Solaris 9 Features for Desktop Users

The Solaris 9 release includes the following desktop enhancements.

Xterm Terminal Emulator Support for Multibyte Character Set

The Xterm terminal emulator now supports multibyte character sets. This feature enables the use of Xterm windows in UTF-8 and other multibyte locales. The Xterm command line and resources incorporate new options to specify X font sets.

See the Xterm man page for further information.

Graphical Workspace Manager

Graphical Workspace Manager provides the following:

• A graphical representation of all workspaces

• The ability to navigate across different workspaces with the press of a button

• The ability to drag and drop applications across different workspaces

You are no longer limited to viewing nine workspaces. Additionally, the dialog box for Graphical Workspace Manager Options has been added to provide a number of additional display options.

For more information, see “Graphical Workspace Manager” in Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

Workspace Manager

The Workspace Manager provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for controlling behavior and the number of workspaces. You can add and delete workspaces by using a slider. You can also display the Graphical Workspace Manager in the Workspace Switch Area of the Front Panel.

For more information, see “Workspace Manager” in Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

Window List

The Window List provides a list of currently running applications. The Window List enables you, with the click of a mouse button, to locate any application, even applications in workspaces other than the current workspace. The Window List also provides the ability to perform window actions on a selected group of applications. You can choose to display or not display the Workspace column.

For more information, see “Window List” in Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

Energy Star Standards

X11R6.4 standards have been enhanced with Frame Buffer Power Management (FBPM), an extension to the Display Power Management System (DPMS). This enhancement is added to fulfill the U.S. government's requirements for the Energy Star program. This feature only works on Energy Star-compliant hardware.

Print Format for Non-ISO-1 Files

By default, the dtlp command uses the mp command before sending the output to the lp command. This feature enables many of the non-ISO-1 standard text files to be correctly printed in CDE. The same filtering effect is also applied in the printing of dtmail mail messages.

For further information, see the mp(1) man page.

Adding Multiple Files to Emails

This feature enables you to keep the insert_tag “Mailer - Attachment - Add” dialog box open. You can then add two or more files to an email. The need to repeatedly select Add Files from the Attachment menu is eliminated.

For more information on the Mailer, see “Using Mailer” in Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

Removable Media Manager

Removable Media Manager centralizes access to removable devices in one window. You can format, query properties, view directory structures, and where applicable, protect and slice media. See Removable Media Management.

See also “Using Removable Media Manager” in Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

Audio Enhancements

Audio directories have been added to the Solaris 9 operating environment. The /usr/include/audio directory is a new directory for applications' audio header files. The audio file format has a new header file, /usr/include/audio/au.h, and man page, au(4).

The /usr/share/audio directory is a new depository for miscellaneous audio files. The audio files from the /usr/demo/SOUND/sounds directory have been moved here. A symbolic link from /usr/demo/SOUNDS/sounds to /usr/share/audio/samples/au has been created. This link enables applications and scripts that already exist to run without failure.

Numerous bug fixes have been made to the audio kernel modules to improve reliability.

For further information, see the System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

Desktop Freeware

See Freeware Enhancements for information about GNU grep 2.4.2, GNU tar 1.13, GNU wget 1.6, and Ncftp Client 3.0.3 in the Solaris 9 release.

• GNU grep 2.4.2 is a pattern matcher.

• GNU tar 1.13 is an archiver.

• GNU wget 1.6 retrieves files from the Web by using HTTP and FTP.

• Ncftp Client 3.0.3 uses the File Transfer Protocol. This utility is an alternative to the UNIX ftp program.