From: kbw@helios.ath.epa.gov (Kevin B. Weinrich)
Subject: Why do I need "xrdb -m" when .Xdefaults unchanged?
Organization: Computer Sciences Corp.
Lines: 38
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: helios.ath.epa.gov

I'm having an X resource problem using Brian Wilson's wscrawl 2.0
(a wonderful interactive conferencing program, by the way).  I'm 
running OpenWindows 3.0 on a SPARC 1+ under OS 4.1.3.  I have
the following defaults in my .Xdefaults file (among many others):
  wscrawl.telePointerName:	Kevin
  wscrawl.syncScrollbars:		True
  wscrawl.continuousTelePointer:	True
  wscrawl.showPointerCoordinates:	False
  wscrawl*background:		LightBlue
  wscrawl*swindow*foreground:	yellow
  wscrawl*draw_area_frame*foreground:	Blue
  wscrawl*keyboardFocusPolicy:	pointer

Naturally, I exited the server and restarted it after adding
those lines to .Xdefaults .

If I run the following from a cmdtool (pwd = my home dir.):
  xrdb -m .Xdefaults
and then start up wscrawl, then all those defaults are used
properly.  Wonderful, yes?  Except that I can't get them to be
operative except by *manually* invoking the afore-mentioned
xrdb command.  If I try:
  xrdb .Xdefaults
the defaults "won't take."

So, I tried to change the xrdb call in my .xinitrc file from:
  xrdb  $HOME/.Xdefaults
to:
  xrdb -m $HOME/.Xdefaults

No go.  So I tried adding in:
  xrdb -m /home/kbw/.Xdefaults
at the beginning or end of my .openwin-init file.  Still no go.

Any notions what gives?  Thanks for the help.
-- 
Kevin Weinrich     Computer Sciences Corp.
kbw@helios.ath.epa.gov
