x5250 - A 5250 emulator for X

News

Older stuff

x5250 version 0.5.1 has been released! This version adds key mapping support via the X resource database. Download 0.5.1 and see the README.keymap file for details.

x5250 has reached it's first milestone: version 0.5! This milestone is feature complete with tn5250 version 0.16.5. But there is more than that. Some of the features of x5250:

• enhanced 5250 features such as cursor progression, word wrap, continuous fields, and GUI windows
• highly customizable
• very fast - it runs on a 486 with no slow down!
• two customizable copy/paste methods that simplify your work

Version 0.4.8:

• Fixed word wrap support.

• Fixed enhanced window support (also requires current cvs of tn5250).
• Fixed several keyhandling problems.
• configure now automatically recognizes enhanced features in tn5250 and turns them on.

• Added a "debug menu" submenu.
• Added a screen dump button to the debug submenu and moved the "toggle attributes" button there as well.
• Eliminated screen flicker.
• Fixed "stuck" events bug.
• Fixed the last of the screen redraw problems.

• Added preliminary support for displaying 5250 attributes.
• Column separators can now be toggled on and off from the menu.
• Most buffers are now dynamically allocated. lib5250 still uses some hardcoded buffers for 5250 windows. This limits us to ten simultaneous 5250 windows in enhanced mode.
• Fixed a crash in enhanced mode involving caret placement.

• Fixed a problem with keystrokes getting out of sync.
• Fixed the last of the screen redraw problems.
• Fixed application defaults database search path.
• Fixed problems with getopt()/getopt_long() getting properly selected.

• Fixed problems with artifacts from previous screen appearing in blank areas.
• Fixed problem with the caret not being erased.
• Changed the build system to work better.
• The X5250 resource file is now automatically installed.

• Fixed configure.ac to better check for getopt() and friends.
• Hopefully resolved locale issues.
• Fixed a number of build problems.
• Fixed most of the screen flicker problems.
• Cleaned up the icon.

• Fixed an attribute bug.
• Partial support for scrollbars.
• Fixed enhanced 5250 protocol window support.

• Changed popup menu to be a top level window like a popup should be.
• Window placement is now controlled by the window manager.
• Made Control-x do field exit.
• Added a menu item to toggle ruler state.
• New ruler.
• User resource for ruler.
• Added support for column separators.
• New user resource for column separators and separator style.
• Updated the help text to show new ruler and column separator options.
• Added some missing keys: K_ERASE, K_REFRESH, K_MEMO, K_TESTREQ, and K_EXEC.
• Support for macros (record and playback). Compile with -DMACRO_SUPPORT to enable.
• Initial support for non-US keyboards thanks to Frank Richter. Thanks for the patch Frank!
• Several fixes for screen drawing problems.

• Fixed a drawing bug introduced in 0.1.8. Thanks for the quick bug report Martin!

• Current column/row is displayed in the bottom right of the main window.
• 132 display can use a different font than 80 column.
• New user resource to control 132 column font: font132.
• Help text to shows new 132 column font option.
• Updated splash screen doesn't say "demo" anymore (if anyone ever sees the splash screen).
• Font resources are now in the X5250 resource file.
• Menu text to says "Ctrl" instead of "Cntrl".
• Added missing tracefile support.
• Other bug fixes and support for the enhanced 5250 protocol. See the ChangeLog for more details.

• New user resource for paste behaviour. Setting the resource x5250*pastecursor to True or starting x5250 with the -pastecursor option will cause pasting to occur starting at the current cursor location instead of the mouse pointer location.
• Added DUP key support (control-d).
• Fixed copy problem that caused x5250 to crash when pasting into apps like Gaim.
• Fixed text drawing one row too low problem that was introduced in version 0.1.6.
• Fixed problem with cursor sometimes being filled in when the window did not have focus.
• Fixed the backspace key.
• Added a user resource for bell volume. Valid ranges are -100 to 100.
• Updated the help to show the new options.

• Added Control-q keyboard short cut to quit.
• Created an X5250 resource file. This should be installed in /usr/X11/lib/X11/app-defaults. This isn't automatically installed yet so you will need to copy it there manually. Hopefully the next release will automate this :)
• Fixed the Home key.
• Fixed non-highlight of blanks in selection problem.
• Made the cursor be a solid block when window has focus.
• Fixed yellow color attribute. This was fixed by Martin Rowe. Thank you Martin!
• Added a user resource for font.
• Fixed a number of bugs related to different font sizes.
• Fixed a number of bugs related to selections for copying.
• Added more support for the enhanced 5250 protocol. This still requires patching tn5250.

• Copy and paste now work!
• You can left align paste with Shift-middle click. This is super handy when copying source code from the midrange.com mailing lists into SEU. Every new line will start in the same column below the current paste start location.
• The insert key works.
• The delete key works.
• The reset key has been added to the right-mouse button menu. It is also accessable with Control-r.
• Initial support has been added for the extended 5250 protocol. A patch for tn5250 is required to enable this support, so it is not enabled by default. If you are really interested in this (and don't mind broken 5250 windows) grab the patch for tn5250-0.16.x or the patch for tn5250-0.17.x and compile x5250 with -DENHANCED.

• Created a pop up dialog that is activated/deactivated with mouse button 3.
• Created two menu items for the pop up dialog: one for the help key and one to quit.
• Resource allocation order fixed.
• Enabled -name option. This enables such things as unique resources for different instances of x5250 by specifying them in .Xdefaults.
• Enabled -title option. You can make the window title be whatever you want (like the session name).
• Window title and icon name use the hostname as given by tn5250_config_get (tn5250config, "host") instead of using argv[1] (unless overridden by the -title option).

• Fixed backspace key behaviour.
• Fixed print screen.
• Changed cursor color to yellow instead of green because it was too hard to see. Later on this will be a user preference. Note that the yellow color is the color the user (optionally) chooses for yellow. See below for more.
• Icon name matches session name.
• Added system indicator window to the bottom and the main window and enabled message waiting indicator, system busy indicator, system wait indicator, and input inhibited indicator.
• Added support for user defaults through the standard X defaults mechanisms. Color prefences can now be specified in the .Xdefaults file in the user's home directory. Here is an example:

  x5250*redcolor			: darkred
  x5250*greencolor		: lightgreen
  x5250*bluecolor			: aquamarine
  x5250*blackcolor		: black
  x5250*whitecolor		: white
  x5250*yellowcolor		: gold
  x5250*turquoisecolor		: darkgreen
  x5250*pinkcolor			: pink
  

  For people with black and white or grayscale display (are there any of those left?) you can use the foreground and background defaults. The individual color defaults override the foreground and background defaults so greencolor will override whatever you may have for foreground.

  Note for users who get odd colors: Some unix installations appear to override whatever defaults exist in $HOME/.Xdefaults and force the foreground and background to be some odd color. Notably Fedora Core 2 seems to do this. This might be a result of launching x5250 from gnome-terminal. Either launch x5250 from a true xterm or do 'xrdb -remove' before starting x5250. You can also start x5250 from the Run... or similar menu.

• Updated the help to reflect the new options.
• Cursor moves to the position of the mouse pointer when pasting text (provided the mouse pointer is in a field). The pasted text still doesn't get put into lib5250's buffer, but at least the cursor is in the right spot!
• Now uses autoconf to generate Makefiles instead of Imake. This is due to a kind contribution from Scott Klement. Thank you Scott!

• Fix segmentation fault that occurred as a result of using lib5250 to get correct character to draw on each keystroke. Fixed the conditions under which lib5250 is called into.

• Button 1 can also function as reset key.
• Put session name in window title bar.
• Fixed problems with screen not being cleared properly.
• Fixed bug that allowed characters to be keyed on input fields while input is inhibited.
• Uses lib5250 better to get keystrokes in caps properly while still avoiding unnecessary draw requests.
• Changed to use getopt_long() instead of getopt_long_only() since the latter is a glibc function only and doesn't exist on every platform.
• End key works.

• Help key works (control-h).
• Reset key works (control-r).
• New line key works (control-n).
• Next word key works (shift-right arrow).
• Previous word key works (shift-left arrow).
• Mouse cursor changes to a watch symbol when the system is busy.
• Mouse cursor changes to X symbol when input is inhibited.

• No longer requires CVS version of tn5250.
• With 0.16.x version of tn5250, does not require glib.
• Mouse cursor changes to "I-beam" shape when in x5250 window.
• Text cursor disappears when x5250 loses focus and reappears when focus is regained.
• Underlines for non-field text works.
• X performance improved by being more intelligent about which areas of the screen to draw.
• Non-display works.
• Blank characters are properly handled. This is related to the X performance improvements above.
• Preliminary support for copy and paste. Pasted text does appear in the x5250 window, but the pasted text is not placed into the 5250 buffer so it never gets sent to the remote host.
• Fix up the usage information a little bit.
• Fixed underlines for non-underlined fields (actually we just do whatever lib5250 tells us to do).
• Use field attributes correctly when text is entered.