Sunday, October 28, 2012

OS X Stupidity

Why did Apple choose to make X Windows an afterthought?  They caused some grief with was not necessary.

UNIX systems have had a network based windowing system for about 30 years.  This is extremely handy.  For my needs this allows me to use ssh to connect to a Linux computer and run ebe over the network.

But this doesn't work if I use ssh to connect to my Mac.  My ebe script succeeds in running xterm which is an X application, but the python tkinter windows never show up, because they are using the stupid OS X Windows (not X Windows).

Today I tried to find a good tool for doing screen captures for my book.  The ImageMagick import tool works wonderfully well under Linux and it compiles under OS X, but it won't capture the stupid OS X Windows.  I can capture xclock and the xterm window of ebe, but the main parts of ebe are off-limits.

I tried the xcreencapture program and it works fairly well, but it includes the title bar in the image.  I don't want the title bar.  Furthermore it has color which is not acceptable in a black and white book.

So I ask again:  Why did Apple choose to make X Windows an afterthought?  Is this designed to prevent users from being able to run apps on a Mac remotely?  I suppose in order to sell MS Office on the Mac they had to guarantee that no one could run Office remotely.  That might hurt sales.

Hey, Apple, there are other ways to force people to pay up for MS licenses.  X Windows was a good idea 30 years ago and it is still a good idea today.

It looks like I may have to use a GUI tool to trim images.  Perhaps I can use one of the ImageMagick tools to delete the titlebars.

Another problem which did not have to exist.  Apple could have made this all so easy.  I am sure it would have been easier for Apple to use X Windows than to invent their own substandard system.