[Rd] X11(colortype="true") does not give a truecolor visual (PR#1388)

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Sat, 16 Mar 2002 Edwin@balpol.tudelft.nl wrote:

> Full_Name: Edwin
> Version: 1.4.1
> OS: SunOS/Solaris
> Submission from: (NULL) (130.161.1.115)
>
>
> When selecting an X11 visual on Solaris 2.7 with
>
> X11(colortype="true")
>
> a PseudoColor visual is actually created. (verified with xwininfo)

Note that the help page does *not* say that this `selects a visual'. It
says it selects a `color model'.  One can use a model which differs from
the X11 visual class, but the default class and depth are always used.

This seems to be a misunderstanding of the `colortype' argument: there is
no argument to select a visual class.

> The system in question (like many UNIX workstations) has both Pseudo and
> truecolor visual types available, however the default type points to an 8 plane
> PseudoColor visual.

I believe that is unusual.  Sun Xservers allow you to set the default
visual on the command line: has the default been overridden?  Ours with
multiple visuals are selecting TrueColor, but it does say the default is
hardware-dependent.

> Some applications look for the truecolor visual (netscape, acroread) and use it
> when available. For others it needs to be explicitely requested (VNC viewer). R
> seems to do neither and just goes with the default, even if a truecolor type is
> requested.

As it does not say it will do anything else, this is not strictly a bug.
It needs someone with the problem to contribute an enhancement, perhaps
additional arguments to select the visual class and depth?

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595


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