioned above), there is a limit to the number of
hardware colormaps that can be installed at any given time.

The limit on hardware colormaps will not prevent a client from running or
allocating its own colormap, but it can give the technicolor effect, or
flickering. The window manager will install the appropriate colormap when a
client with a private colormap receives the input focus. The net effect of
this is that the other applications' colormaps will be swapped out and colors
will appear to "flash" into potentially completely different sets of colors
than are actually intended.

This is seen with Starbase-based applications and X/Motif applications that
allocate too many private color cells.

So my guess is citrix and your cad application are conflicting and/or you are running out of colors. What H/W are you using xterminal ?

ps you may want to free up more colors from CDE to your applications : use stylemanager-> colors-> number of colors ..... to change but it may not help !

[Jeroen_D]

Hello,

thanks for the info.
The Unix machine is a B2000 with its built-in graphics card.

Previous stations were hp715's which had no problems, but there might have been some special colormappings...

I will try changing the CDE colorsettings,

Jeroen.

[Alex Glennie]

what's the CAD application ...... my guess is both applications are using their own private colormaps.

What's the O/S ? I may have a program that may help issolate which applications eating colors .... do you have an email address ?

If its a B2000 I guess you have an fxe internal card : graphinfo will list this. What patch level are you at June 2001 Xserver & CDE patches = + dependancies would be a good move .... lot of problems fixed wrt fxe etc recently see patch text for full details.

[Jeroen_D]

Thanks for the quick answers.

The CAD application is ME10 Rev.8.70 iirc.
The B2000 is running HP-UX 10.20 and the terminal server is a Win2k server with Citrix Metaframe (rev. not yet known to me, but it is not XP).

I have added the output of some come commands in the attachment.
I will check my CD's for patches for the FXE card.

[Jeroen_D]

forgot to mention my emailaddress :
jeroen.demets@savaco.com

Feel free to send me the detection program...

Jeroen.