>I have an opportunity to run Allegro CL on an actual unix machine with
>X-windows!  (Previously have been running it only on PCs.)  Unfortunately,
>everybody who has used it in the past is away right now, so I have what
>must be the all-time newbie question:
>
>   How do I persuade lisp to use the windowing system?

If you want to use the "windowing system" for developing programs, the
following should work:

[Allegro CL 4.3.x, Solaris 2.5.x assumed]

Put the following lines into you .emacs file.

(setq load-path
      (cons "/opt/cl/Franz-ACL-4.3.1/home/emacs/fi"
            load-path))

Change the pathname according to your installation.

Insert the following lines to start the Lisp system as a subprocess
from Emacs (Gnu-Emacs or XEmacs).

(defun acl ()
  (interactive)
  (setq fi:common-lisp-image-name
        "/opt/cl/Franz-ACL-4.3.1/bin/pb_clim2xm_composer")
  (fi:common-lisp))

Again, change the pathname in the definition according to your installation.
Depending on your installation, another image name (instead of
pb_clim2xm_composer) might also be suitable. Checkout the pathname by typing
"which lisp" into a Unix shell. Restart Emacs and start ACL with m-x acl.

Now, open another file with the extension .lisp. For instance, open a file
test.lisp. If ACL-specific menues appear in the menubar of Emacs then you're
on the right track.

The following line in .emacs enforces incremental compilation rather than
old fashioned evaluation.

(setq fi:lisp-evals-always-compile t)

>When I type "lisp" it starts toploop simply using line-mode terminal I/O.
>I have DISPLAY set correctly, emacs (for instance) works fine.  Is there a
>command-line option?  Am I hopelessly confused?

In order to start the window-based development environment, type
(wt::start-composer) into the Listener (or try the menu named "Composer").
If this results in an error, either the development environemnt (called
Composer) is not properly installed or not available at your site.
In this case, contact your system administrator.

>Unfortunately,
>everybody who has used it in the past is away right now, so I have what
>must be the all-time newbie question:

As Richard emphasized:

>If you don't have any documentation, it will be hard to get very far.

For doing interface programming per se, I would recommend using CLIM if
available at your site. See:

http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/uims-clim/clim-intro.html
http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/clim-examples/
http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/clim-examples/clim-examples-i
mages/screen-shots.html
http://www.harlequin.com/full/products/sp/clim2.html
http://www.ai.sri.com/~pkarp/clim-www/tool.html

--Ralf


http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/