Mac OS X in a Nutshell

Aqua-X11 Interactions

Since X11-based applications rely on different graphics systems even when running XDarwin in rootless mode, one would not necessarily expect that any GUI interactions between these two graphics systems are easily accomplished. There are several such easily accomplished interactions worth noting.

The first such interaction is to open X11-based applications from the Aqua terminal application. To allow an X11-based application to be launched from the Terminal application, you need to set the shell environment variable DISPLAY as follows (for tcsh):

setenv DISPLAY 0:0

If you are using bash or zsh, you could use the following shell environment:

DISPLAY="0:0"; export DISPLAY

You may choose to put the appropriate version of this in your startup configuration script (see Section 21.2.3).

You can also copy and paste between X11 and Mac OS X applications, though the mouse commands for using the clipboard on either side are different. Copying from or pasting to an Aqua window works the same no matter where the text came from, but X11 windows copy their text to the computer’s clipboard as soon as you select it; X11 windows pastes text through a Command-click (or pressing the middle mouse button, if you have a three-button mouse).

Tip

XDarwin allows you to configure key combinations that simulate two- and three-button mice. By default, Option-click simulates the middle mouse button, and z-click simulates the right mouse button. To configure this in XDarwin, choose Preferences ...