Scroll bar slider jumps to top in DW 1.7

[polar sunflower]

Hello OpenVMS friends! This is my first post here, so feel free to club me with a 2x4 if I don't do this right.

I installed OpenVMS 8.4 with DECwindows Motif 1.7 on a clean disk of an I64 rx2660.

PROBLEM:
On a DECterm, the slider on the vertical scroll bar doesn't work properly. Instead of scrolling up as it should, the text jumps all the way to the beginning of the lines that were recorded off the top. If I want to see what's in the body of the recorded lines, I have to use the arrows or click in the empty space above the slider.

QUESTION:
Is there a setting to change this behavior, to make the slider scroll through the entire body of recorded lines as it should? Or is this a bug in DECwindows, and if so, is there a patch? (I tried to search, but didn't find.)

INFORMATION:
My current DECterm settings are--

Window Options:
Auto Resize Window
Terminal Driver Resize
Condensed Font
Little Font (default)
24 rows
132 columns

Display Options:
Record Lines Off Top
Vertical Scroll Bar
Vertical Cursor Coupling
Auto Wrap
Display Cursor
Cursor Blink
Light Text, Dark Background
No Status Display
Block Cursor
Batch Scroll 0 Lines
Record 500 Lines Off Top

General Options:
Normal Cursor Keys
Application Keypad
UPSS ISO Latin 1
8-bit Multinational Characters
VT300 Mode, 7-bit Controls
DECterm ID

Graphics Options:
Enable Backing Store
4 Bit Planes

MORE INFORMATION:

I also have an application that I wrote in C, using X-windows. It has a dialog box with a vertial scroll bar. That dialog box's scroll bar slider exhibits the same bad behavior. I have thousands of rows, so without the slider working properly, it's nearly impossible to get to the rows I want to scroll to. The program was linked on an older machine against the following (OpenVMS 8.3/DECwindow 1.6) libraries:

SYS$SHARE:DECW$DWMLIBSHR12 /SHAREABLE
SYS$SHARE:DECW$XMLIBSHR12 /SHAREABLE
SYS$SHARE:DECW$XTLIBSHRR5 /SHAREABLE
SYS$SHARE:DECW$XLIBSHR /SHAREABLE
SYS$SHARE:DECW$MRMLIBSHR12 /SHAREABLE

On my older rx2600 machine that has OpenVMS 8.3 installed, the scroll bar slider works perfectly in both the DECterm and in my program's dialog box.

[Hoff]

Smells strongly of bug.

Local (direct) or remote X Windows?

If remote, what X Window Server? (the X server runs on the box with the keyboard and display attached, and not on the box that you or I would call the "server".)

Look for the DECwindows and Graphics and OpenVMS and UPDATE and any USB patches (before the patch lockdown arrives, if it hasn't already) and then (if you have support) ring up the HP support center for help with this.

And for grins, try swapping the rodent for a different one; maybe the one from the rx2600 box.

And for additional grins, use a remote X display into another X Windows server (Mac OS X has X11, as does most any other Unix or Linux distro, and free and commercial add-on X Windows servers are available for Microsoft Windows, too.

[Rick Retterer · Accepted solution]

Wooly,
We've reproduced the problem you have described here in the customer support center and we are in the process of elevating this issue to engineering.

We've noticed that it's not isolated to just DECterms. We can reproduce the problem in anything that uses a scrolled window. For example if you bring up Style Manager, then select Keyboard... and try to scroll the list of available keyboards, it jumps from the top of the list to the bottom without you ever seeing the entire list. You have to use the up and down arrows in the scroll bar slider widget to scroll it to see the entire buffer.

I'd recommend that if you have a software support agreement, that you log a call on this issue when you can.

We are jumping on this issue to get it resolved quickly as it seems to impact a lot of applications.

Cheers,
Rick Retterer
HP Support.

[Rick Retterer]

Oh,
BTW... it also happens when you use a remote PC X display Server as well. Such as ReflectionX, or eXceed.

I suspect (as does Hoff) a bug in the runtime libraries.

Rick

[polar sunflower]

Thank you Rick! You have brightened my day.

My findings agree with your conclusion.

In response to Hoff, Local. I installed all patches up through Sep 22, 2010, and they did not solve the problem. The Microsoft mouse did no better than the HP mouse.

FURTHER TESTS:

I ran my_program on I64 node BAD84 while using I64 node GOOD83 as a display device. The scroll bar in my dialog box did NOT work.

So I reversed the machines. I ran my_program on I64 node GOOD83 while using I64 node BAD84 as a display device. The scroll bar DID work.

This demonstrated that the problem originates in the X-Client and not the X-Server, as you indicated.

I also ran my_program on node ALPHA84, where I installed the new Alpha 8.4 that arrived in a nice June 2010 box. I used I64 node GOOD83 as a display device and the scroll bar DID work. Therefore, it does NOT appear that the Alpha 8.4 from June 2010 is affected by this problem.

I will log a call on this issue right away.

Again, thanks Rick and Hoff!!

[Ian Miller.]

I am informed there is now a fix for this.

[polar sunflower]

Yes! HP created a fix for DECwindows 1.7, specifically DECW$XMLIBSHR12.EXE. I tested it yesterday and it works beautifully. Many many thanks to Rick and those at HP who got this fixed quickly!

[polar sunflower]

HP created a patch to fix this.

[Sowislo]

Hi Woolly,
I have the same problem.
what is the name of the patch
OVMS 8.4 DECW$XMLIBSHR12.EXE
and where can I get it?

regards
Sowislo

[polar sunflower]

I do not see any mention of it in the VMS84I_UPDATE_V0400 update kit release notes, nor do I see an update kit specific to DECwindows, so I don't know. HP Support sent me the executable to test before adding it to an update kit. I indicated that it worked for me. So maybe you should ask the HP Support folks.

[Rick Retterer]

Sowislo,
You will need to open a call with HP OpenVMS support. The patched image will be included in a future released version of the Decwindows Motif patches. However, for now, the patch is a one-off patch only available by logging a call with the HP OpenVMS Decwindows support team.

You will need a valid software support contract to get this updated image. So, when you call to open a case, you will be required to provide your SAID (Software Agreement ID) number, so have that handy.

Cheers,
Rick