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.TH XKIBITZ 1 "06 October 1994"

.SH NAME

xkibitz \- allow multiple people to interact in an xterm

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B xkibitz

[

.I xkibitz-args

] [

.I program program-args...

]

.br

.SH INTRODUCTION

.B xkibitz

allows users in separate xterms to share one shell (or any program

that runs in an xterm).  Uses include:

.RS

.TP 4

\(bu

A novice user can ask an expert user for help.  Using

.BR xkibitz ,

the expert can see what the user is doing, and offer advice or

show how to do it right.

.TP

\(bu

By running

.B xkibitz

and then starting a full-screen editor, people may carry out a

conversation, retaining the ability to scroll backwards,

save the entire conversation, or even edit it while in progress.

.TP

\(bu

People can team up on games, document editing, or other cooperative

tasks where each person has strengths and weaknesses that complement one

another.

.TP

\(bu

If you want to have a large number of people do an on-line code

walk-through, you can sit two in front of each workstation, and then

connect them all together while you everyone looks at code together

in the editor.

.SH USAGE

To start

.BR xkibitz ,

one user (the master) runs xkibitz with no arguments.

.B xkibitz

starts a new shell (or another program, if given on the command

line).  The user can interact normally with the shell, or

upon entering an escape (described when xkibitz starts) can add

users to the interaction.

To add users, enter "+ display" where display is the X display name.

If there is no ":X.Y" in the display name, ":0.0" is assumed.

The master user must have permission to access each display.

Each display is assigned

a tag \- a small integer which can be used to reference the display.

To show the current tags and displays, enter "=".

To drop a display, enter "- tag" where tag is the display's tag

according to the "=" command.

To return to the shared shell, enter "return".  Then the keystrokes of

all users become the input of the shell.  Similarly, all users receive

the output from the shell.

To terminate

.B xkibitz

it suffices to terminate the shell itself.  For example, if any user

types ^D (and the shell accepts this to be EOF), the shell terminates

followed by

.BR xkibitz .

Normally, all characters are passed uninterpreted.  However, in the

escape dialogue the user talks directly to the

.B xkibitz

interpreter.  Any

.BR Expect (1)

or

.BR Tcl (3)

commands may also be given.

Also, job control may be used while in the interpreter, to, for example,

suspend or restart

.BR xkibitz .

Various processes

can produce various effects.  For example, you can emulate a multi-way write(1)

session with the command:

        xkibitz sleep 1000000

.PP

.SH ARGUMENTS

.B xkibitz

understands a few special arguments

which should appear before the

.I program

name (if given).

Each argument should be separated by whitespace.

If the arguments themselves takes arguments,

these should also be separated by whitespace.

.B \-escape

sets the escape character.  The default escape character is ^].

.B \-display

adds a display much like the "+" command.  Multiple \-display flags

can be given.  For example, to start up xkibitz with three additional

displays:

        xkibitz -display mercury -display fox -display dragon:1.0

.SH CAVEATS

Due to limitations in both X and UNIX, resize propagation is weak.

When the master user resizes the xterm, all the other xterms are logically

resized.

Unfortunately, xkibitz cannot force the physical xterm size to correspond

with the logical xterm sizes.

The other users are free to resize their xterm but their sizes are not

propagated.  The master can check the logical sizes with the "=" command.

Deducing the window size is a non-portable operation.  The code is known

to work for recent versions of SunOS, AIX, Unicos, and HPUX.  Send back

mods if you add support for anything else.

.SH ENVIRONMENT

The environment variable SHELL is used to determine and start a shell, if no

other program is given on the command line.

If the environment variable DISPLAY is defined, its value is used for the

display name of the

.B xkibitz

master (the display with tag number 0). Otherwise this name remains empty.

Additional arguments may be passed to new xterms through

the environment variable XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS.

For example, to create xterms

with a scrollbar and a green pointer cursor:

.nf

        XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS="-sb -ms green"

        export XKIBITZ_XTERM_ARGS

.fi

(this is for the Bourne shell - use whatever syntax is appropriate for your

favorite shell). Any option can be given that is valid for the

.B xterm

command, with the exception of

.BR -display ,

.B -geometry

and

.BI -S

as those are set by

.BR xkibitz .

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR Tcl (3),

.BR libexpect (3)

.BR kibitz (1)

.br

.I

"Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs"

\fRby Don Libes,

O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

.br

.I

"kibitz \- Connecting Multiple Interactive Programs Together", \fRby Don Libes,

Software \- Practice & Experience, John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex, England,

Vol. 23, No. 5, May, 1993.

.SH AUTHOR

Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology