SUMMARY - Need to display X programs on multiple machines

From: david.bailey@aea.orgn.uk
Date: Thu Aug 12 1993 - 14:42:04 CDT


Sorry it has taken so long to send this summary.

Original query:
>Is there any software which will let me run an X Windows program on one
>machine and display on a number of other machines simultaneously?
>I think I saw something about this fairly recently, but I can't find it in the
>archives.

I wanted to display an X graphics application on multiple remote
displays for tutorial purposes. I had two versions of the application,
one which used SUN PHIGS as the graphics driver, and the other which used
straight Xlib. None of the solutions that I tried displayed the PHIGS version
correctly (the colours messed up).

The alternatives were:

        xwatchwin2 is available from gatekeeper.dec.com in
/.0/usenet/comp.sources.x/xwatchwin2.
        XMX (an X Protocol Multiplexor) is available from wilma.cs.brown.edu
(128.148.33.66) as pub/xmx.tar.Z It works independently of the server and does
not affect the application being shared; it was developed for use in the
electronic classroom. An update is expected soon [5/93].
        XTV is a conference program which can be used to duplicate the
"chalkboard" on several displays. Release 1 is available on the X11R5 contrib
tapes; a more recent version is on ftp.cs.odu.edu as pub/wahab/XTV.r2.tar.Z.
        SHX from Michael Altenhofen of Digital Equipment GmbH CEC Karlsruhe
also does this; it is a "WYSIWIS" (What You See Is What I See) package in the
context of a computer-based learning/training tool to provide online help from
remote tutors but is also useful for general window sharing. Information:
shX@nestvx.enet.dec.com. SHX can be found on export and
                gatekeeper.dec.com:/pub/X11/contrib/shX.tar.Z,
                crl.dec.com:/pub/X11/contrib/shX.tar.Z
Modifications to SHX for color mapping and private color allocation by
Mark J. Handley (M.Handley@cs.ucl.ac.uk) are on cs.ucl.ac.uk in
car/shX.car.tar.Z.
        XTrap is implemented as a server/library extension and can be used
to record and then replay an x session. It is available as
export.lcs.mit.edu:/contrib/XTrapV33_X11R5.tar.Z.
        wscrawl can be used as a "multi-person paint program". It's available
on sax.stanford.edu as wscrawl.shar.Z. Binaries are on doppler.ncsc.org in
pub/wscrawl.
        Shdr implements a simple shared whiteboard, without a chalk-passing
mechanism. It's available on parcftp.xerox.com as pub/europarc/shdr.tar.Z.
        SketchPad 1.0 (3/93) is a distributed interactive graphical editor
particularly designed for sketching. Sources have been posted to alt.sources
and are available from ftp.igd.fhg.de (192.44.32.1) in ~ftp/incoming/sketchpad.
        The NESTOR project is described in "Upgrading A Window System For
Tutoring Functions", Michael Altenhofen et al., the proceedings of the EXUG
Conference 11/90.
        Hewlett-Packard Co. has a commercial product, "HP SharedX" which works
under HP-UX currently on their 300, 400, and 700 series workstations and their
HP 700/RX X Stations. Machines receiving shared windows can be any X server.
HP SharedX consists of a server extensions and a Motif based user interface
process. Contact your local HP sales rep. for more information.
        IBM offers a commercial product.
        Sun offers multi-user confering software called ShowMe.
        InSoft (Mechanicsburg, PA, USA) offers multi-user confering software
called Communique.
        X/TeleScreen from GVI is a tool based on the Motif standard for sharing
applications written to the X Window System standard. It allows many
users to interact with applications such as ACCENT GraphicVUE, AutoCAD,
CorelDraw, FrameMaker and Wingz at the same time and converts these
applications into powerful collaboration tools. Documents, drawings,
spreadsheets or projects can be updated simultaneously in real time.

I tried shx, xwatchwin2, and xmx.

shx looked OK and quite fast for text but couldn't handle the graphics.

xwatchwin2 was OK for text, possibly a touch slow, but way too
slow for graphics.

xmx was the best. This is the one I will use.

Thanks to:

blymn@mulga.awadi.com.AU (Brett Lymn)
macphed@dvinci.usask.ca (Ian MacPhedran)
Richard.Czech@gmd.de (Richard Czech)
danny@ews7.dseg.ti.com (Danny Johnson)
xhaque@etnsed.COM (Amanul Haque)
strombrg@hydra.acs.uci.edu (Dan Stromberg)
sjh@helicon.math.purdue.edu (Steve Holmes)
cameron@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Cameron Humphries)
john@oncology.uthscsa.edu (John Justin Hough)
dylan@teesside.ac.uk (Dylan Littlewood)
jones@stavanger.sgp.slb.com (Martha Jones)
poc@usb.ve (Patrick O'Callaghan)
carmine@usb.ve (Carmine Di Biase Cardone)
jtcummi@sandia.gov (Jeff Cummings)
crm@reston.eri.com (Charlie Mengel - LGI)

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