HP Common Desktop Runtime Environment (CDE 1.0)

Development Environment

The CDE development environment provides an application programming interface for many of the desktop components.

Printing and Building Help Volumes in Multibyte Locales

The user's LANG environment variable must match the locale specified for a given help volume to print or build the volume correctly.

The locale associated with a help volume is set using the LanguageElementDefaultLocale entity declaration, or using a combination of the LanguageElementDefaultLocale and LanguageElementDefaultCharset entity declarations.

If the locale is not specified for a help volume, the value of the LANG environment variable is used.

CDE Migration Tool

The VUEtoCDE application provides a way to migrate personal and system-wide HP VUE customizations to the CDE desktop. VUEtoCDE is included with the HP-UX 10.10 operating system.

When upgrading your HP VUE environment to CDE, install CDE and the VUEtoCDE product from the operating system media. The VUEtoCDE application is installed in the /opt/Migration directory.

Refer to HP CDE Getting Started Guide (B1171-90104) for instructions for migrating HP VUE customizations to CDE using VUEtoCDE.

Accessing Font Aliases for Remote CDE Sessions

Your CDE session must have access to CDE font aliases to run properly. Typically, these aliases are installed with the fonts provided with your X server.

However, when running CDE as a remote session using the command

   X -query...  fp+ tcp/hostname:7000

or running CDE from an X terminal, it is possible that the font aliases may not be available to the X server.

This can happen when the fonts on the server are from a prior release of HP-UX or from another vendor. In this situation, you may see fonts that do not work correctly with the local language you have selected. Fortunately, CDE provides "backup" CDE font aliases that your X server can use. These are located in the directory

   /usr/dt/config/xfonts/locale name

This location must also contain a fonts.dir file. This file is required by the X server to use the font aliases mechanism.

If you are running CDE remotely, your system administrator can cause the CDE font aliases to be used by setting up a font server to run on the system hosting CDE, making that font server use the CDE font aliases for the language you choose.

For example, if you want to work in Japanese EUC (locale name ja_JP.eucJP), a font server should be started on the CDE system using this command:

   /usr/bin/X11/fs -port 7000 -daemon -quiet_if_addrinuse

   

In the font server's configuration file (the default configuration file is /etc/X11/fs/config), make sure the CDE font alias directory is contained in the catalogue definition. For example, to support a user running CDE in Japanese EUC, the font server's configuration file might contain the following:

   catalogue = ...,/usr/dt/config/xfonts/ja_JP.eucJP/

   

Alternatively, your system administrator can copy the fonts.alias files from the CDE host system to your local system and incorporate them into your X server's fonts.alias file.

Changing Languages Between Sessions in CDE

When you log into the CDE desktop, you can select the language (or locale) that you want to use for your session. A list of languages is displayed when you click the Option button in the login screen.

If you change the language you are using between CDE sessions, previously saved local language customizations may conflict with your new language session.

For example, suppose you log in with language ja_JP.eucJP and create Japanese workspace names. You then save the session when you exit the desktop. Suppose the next time you log in, instead of choosing ja_JP.eucJP, you select German, de_DE.iso88591. The desktop will attempt to display the Japanese workspace names using fonts appropriate for the German language. The workspace names will be unreadable.

This conflict results only if you change between two languages that use different coded character sets. You can change from either C or English locale without difficulty. Likewise, you can switch between similar locales, such as French and German, which are both Western European locales.

Any personal customizations that contain local language characters can cause similar symptoms as that described above. Personal session customizations are saved in your $HOME/.dt directory.

If you want to select a language that is different from your previously saved session, you should first start CDE in a fail safe session. From the terminal window provided, remove the files that contain local language text.

Files that might contain local language characters include:

If you are not sure what files contain local language characters, remove the directory $HOME/.dt/session using this command:

      rm -r $HOME/.dt/session

This causes a default session to be invoked when you log in with the new language.

In addition, you should remove any help files accessed with the prior local language by executing:

   rm -r $HOME/.dt/help

Labels and comments in action definitions can also include localized data. If so, the action labels need to be modified to be readable in the new language selected for your CDE session. User-defined actions are located in $HOME/.dt/types/*.

	NOTE: If you delete your personal customization directory, $HOME/.dt/*, you can avoid the problems that occur when changing languages. However, remember that you will lose any actions or other customizations you might have created. Removing the entire directory is therefore not recommended.

HP CDE and Commercial Security (Trusted Systems)

Commercial security is not supported by CDE. HP CDE uses several components to authenticate users when they log into the system. However, not all of these components utilize the trusted system security features.

If a system is configured to start up CDE automatically, you cannot convert it to a trusted system without disabling CDE. If you are using SAM (System Administration Manager) to enable commercial security on your system, an error message will be displayed if CDE has been enabled.

Refer to the dtconfig(1) manpage for information about configuring CDE on your local system. Note that dtconfig does not allow CDE to be configured on trusted system.

CDE Limitations

The CDE limitations are as follows:

Addition to Advanced User's and System Administrator's Guide

"Creating an Action that Runs as a Different User" in Chapter 10 has this addition:

When invoking an action that runs as a different user, make sure that the specified user has access to all resources required to complete the action. This includes, but is not limited to, the following: