NAME

journalling − NeWS event record and playback package

SYNOPSIS

journalling

DESCRIPTION

The Journalling package allows you to capture NeWS mouse and keyboard events onto a file and play the file back.  This results in NeWS’ faithfully duplicating the original user actions in real time.  This package permits continuous replaying of a given file. Playback can be interrupted at any time by clicking on the Interrupt button. 

USAGE

Invoke the journalling program from the Demo Navigator: a few seconds are required for journalling to initialize.  When initialization is complete, a control panel window appears.  The control panel contains the following items:

RECORD, STOP, and PLAY buttons — Pressing RECORD starts recording onto the current recording file.  Pressing STOP terminates recording.  Pressing PLAY starts playback from the current playback file. The buttons light up to indicate what action is currently taking place.  Record File — This text item allows you to specify the current file onto which action items are recorded. This can be any valid file on the server machine. Relative pathnames are taken to be relative to the directory from which NeWS was started.  The default for the Record File is /tmp/NeWS.journal.  Playback File — This text item allows you to specify the current file from which recorded action items are played back.  This can be any valid file on the server machine. Relative pathnames are taken to be relative to the directory from which NeWS was started.  The default for the Playback File is /tmp/NeWS.journal.  Play Forever toggle switch — If this switch is on, the action items in the Playback File are played back repeatedly without stopping.  The playback can be terminated with the Interrupt button (see below).  Done button — When the mouse is clicked on this button, all journalling items are removed from the server, and the control window is unmapped. (This is equivalent to selecting Quit from the frame menu.)  Interrupt button — When the mouse is clicked on this button, playback is interrupted.  The button flashes when selected. 

TIPS FOR USING JOURNALLING

When a journal is created for repeated playback, all windows created after journalling has started should be removed before journalling ends:  otherwise, the server re-creates the windows whenever playback begins and eventually runs out of memory.  Thus, at the end of a journalling session, the state of the screen should be exactly as it was at the beginning.  Different machines produce a noticeable variation in journalling performance. For example, journalling is faster on a Sun 4 than on a Sun 3/50. Playback of a script recorded on a fast machine might not work correctly on a slower machine.  Any given machine has a maximum rate at which NeWS events can be handled.  Care must be taken when recording sequences that contain invocations of Unix programs, particularly when starting new applications.  The mouse must not be clicked until the bounding box is up on the screen. If the mouse is clicked early, the wrong window-sizing will be made on playback:  this will lead to unpredictable behavior, due to the window’s not being where it was when recording. Always proceed slowly while recording a script. Remember there is no synchronization. For example, when recording a sequence of actions such as typing ‘ls -l’ into a terminal window and then cutting and pasting the command into another terminal window, allow the command to complete before cutting and pasting: otherwise indeterminate results may follow on playback. 

FILES

${OPENWINHOME}/demo/journalling

BUGS

Do not use the Journalling package for critical functions: the behavior of playback is unpredictable, due to the non-deterministic nature of the Unix scheduling mechanism and the general operating environment. 
 

Sun Release 4.0  —  Last change: 14 June 1989