job control

[std-unix at ut-sally.UUCP]

From: bobr%zeus.tek.csnet at RELAY.CS.NET (Robert Reed)
Organization: CAE Systems Division, Tektronix Inc., Beaverton OR
Date: 15 Oct 86 12:23:31 PDT (Wed)

> From: shannon at sun.com (Bill Shannon) 
> I don't believe there should be an ioctl to find out the pixel size of a
> "window". ...  The pixel size is of no use to programs that deal only in
> characters.  Only programs manipulating windows will need to know the pixel
> size.  ...  The tty subsystem, which deals only in characters, should not
> know anything about pixels or windows.

Naive programs should have access to window size as character information,
but there are programs which do not manipulate windows which need window
size information in pixels.  My solution would be to provide the size in
character units but also provide character cell size in pixels with the same
call (ioctl or whatever).  Programs could use it or ignore it.

Whether the tty system does know about pixels or not, it should.  If the
window size information (in character units) is going to be accurate, window
sizes must be restricted to integrals of character size.  With straight ttys
this is no problem, but if the system supports font changing, character size
can vary.  Rather than require one call to find the window size and then
another call to find out what the units are, this information should be
consolidated into a single place.

Volume-Number: Volume 7, Number 64