best way to start desired X clients on login with xorg-server?

[Richard Cobbe]

On Sat, Jun 01, 2019 at 10:32:10AM -0400, Richard L. Hamilton wrote:
>
> >> One thing to add before starting urxvt if you want color to work!!
> >> export TERMINFO=/opt/local/share/terminfo
> >>
> >> because the rxvt-unicode-256color entry is only there, not in
> >> /usr/share/terminfo.  I noticed that as soon as I installed urxvt and ran
> >> the system version of vi or vim (as opposed to the MacPorts version,
> >> which will look in the MacPorts terminfo directory without being told).
> >
> > Huh -- there's something weird going on here.  As you say, that terminfo
> > entry is only in /opt/local/share/terminfo, not under /usr/share/terminfo.
> > However, I was able to start /usr/bin/vi in urxvt, with
> > TERM=rxvt-unicode-256-color, *without* setting TERMINFO, and I'm getting
> > color just fine.
>
> Are you sure it was /usr/bin/vi and not /opt/local/bin/vi?  The latter
> uses the MacPorts libncurses, which knows its own TERMINFO location.

Quite sure.  I tried both binaries by typing their full paths at the bash
prompt.

However, I only just discovered that I had previously set TERMINFO_DIRS to
"/usr/share/terminfo:/opt/local/share/terminfo" in my .bashrc, and both the
OS-provided and MacPorts-provided terminfo libraries appear to respect this
variable.  So we can explain that mystery, at least!

As per my other question, this presumably won't work for items that I add
to the server's Applications menu unless I add it to the /usr/bin/env
argument list, but that's easily done where necessary.

> > One other thing: it is possible to set XDG_CONFIG_HOME in the X server's
> > environment?  I'm finding that applications that I add to the
> > "Applications" menu aren't seeing that variable, despite it being set in
> > one of the files in .xinitrc.d.
>
> I suspect it's not the X server at all, but the app program that acts
> like a wrapper, which handles the app's dock menu items. The whole issue
> of environment variables and Mac app bundles is a bit nasty; there used
> to be a file to put those in, but that's not supported for a long time.

<SNIP>

Yeah, that does sound like a bit of a mess.  Even though I'm the only
person who ever uses these computers, I don't like the idea of putting a
user-specific setting into system config files, so I think I'll just leave
it in the Applications menu entries.

Thanks!

Richard