How to Lock Color Maps to Prevent Flashing
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
Many users of Island Software applications contact Island Software Technical
Support to report seeing 'color flashing' on their monitors when switching
back and forth between Island and non-Island applications.
'Color flashing' is common and is preventable, though it is not considered
a software bug.
The workstation's colormap is shared among all active applications at
any one time. When the applications together use more than 256 colors,
the system will swap the colormap to the appropriate one for the application
that the mouse pointer is positioned on.
SOLUTIONS/WORKAROUNDS
OPENWINDOWS/OPENLOOK:
Place the cursor in the Island application window and press
Ctrl-L2 to lock the colormap for use with a single application.
Press Ctrl-L4 to unlock the colormap, allowing the colormap to change
between applications, flashing as necessary. On more recent
Sun keyboards, try Ctrl-Again.
MOTIF:
An effect similar to the OpenWindows colormap lock can be attained
under the Motif window manager by doing the following:
1. In your ~/.Xdefaults file add:
Mwm*colormapFocusPolicy:
explicit
This prevents the colormap focus from following the keyboard focus.
2. Then in your .mwmrc file add to the RootMenu:
"Colormap"
f.focus_color
and add to the MwmWindowMenu:
"Colormap"
f.focus_color
3. Log out and back in again. Now an additional entry
in the indicated menu's (Colormap) will install that window's colormap.
HP-VUE/MOTIF:
1. Users will need to modify the .vue/vuewmrc in their directory.
Add the following line in two places -- the RootMenu definitions
and to the DefaultWindowMenu definitions:
"Colormap" f.focus_color
2. Then, to ~/.Xdefaults, add the lines:
Mwm*colormapFocusPolicy:
explicit
Mwm*windowMenu:
DefaultWindowMenu
Mwm*buttonBindings:
PointerButtonBindings
3. Log out and back in again.