libManager, missing text after Apple Update to Mac OS 10.4.3

This isn't really a Cadence problem, but rather a workaround for an
Apple Mac problem.

I have a user who has started to use icfb again, running on a Solaris 8
machine and displaying on his Apple Mac. He thinks the last time this
worked was during a tape-out in August 2005, and now there's a problem:
the libManager (library manager) window acts as if names of libraries,
cells, and views are all invisible. (Menu banners are visible,
though.)

I found only one other reference to this kind of behaviour on the 'net,
and it seems to be related to an OS update, from 10.4.2 to 10.4.3 ...
looks like something's wrong with some of the fonts in 10.4.3.

The workaround: From Cadence docs for a similar problem, and fiddling a
bit to find the right X resource names, we added these lines to our
..Xdefaults file, and used
"xrdb -merge .Xdefaults" to load the resources:

cdsLibManager*fontList: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
cdsLibManager*textFontList:
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
cdsLibManager*XmList*fontList:
-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
cdsLibManager*XmTextField*fontList:
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
cdsLibManager*cataTreeForm*fontList:
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Restarted the libManager, and text is visible again. I don't have time
to dig to see what the real cause of the problem is (i.e. what default
fonts/sizes are missing from the OS update) or to see if all of these
are necessary.

Hope this helps someone out there...

- JayPee

 

If that is a font problem, have a look at the 'xset' command. The
initialisation of the fontpath, as well as the loding of Xresources is
too OS and session-manager dependend for me to tell more. I have only
toyed with that "tiger".