There is a program for communicating between a Macintosh and a Unix host
which offers the ability to simultaneously run multiple jobs in
separate windows. The program comes in two parts:
MacLayers is the program that you run on your Mac, and 
Layers is the host program that runs on a Unix machine.

For about 9 months, I have been using this to log into Unix machines
at my office from my Mac at home. I love it. It really improves my
productivity. I decided to try building the host portion (Layers) on
Grex. I got this working a couple of months ago and I have been
using it and testing it. It is totally stable and worked well even
on the old Grex.  Now that we are on the new Grex, I would like to
let anyone else who want's to try this to do so.

You need a Mac (sorry there's no PC client yet, maybe there will be
one day though), and you should be using a unix shell, not the bbs
shell.  The latter requirement may not be absolute, but I think
it's a real good idea, and you'll see why if you read on.

How to get started:

First get MacLayers on your Mac. It is on the Mac Archive at Umich
in the /util/comm directory, or you can download it from grex by
getting /u/srw/maclayers1.30.sit.hqx

The next step is unbinhex and unstuffit, then start it up.
MacLayers is a perfectly ordinary vt100 emulating comms program.
Set the comms parameters appropriately, and log into Grex with it.

Now comes the fun. When you have logged in, invoke Layers.
The unix program, for the time being, is /u/srw/layers/layers.
I aliased this to l, so I only type l to run it.

The window will disappear and a new window will appear.
What has happened is that your shell starts up layers, and then
layers starts up a new shell under it. Now if you invoke layers
again, a second window will appear. You can run bbs in one window,
mail in another, etc. etc. It's especially handy if you are a member
and can run telnet or ftp, as you can allow that to run while you do
other stuff in a different window. Of course when more than one
window is getting output at the same time, it slows down, but hey.

Note the keyboard commands for  switdhing windows (cmd-1, cmd-2 ...)

If you invoke layers without an argument, it just runs your shell in
the new window. If you give it an argument, it runs that. When the
job in each window finishes, the window vanishes. When the last
window vanishes, layers quits and you get back your original
non-layered session.

If you have a Mac and use unix shells, give this a try. I am sure
you'll be pleased. Of course you don't really need it if you are
content as a tcsh or csh user to use ^Z, fg, bg, jobs to run multiple
things at once, but this is so much slicker.

Caveats: If the program you run tries to find your tty in wtmp, it
will fail. I know party fails when I try to run it under layers
Layers turns mesg n, if you say mesg y, then it's hard to predict
which window someone's message might appear in. I have tried talk
and it works OK. Some of these problems may go away if we install
layers with setuid as it will then make entries.

32 responses total.

Wow. Another digital miracle. I'm on in Layer 3 right now, with pine
waiting for me in 2. Now, with this and mosaic, one could be on
*multiple* WWWs! Thanks, Steve, for bringing Layers to us. Is there a
way to print out the Manual?

Good question. There is  /u/srw/layers/layers.1 which is source for
a short manpages, but I don't know how to run it or install it.
We need a unix guru for that.

For those of us who don't have Macs, there is an other program that can be
used.  It is called screen.  To run it, type "screen" at a shell prompt or
"!screen" a bbs prompt, and it will let you switch back and forth between se
several programs.

There's a program similar to MacLayers that I've used called "Unix
Windows."  A server runs on a Unix host, multiplexing i/o streams from
several jobs over the serial line.  The user runs a client that
displays the tasks in different windows.  Clients exist for DOS,
MS-Windows, and one or two other systems.  The MS-Windows client
lets you place and size each window independently in the usual
MS-Windows ways.  The server and the various clients are freeware;
the server will probably run on Grex.  Maybe I'll dig it up and
give it a try here.

For PC users, it sounds like a real value to me.
The features as you describe them match MacLayers very well.

MacLayers can reduce the windows to icons, and retitle them.
It supports x-modem downloading in one window while using
any of the other windows (slowly), but has no uploading facility.

 How does one invoke a Unix program such as /u/srw/layers/layers ?

and more importantly, how can I set up an automatic command for this?
I am running it at present, and it is better than Z-term in that it
relieves me from the constant double spaced scrolling. Definitly
better in that respect.

One day we will get the staff to install it in a reasonable place,
like /usr/local/bin. When that is done, you will just have to say
"layers" (no quotes) at the csh prompt, because it will be on your
path.

To use it today, you either have to add /u/srw/layers to your path
shell variable and then say "layers" (no quotes) or don't bother fiddling with
your path and say "~srw/layers/layers" (no quotes) at the csh prompt.

You can make the latter a little easier by defining a csh-style
alias in your .cshrc. Add a line that says
alias l ~srw/layers/layers
Then you only have to say "l" (no quotes) at the csh prompt.
Let me know whether you can get this to work, and what you think of
it.

I'm in with layers now, and have encountered a problem. I have had my
default shell tcsh, bbs and pine layers open. I've quite the pine layers,
but the pine window is "following me". That is, if I scroll up, the old
pine window is just above this one - and that's it. Normally, I can scroll
back yards. First, is there a way to expand the scroll buffer, and
second, why is "pine" following me?

I have never seen anything like what you describe before Rane.
I should point out that I don't use pine, though.
Does this happen every time you invoke pine and subsequently quit that layer?

As far as I know there is no way to adjust the amount of scrollback buffer
associated with each layer in MacLayers. I would like that feature.

I've noticed that also. It just eats up your existing disk  then dumps
the front of the file.

That pine window is just above the open window in bbs, whether or not
the pine layer is active. I was hoping you would know how to expand
the scrollback buffer, Steve! There is a window sizing option, but that
doesn't seem to be relevant. I found nothing in the "manual". This
is a problem, as I often scroll *way* back, to follow a thread.

Well it's certainly true that window sizing is not the same as scrollback
buffer sizing. If there's a way to adjust the size of the scrollback
buffers, I don't know about it. I think you should write to the
layers comments and suggestions email address:
layers-reply@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (it's in the "about" box).

Don't forget to tell 'em what version you're running, and describe
the problem in detail. Sorry I can't help with this. I have no such
problems except that perhaps I would also like to increase the
scrollback size (but it's usually enough).

someone mentioned Mozaic - what's that?
(sorry. :)

Mosaic is a client program for World Wide Web (W3). It is way cool,
and it is being discussed in the internet conference in item 5.
It might make sense to link that item here.

There is a Mac version, and the rumor of a PC version.
We are looking for hard facts in that area.
Because it is multimedia in nature, it would not make sense to have
Mosaic run on Grex (unless you used X-windows or were on the console).

Ahh, I thought I've heard of that before... sounds pretty cool.  Might be
fun for "limited" multimedia on grex. :)  haha

  I wrote to layers-reply@rascal.ics.utexas.edu, and got some answers:
1. They say the scrollback buffer is as large as the free disk space.
  I have probably not seen this, because I always have that pine problem. 
2. Since the Manual is an application, they said to click on Print to print.
  Makes sense, except that I get no Print option in the File Menu - I
  see Fax, instead. I have no printer on this Powerbook. What I would
  like to do is "print" the Manual to a file, but I don't know how to do
  that.
3. The piece of a pine window that hangs in the prior scrollback window
  is a bug in the program, which they are going to correct in the next
  version - but no specific date given. (I guess I better run pine last,
  instead of first, if I want access to that scrollback.)

 

Interesting...
(1) I believe that. I've never needed more scrollback than it provided,
as far as I can remember. I really like this.
(2) The Manual is in DocMaker. Too bad Powerbooks can't print.
Docmaker doesn't support "printing" to a file. This would normally be
called "exporting" to text. There's a workaround if you are ready to
try ResEdit (and become a true Mac Hacker!). I can provide details.
(3) Makes me happy for the moment I don't use Pine. Strange that the bug is 
only exercised by Pine, though.

Too bad Powerbooks can't print?  Is that something new.  My step-mother's 
Powerbook 140 can print as easily as any other Mac.  All it needs is to be
hooked up to a printer (as most computers do to print).

Good Point, Steve. I guess my brain wasn't working.
It was past my bedtime.

Anyway, rcurl's powerbook can't print, but I can show him how to transfer 
the text in the DocMaker document into a text file, if he wants.

I print from the Powerbook by transfering the file to an SE with 
AppleTalk, and printing to a HP DeskJet elsewhere in the house on my
home network. I could just print on a local Imagewriter, but I won't
get all that nice Manual formatting ;=!. (I drive the DeskJet with
MacPrint, which bitmaps, except for selected DJ fonts.)  So, if I
could export the DocMaker to a *file*, I could take it from there.
So..I do have ResEdit (but don't know how to use it). I also have
MacsBug, for when the inevitable happens ;->. One question: if I did
plug the Imagewriter into the printer port on this Powerbook, would
Print show up in the File menu? (I think I can answer my own question -
"if I have it selected in the Chooser", right? I have used fax, but
have never chosen a printer.)
  
What newton@cs.utk.edu said was "Some terminal emulation bugs exist
in 1.3. They will be addressed in the next release, perhaps within
a few months."

If your purpose is to get a paper copy of the manual to read, why not
just move the manual to your SE and print it over there. I don't see
why you shouldn't get a Print on your File menu. I certainly do get it.

If you wanted to have a ascii text file of the manual, then I can
show you how to do that in resEdit, but you'll lose the formatting
when you go to ascii text, of course.

Now why didn't I think of that? I start to think the stuff I have
on this Powerbook with Sys 7.1, won't fly on the SE with 6.0.8. 
OK. I'll AppleShare it over, and try it. 

I just chose the Imagewriter in the Chooser, so it closed the AppleShare
option I had running - and Print now appears in the Manual File menu.
Simple as that.

Excellent!

Giving it a little more thought - I realized I have a lot of communication
power in this little powerbook, so why not use it? Instead of plugging
in the local AppleTalk connector, I fired up my IPRemoteAT client, and
connected to the UM ARNS, which put me on the UM AppleTalk backbone.
So I picked the ENG-chem zone, and selected the laserwriter two offices
away from mine, and dumped the MacLayers Manual to it (since Print
shows up when I've chosen a printer in Chooser). It chugged away, but
wasn't printing too fast, so I went into AppleShare, and opened the
HD Desktop on the Mac in my office (which I leave on just to do this),
and dragged and dropped the MacLayers Manual there, so if something
went wrong with the print job, I could finish it at the office. Well,
things chugged along some more, and then...a PING! "Printer Out of
Paper", it said! Well, that's a little more difficult to fix via the
computer, isn't it? Hmm...there's a secretary in that office, so I
could telephone here to ask her to reload the printer. So I pick up
the phone.....SSHSSHSHHSHSHSH....DAMN!!..that's how I'm connected! It
was really neat - I hung up quickly, everything hung fire briefly,
then the RD-SD rhythym picked up again. Fantastic system, IP. It may
have seen some screwy packets, but knew what to do. Well, the secretary
isn't a ham with a scanner, so I couldn't call in that way, so I
went to work (and finished printing the Manual there). 

Ever consider hanging up, calling the secretary, and then reconnecting and
finishing the print job?  (Oh, yeah, and when are they going to come out with

multitasking phone lines?)

She was at a meeting. I could have chosen a different laserwriter
(there are dozens on the net around the department) and checked it
for paper. But I had to get in anyway. I don't think multitasking phone
lines are very far away. After all, I *was* multitasking over the phone
line. Voice, however takes a lot of bandwidth. Would need fiber drops.

I hope to get connected to the internet via cable one day, and
then I will be able to use my phone again.

Is that why you are on the autopatch so much, Steve? (;-> - that's
kidding - actually, he isn't on the patch much that I've noticed.)

 Are fiber drop   anything like eyedrops ? ;) (just asking)

It is (or was) telephone jargon for the line coming into the house off
the pole. I guess its "drop" like in "drop light". If you have a noisy
line, you could call it a cough drop.

Yeah, sometimes I think we could use another drop here at home (when 
both my wife and I tie up our two lines with our modems...).  Maybe I
should drop the hint...

        I'm running MacLayers now and dowloading a typing this and dowloading
a file using lynx. What a great timesaver, I wish i had tried this months
ago.

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- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss