Changing the font color

[James Trickey]

At our company we have several applications that run under OPEN VMS, and we are porting to HP Integrity platform. These applications include GUI windows, some of which were designed with white backgrounds. Since the font color was black, that was fine. Unfortunately, the Open VMS 8.3 decwindows on the Integrity has the font color defaulted to white, which makes it invisible on a white background. I have search the VMS documentation but I cannot find a way to change the font color. We do not want to rewrite all our GUIs just to make the text visible, particularly as our cusomers specifically requested black text on a white background.
How do you change the default font color?

[Hoff]

AFAIK, this color scheme hasn't changed in ages and it was directly carried across from Alpha to Integrity, so I'd have to assume there's something in the login directory or the DECW$SYSTEM_DEFAULTS: (usually *.DAT) or DECW$USER_DEFAULTS: path that is changing the colors on the original system(s).

This case is also something I've seen with the web; the application itself asks for the font and not for the background. (It's a fairly classic HTML UI boo-boo.)

The usual settings are made using X calls within the application, or in the application-specific resource files, or in the process-wide xdefaults file DECW$XDEFAULTS.DAT. (CDE has its own [.DT...] subdirectory, too.)

If this is DECterm, you can set up the foreground and background using the menus.

If it were me, I'd look and see what was setting the colors in your existing applications, and add the background stuff. Failing that, look in the defaults areas. Search what *.DAT you've got for "background", "color" or such. (What the resource name is depends on what interface is involved.)

[James Trickey]

I must disagree. The color scheme is not the same. I have access to several Alphas, most running Open VMS 7.3-2, and the font color (or foreground color) is definitely black, but the HP Integrity, running 8.3, is definitely white.

Furthurmore, in VMS 7.3, the forground color can be changed from the Workspace menu, using the Matte form. This no longer an option with 8.3, and the new Style Manager does not allow for it.

[Hoff]

Please provide some specific details on the application and the application environment.

Fonts and font colors are used all over the place; that the colors have changed doesn't isolate the particular area(s) involved.

Is this application using the CDE or Motif interface? Has that changed between the existing environment and the new?

Is the application using a DECterm display, or a locally-developed X Windows interface?

Do statements of background and foreground or colors exist within the resource files for X Windows or within the application resource files? These text files can be searched.

If you should have a support contract in place with HP, I might suggest ringing up HP to have them take a look at this. Over the years, the cases here I've seen have largely been involving local settings in the resource files or in the application -- that's in my code, and in the code I've looked at (or have troubleshot) from others. Or latent bugs.

In my own application code, I strive to set neither the foreground nor the background (leaving this up to the user or the site administrator, in deference to those users with specific visual requirements), or I prefer to set both the foreground and the background colors. (I've certainly made and subsequently forgotten about color settings made within the resource files for the system or the application, too. Were this my code or system, I would suspect this is something in my code, or in a locally-tailored resource file, or something that might well be adjusted through a local resource file.)

But if it's a bug or change in DECwindows, then it's something to discuss directly with HP.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs.com

[James Trickey]

Our applications are writtem in Decwindows Motif, using UIL files as well as X windows routines. Many of the color choices were made by our customers, in particular that certain forms be white with black text.
What your saying is that HP has decided to hard code the forground color to white, and remove the ability to change that on a session or account basis. They must be taking lessons from Microsoft.
As a result we will have to do what we were hoping we would not have to do, and edit every one of our UIL files to add the foreground color.