Problem setting VW home directory using X11 on Intel Mac

>
> I'm having a pretty basic problem setting the VisualWorks home
> directory in a clean visual.im running in X11 using the preview VM on
> a new Intel Mac. This has never been a problem for me before using X11
> and native VMs on previous PowerPC-based machines.
>
> Upon selecting Apply in the Settings dialog having set the home
> directory to /Developer/vw7.4.1 where VW is installed I get the error:
> "Unable to set the VISUALWORKS environment variable.
> If you are running on Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000 you may not have the
> proper permissions to write to the system registry. Please contact
> your system administrator."
>
> I have been able to set the $VISUALWORKS variable successfully by
> adding "export VISUALWORKS=/Developer/vw7.4.1" to a copy of the
> .xinitrc file in my home dir but it seems that VW does not use this.
>
> Has anyone had this problem on Mac/*NIX? Should I be checking
> permissions on a particular file somewhere?
>
> Thanks,
> Rowan.
>
> www.softwarewithstyle.com
>
>

> I've got the same problem!  Anybody running this successfully?
>
> Mike
>
> Rowan Bunning wrote:
>>
>> I'm having a pretty basic problem setting the VisualWorks home
>> directory in a clean visual.im running in X11 using the preview VM on
>> a new Intel Mac. This has never been a problem for me before using
>> X11 and native VMs on previous PowerPC-based machines.
>>
>> Upon selecting Apply in the Settings dialog having set the home
>> directory to /Developer/vw7.4.1 where VW is installed I get the error:
>> "Unable to set the VISUALWORKS environment variable.
>> If you are running on Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000 you may not have the
>> proper permissions to write to the system registry. Please contact
>> your system administrator."
>>
>> I have been able to set the $VISUALWORKS variable successfully by
>> adding "export VISUALWORKS=/Developer/vw7.4.1" to a copy of the
>> .xinitrc file in my home dir but it seems that VW does not use this.
>>
>> Has anyone had this problem on Mac/*NIX? Should I be checking
>> permissions on a particular file somewhere?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Rowan.
>>
>> www.softwarewithstyle.com
>>
>>
>
>

> Ok, I set a halt and stepped through the setting of the environment  
> variable and everything would look correct, then I would proceed  
> and still get the error.  So I started to think something was weird  
> with my environment variables.  In the readme in the vw7.4.1nc/bin/
> preview/macx86x11 directory clear down at the bottom there is this:
>
> 2. Environment variables are implemented as entries in the  
> UserDefaults
>   database.  Each user has his own UserDefaults database where, e.g.,
>   the variable VISUALWORKS is stored, if set.  Because the  
> UserDefaults
>   database is only written on a clean application quit, VisualWorks
>   sometimes misses this database operation.  You can set the
>   define manually from a Terminal:
>
>      user% defaults write com.cincom.vw7.3 '{ VISUALWORKS = /
> <YourPathGoesHere>/vw7.3 }'
>
> So I started monkeying with the defaults command in a terminal.  In  
> a terminal I did a
>
> defaults find cincom
>
> and it came back with a key value pair for com.cincom.vw7.4.1nc and  
> some horribly long mangled weird thing for the value.  So I did
>
> defaults delete com.cincom.vw7.4.1nc
>
> Then I just made a script to export VISUALWORKS=<my installation  
> path> and open the visual.app with the image as the argument and  
> everything worked.  I don't where along the line things got  
> mungered, but I had the same symptoms as Rowan.
>
> When I installed, I installed off of the 7.4.1 june06.3 iso from  
> the ftp site.
>
> Mike Hales wrote:
>> I've got the same problem!  Anybody running this successfully?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> Rowan Bunning wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm having a pretty basic problem setting the VisualWorks home  
>>> directory in a clean visual.im running in X11 using the preview  
>>> VM on a new Intel Mac. This has never been a problem for me  
>>> before using X11 and native VMs on previous PowerPC-based machines.
>>>
>>> Upon selecting Apply in the Settings dialog having set the home  
>>> directory to /Developer/vw7.4.1 where VW is installed I get the  
>>> error:
>>> "Unable to set the VISUALWORKS environment variable.
>>> If you are running on Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000 you may not have  
>>> the proper permissions to write to the system registry. Please  
>>> contact your system administrator."
>>>
>>> I have been able to set the $VISUALWORKS variable successfully by  
>>> adding "export VISUALWORKS=/Developer/vw7.4.1" to a copy of  
>>> the .xinitrc file in my home dir but it seems that VW does not  
>>> use this.
>>>
>>> Has anyone had this problem on Mac/*NIX? Should I be checking  
>>> permissions on a particular file somewhere?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Rowan.
>>>
>>> www.softwarewithstyle.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

> I had the same problem.
>
> I deleted the entry in the defaults database, but then launching the
> image by dropping the image file on the VM (after X!! has been
> launched) cannot set the image path (even with the export set during
> login).
>
> I could not get your solution to work either:
> (1) deleted the cincom entries in UserDefaults.
> (2) created a script with these commands:
>
> export VISUALWORKS=/Applications/vw7.4.1nc
> open /Applications//vw7.4.1nc/bin/preview/macx86x11/visual.app/
> /Users/rowuyts/Documents/Development/VW7.4.1/RoelTyper.im
>
> opens up the image fine, but with the same problems as before (path
> set wrong and no way to set it from within VisualWorks). What do you
> do in your script (I guess I am messing up somewhere) ?
>
>
> On 25 Jul 2006, at 16:56, Mike Hales wrote:
>
>> Ok, I set a halt and stepped through the setting of the environment
>> variable and everything would look correct, then I would proceed and
>> still get the error.  So I started to think something was weird with
>> my environment variables.  In the readme in the
>> vw7.4.1nc/bin/preview/macx86x11 directory clear down at the bottom
>> there is this:
>>
>> 2. Environment variables are implemented as entries in the UserDefaults
>>   database.  Each user has his own UserDefaults database where, e.g.,
>>   the variable VISUALWORKS is stored, if set.  Because the UserDefaults
>>   database is only written on a clean application quit, VisualWorks
>>   sometimes misses this database operation.  You can set the
>>   define manually from a Terminal:
>>
>>      user% defaults write com.cincom.vw7.3 '{ VISUALWORKS =
>> /<YourPathGoesHere>/vw7.3 }'
>>
>> So I started monkeying with the defaults command in a terminal.  In a
>> terminal I did a
>>
>> defaults find cincom
>>
>> and it came back with a key value pair for com.cincom.vw7.4.1nc and
>> some horribly long mangled weird thing for the value.  So I did
>>
>> defaults delete com.cincom.vw7.4.1nc
>>
>> Then I just made a script to export VISUALWORKS=<my installation
>> path> and open the visual.app with the image as the argument and
>> everything worked.  I don't where along the line things got mungered,
>> but I had the same symptoms as Rowan.
>>
>> When I installed, I installed off of the 7.4.1 june06.3 iso from the
>> ftp site.
>>
>> Mike Hales wrote:
>>> I've got the same problem!  Anybody running this successfully?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>> Rowan Bunning wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm having a pretty basic problem setting the VisualWorks home
>>>> directory in a clean visual.im running in X11 using the preview VM
>>>> on a new Intel Mac. This has never been a problem for me before
>>>> using X11 and native VMs on previous PowerPC-based machines.
>>>>
>>>> Upon selecting Apply in the Settings dialog having set the home
>>>> directory to /Developer/vw7.4.1 where VW is installed I get the error:
>>>> "Unable to set the VISUALWORKS environment variable.
>>>> If you are running on Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000 you may not have
>>>> the proper permissions to write to the system registry. Please
>>>> contact your system administrator."
>>>>
>>>> I have been able to set the $VISUALWORKS variable successfully by
>>>> adding "export VISUALWORKS=/Developer/vw7.4.1" to a copy of the
>>>> .xinitrc file in my home dir but it seems that VW does not use this.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone had this problem on Mac/*NIX? Should I be checking
>>>> permissions on a particular file somewhere?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Rowan.
>>>>
>>>> www.softwarewithstyle.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>

> Oops, sorry for the spam Mike... why no default reply-to on this list ?
>
> On 7/25/06, Mike Hales <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Here is the script:
>>
>> #!/bin/bash
>>
>> export VISUALWORKS='/Users/mike/vw7.4.1nc'
>> cd /Users/mike/vw7.4.1nc/bin/preview/macx86x11
>> open -a visual.app ~/vw7.4.1nc/image/visualnc.im
>
> That's strange, do you really need that cd line ? I'd prefer to be
> able to run an image from the working directory I like...
>
> in vw7.4.1nc/VisualNC.command there is a (broken here due to spurious
> # chars) csh script that cd's in vw7.4.1nc/image and that sets a
> SOURCE_PATH env var... is this necessary too ?
>

>
> This is a known issue.  As far as I can remember about the details  
> of the
> problem it has to do with how the VM was built for intel MacOSX on  
> X11.
> Some big-endian definitions were included in the VM when they  
> should not
> have instead been little-endian.  Setting enviornment variables  
> from the
> image won't work.
>
> I'm not sure if there is a workaround, nor am I sure when new  
> engines will
> be re-built.  I suspect the only way to truly fix the problem is to
> rebuild the engine for that platform. As soon as new engine is  
> available
> folks will hear about it in the usual channels.
>
>

>
>
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Roel Wuyts wrote:
>
>> Setting the path from within VW for the X11 vm on OS-X not working is
>> a known issue.
>>
>> But before it was possible to set the path in the environment
>> variable, and it would be used... This seems to be broken somehow.
>
> I probably should have been more clear, so I'll try again.
>
> The VM (in preview for 7.4.1) was not built correctly for the intel  
> MacOSX
> platform.  There was a mistake with the platform configuration  
> definition
> code that resulted in the VM including some big-endian code when it  
> should
> have been little-endian.  As a result of this, setting and reading
> environment variables does not work.  I would not be surprised if  
> there
> were more problems because of this mistake.
>
> Unfortunately, we have a few folks on vacation right now who are more
> familiar with the issue so I can't give you any more concrete details.
>
> I'm sure we'll get around to releasing a newer set of engines at some
> time in the near future.
>

> OK I got a solution of mine:
>
> 1) edit and cleanup the plist file, mine had a "" = "" entry
> you can do that using
>    plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.cincom.vw7.4.1.plist
> to convert it from binary to xml, then editing it. Optionally, piping
> the file through pl will convert it to the old-style plist format.
>
> I first added a VISUALWORKS key with the correct value but this has no
> effect. However, cleaning the empty key/value pair made the
> environment variable work, so now wy script works (I don't use the
> drag-n-drop method):
>
> #!/bin/bash
>
> # root of the VisualWorks installation, exported for the VM
> VWPREFIX="/Developer/Applications/VisualWorks"
> export VISUALWORKS="$VWPREFIX/vw7.4.1nc"
>
> # what VM executable should we use
> VWVM="$VISUALWORKS/bin/preview/macx86x11/visual.app/Contents/MacOS/
> vwmacx86x11"
>
> # here we go...
> # DISPLAY should be set
> $VWVM $*
>
> --
> Damien Pollet
> type less, do more
>