Tenon X Tools

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ditka85

Registered
DO NOT INSTALL Tenon Software's X Tools for MacOS X.

This installer causes many serious problems, including deleting many of the BSD Unix directories (/usr, /bin/ etc.) and also the /Applications directory. Tenon has known about this for nearly two weeks, and it has happened to many users. They refuse to post any warning on their site (who would install and perhaps purchase their software if these types of problems can occur?).

 
This is very unfortunate news, but does Tenon officially support OS X 10.0 or is it just limited to OS X Public Beta for now?

I'm sure they'll have a fix for it soon, but I've been hearing a lot about xonx lately and I don't see much of a point in buying something from Tenon when I can use and configure XFree for free, even though I can't combine the desktops.
 

No, this is an official Mac OS X release. They may or may not have a fix soon, but the installer floating around is dangerous. What mattyb77 says about XonX is right -- there is no reason to buy this software.

 
I've got it installed, & I've not got those issues. :/ I'm not implying that it's not occurred to you, of course; but is it obvious that it is indeed XTools' fault (i.e., is there verification on this) &/or is there any further info the issue itself? If it's only the installer that has issues, I guess I got lucky.

I installed iTools from Tenon, & I guess it's incompatible with OmniWeb. It'd have been nice to get that info, too; instead of finding out once I'd installed it. I'm getting a low opinion of Tenon overall, but I'd like to be optimistic.

Noel
 
I have a friend who works at Tenon, the release is NOT yet final. The product you can download is only a final candidate. It's a rocking product, but the installer (Apple's) is still twitchy. They are working on it.

The major work going on RIGHT NOW is getting the installer to be happy.
 
I don't care if it is accelerated or not. $199 is way too much for an X Windows server. I got Photoshop 6 for the same price and that's a lot more value for the money--much more complex a piece of software. Tenon needs to price it at $49--then I'd consider it. They must be using the same calculator to price their software that Wall Street used last year to price Dot-com stocks ;-)
 
The price of Photoshop is irrelevant. When you need a hammer you don't buy a pork chop because it's cheaper.

If you need accelerated GLX there is currently only one solution.

Nobody is asking you to buy XTools. The less X11 proliferates the better IMO
 
Don't know about you, but I don't buy an over-priced hammer that isn't even released to production and is admittedly buggy when I can pound nails with an unfancy,serviceable one for free. The more software *any* computer supports the greater utility to a greater market it is. If you don't like X, don't use it, but there is strong precedent for X-based application being popular and useful. SO you are in the monroty--thank you for your personal opinion. In fact X is key to migrating current Unix software to Mac OS X. I am surprised APple didn't do a good X server themselves.

I don't want Mac OS X to start suffering from the elitist mentality that has banished some good (well except CDE ;-) technologies in the past (like NeXt & Solaris CDE) to the niches partly because they didn't support a broad enough base of applications and variants to attract a large market. They needed that to achieve the scale economy to reach escape velocity and survive. Mac OS SX looks pretty good and should stand on it's own, but there's no reason to be so elitist about.
 
Originally posted by strobe

.....

The less X11 proliferates the better IMO [/B]
Click to expand...

WTF? So you want the Macintosh to NOT have that many applications avaible for it's users? Do you even want it to become a popular platform to use?

Thinking like that stated above by strobe is going to sign Apple's death warrent. The more software avaible, the better. Who cares where it came from, or where it started. If it can be ported over, then do it. More software = more users.


We need *MORE* users, _NOT_ _LESS_ USERS.

Port software or say good bye to Apple and hello to Microsoft.
 
The Macintosh is very much what it is today because a lot of programmers and users were not happy with something that was just "Good Enough." There's a quote out there something like -
"A rational person will adapt to his environment, but an irrational person will attempt to alter his environment to suit himself. Therefore all technological advancement depends on irrational people."
We must be careful about quality vs. quantity. I too would like XTools to be cheaper. I can get Virtual PC for well under $100, I can't get a window manager for under $200? Well, I can't get VPC for X yet, but that's beside the point. X would make porting a lot of unix code easier, but it would also make the port generally suck, as X Windowing has a lot of suck in it. It would also make for an even more confusing user interface. If the Y2K bug has shown us anything it's that good enough has a tendency to stick around rather than get improved.
Porting a lot of X stuff now may mean that it never gets ported well in the future. I like that there is a very clean X server that lives on top of Aqua. I'm also very happy that it's not bundled into the OS by default. I'm similarly happy that the BSD tools are not to be depended upon. Apple has provided a wonderful geek OS while making apps developers take home user issues to heart for the install and usability of their programs.
If your real desire is to be on the side with the most players, you're on the wrong side. ;-)
My desire is to make computers suck less. If you think that computers don't have significant suck issues, you've never done tech support.
 
that is if you equate ported to performing optimally.I do not based upon years of expereince on many platforms. So I think assumption is not a good one. Aqua and Quartz are light-years ahead of X. No one will stop and be happy with X on X--it will be a stop-gap that will allow the Mac to garner a larger share of mind in the market. A very, very positive thing.

My position was, and still is, what I said in my first post: Get them over on X while we port them to Cocoa, Quartz, Aqua, et al.. Then I can run them now, sub-optimally, while we work on getting them to use the world-class GUI in Mac OS X. Given the industriousness of Mac programmers, I don't think good applications would come over in X and stay there, languishing and missing out on Aqua--no way. Look around you: even before Mac OS X, people went to great pains to port a lot of software to a single-tasking, non-Java2 supporting, behind Win2k OS. Jsut imagine what's going to happen now.
 
I have no argument that Aqua and Quartz are light-years ahead of X. I'd be a fool if I did. Using X11 as a stepping stone, -is- a good thing. If/when we get those X11 app's running natively, then that would be happiness :)

Until then, having a rootless X11 server, running X11 apps will have to do. And to normal users who haven't a clue of what what is going on in the background, it makes a bunch of app's avaible, thus making OS X a more promising choice, than with out X11.
 
I think everybody is grossly eggageratring the quantity and quality of X11 apps. The only X11 apps I'm looking forward to seeing a port of are commercial. Also most X11 apps are real hack jobs so I hesitate calling it a 'port' to Cocoa, more like writing a Cocoa app implementing key features of the X11 app.

Most X11 apps are used to display a graphic, controls, or a table. In each of these cases you get numerous benefits by using Cocoa objects. XonX could develop an NSX11ImageRep which would be analogous to the NSPICTImageRep which would allow X11 developers to dump a lot of their drawing code in their Cocoa app, but again why not just use NSBezierPath and get superior graphics? It doesn't make sense to me. I would rather have ten proper ports than the best X11 server on earth, because even the most ideal X11 server implementation would suck ass.

Consider that X11 drawing functions are even inferior to QuickDraw. When you scroll a window you shift the visible portion and copy what wasn't visible. QuickDraw has a function for this common routine, X11 does not. It's so mindnumbingly stupid I refuse to bring up other examples.

The standard way X11 handles copy and paste also takes the cake for stupidity. Makes me wonder why X11 mice only have three buttons, why not eighteen? Hey, I can move a window with my pinky and resize it with my left nipple.

That said the only problem I have with the current state of affairs is XTools uses Aqua title bars which is a horrible horrible horrible idea.
 
commercial x servers have always been expensive. this is nothing new. just try to find a commercial x server, for any platform, under $200.

these packages are designed for and sold to a very small/specific audience. if the price isn't appealing... just assume that you are not a member of that audience.



 
Originally posted by strobe

.... I would rather have ten proper ports than the best X11 server on earth, because even the most ideal X11 server implementation would suck ass.

Consider that X11 drawing functions are even inferior to QuickDraw. When you scroll a window you shift the visible portion and copy what wasn't visible. QuickDraw has a function for this common routine, X11 does not. It's so mindnumbingly stupid I refuse to bring up other examples.

<snip>

AMEN

<snip>

The standard way X11 handles copy and paste also takes the cake for stupidity. Makes me wonder why X11 mice only have three buttons, why not eighteen? Hey, I can move a window with my pinky and resize it with my left nipple.

<snip>

Again, AMEN

<snip>


That said the only problem I have with the current state of affairs is XTools uses Aqua title bars which is a horrible horrible horrible idea.

[/B]
Click to expand...

Oh how true. Now that you explaine where you are comming from, I cant argue, but only agree. These reasons, and many more, are why I bought my iMac DV+ and loaded a bunch of ram in it. Then I made my linux box (currantly moving over to BSD) just a server (email, file server, ect..)
 
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