11.7 Troubleshooting on X11/Motif

This section describes some of the most common problems that can occur using the LispWorks X11/Motif GUI, which is available on Linux, FreeBSD and macOS.

11.7.1 Problems with the X server

Running under X11/Motif, LispWorks may print a message saying that it is unable to connect to the X server. Check that the server is running, and that the machine the image is running on is authorized to connect to it. (See the manual entry for command xhost(1).)

On macOS, if you attempt to start the LispWorks X11/Motif GUI in Terminal.app, an error message Failed to open display NIL is printed. Instead, run LispWorks in X11.app.

11.7.2 Problems with fonts on Motif

LispWorks may print a message saying that it is unable to open a font and is using a default instead. The environment will still run but it may not always use the right font.

LispWorks comes configured with the fonts most commonly found with the target machine type. However the fonts supplied vary between implementations and installations. The fonts available on a particular server can be determined by using the xlsfonts(1) command. Fonts are chosen based on the X11 resources. See 11.7.6 X11/Motif resources for more information.

It may be necessary to change the fonts used by LispWorks.

11.7.3 Problems with colors

Running under X11, on starting up the environment, or any tool within it, LispWorks may print a message saying that a particular color could not be allocated.

This problem can occur if your X color map is full. If this is the case, LispWorks cannot allocate all the colors that are specified in the X11 resources.

This may happen if you have many different colors on your screen, for instance when displaying a picture in the root window of your display.

Colors are chosen based on the X11 resources. See 11.7.6 X11/Motif resources for more information.

To remove the problem, you can then change the resources (for example, by editing the file mentioned in 11.7.6 X11/Motif resources) to reduce the number of colors LispWorks allocates.

11.7.4 Motif mnemonics and Alt

Mnemonic processing on Motif always uses mod1, so we disable mnemonics if that is Lisp's Meta modifier to allow the Emacs-style editor to work. (The accelerator code uses the same keyboard mapping check as the mnemonics so Alt accelerators would also get disabled if you had them.)

11.7.5 Non-standard X11/Motif key bindings

On X11/Motif, if you want Emacs-style keys Ctrl-n, Ctrl-p in LispWorks list panels such as the Editor's buffers view, add the following to the X11 resources (see 11.7.6 X11/Motif resources):

!
! Enable Ctrl-n, Ctrl-p in list panels
Lispworks*XmList.translations: #override\n\
                Ctrl<Key>p : ListPrevItem()\n\
                Ctrl<Key>n : ListNextItem()
!

11.7.6 X11/Motif resources

When using X11/Motif, LispWorks reads X11 resources in the normal way, using the application class Lispworks. The file app-defaults/Lispworks is used to supply fallback resources. You can copy parts of this file to ~/Lispworks or some other configuration-specific location if you wish to change these defaults, and similarly for app-defaults/GcMonitor.

11.7.7 Motif installation on macOS

When attempting to starting the LispWorks X11/Motif GUI when the required version of Motif is not installed, LispWorks prints the error message:

Error: Could not register handle for external module X-UTILITIES::CAPIX11:
dyld: /Applications/LispWorks 8.0/lispworks-8-0-0-macos64-universal-gtk can't open library: /usr/local/lib/libXm.4.dylib (No such file or directory, errno = 2)
.

Ensure you install Motif as described in 2.4.8.2 The X11 GTK+ and Motif GUIs. Restart X11.app and LispWorks after installation of Motif.