g3cat

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Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com> writes:
> I've often wondered why X programs don't make use of stdin/stdout, to
> better work with pipes.

Last time I looked (which was a few years ago), there was no easy
access to the select() call that X sits at, waiting for events.  It
would be handy if you could register callbacks for when a given file
descriptor becomes ready for i/o.

I would also like to be able to type into fax images, but I have never
found the time to tackle the project.  I think it would be non-trivial
to get it right.  One idea for leveraging existing software that I
toyed with was to run viewfax as a slave from a perl/TK script.  There
is a program called xscope that interposes itself between the real X
server and an X application and logs what passes between them.  It
should be possible to use the same principle, with the X11:Protocol
modules from CPAN, to add functionality to viewfax without turning it
into a kitchen sink program.

Hmmm... imagine the list of desirable functions.  "From here <click>
to here <click> is the baseline of an input field with 25 character
positions.  Let me start typing and you fix the scale and inclination
of the characters, so that they fit neatly into the preprinted boxes."

-- 
Frank Cringle,      fdc@cliwe.ping.de
voice: (+49 2304) 467101; fax: 943357