NAME

pm − OPEN LOOK Process Manager

SYNOPSIS

pm [ −v ]

DESCRIPTION

The Process Manager allows the user to view and manipulate background activites which would otherwise be unable to interact with the user.  Applications which agree to work with the Process Manager can send it messages to present to the user, and can receive user commands from it in turn.  For example, the Process Manager could be to used to monitor and control background printing jobs, database queries, or other activities. 

Only registered activities can be manipulated by the Process Manager.  This release of OpenWindows provides several demonstration clients which register activites with the Process Manager.  See pmwrap(6) and psm(6). 

OPTIONS

In addition to the normal XView command line options, the following option is available:

−v Print the version number of Process Manager. 

USAGE

The Process Manager’s base window contains, a scrollable read-only list of current background processes, a scrollable read-only window where status messages from background messages are posted, and a control panel. 

List of Current Background Processes

This scrollable read-only list has an entry for each of the user’s background activities (whether or not they are executed as separate system processes).  Currently stopped processes are indicated by a small stop-sign glyph.  The user may select only one process at a time as an operand for a command. 

List of Process Status Messages

This scrollable read-only list displays timestamped and otherwise identified status messages from the various processes. The user can decide whether or not messages from a given process should be shown here, although the choice only affects subsequent messages, not already posted ones. Old messages from finished or cancelled processes can be removed with the "Clean Up Messages" command. 

Process Manager Control Panel

The control panel contains the following commands for controlling a selected process.  Those commands which would make no sense for the selected process (e.g., "Suspend" for an already suspended process) are grayed out.  In addition, not all commands may be recognized by a given process.  There are five process control commands:

Cancel
terminate the selected process.

Suspend
suspend execution of the selected process.

Continue
continue execution of the selected process.

Restart
restart the selected process (assuming this is possible).

Finish Now
cause the selected process to return immediately, possibly with an error or null result. This option is useful for processes such as database queries or remote executions which might accumulate useful partial or intermediate results.

The Messages menu button contains the following commands:

Start/Stop Showing Messages
start or stop showing status messages from the selected process. This is independent of logging.

Start/Stop Logging messages
start or stop logging messages from the selected process in the logging file specified in the property sheet.

Clean Up Messages
delete messages from finished or cancelled processes from the list of process status messages.

The control panel also contains a Properties button for bringing up the Process Manager’s property window. 

Logging Status Messages

The user can flexibly control the logging of process status messages for each process, independently of their display in the Process Manager, by means of the "Start/Stop Logging Messages" menu item.  This applies to the currently selected process.  If no process is selected the menu item is grayed out. 

Process Manager Property Window

The Process Manager’s property window contains a text field for specifying the log file for messages, as well as three choice items controlling

-whether the icon or window header should flash when a new status message is posted in the Process Manager. 

-whether the Process Manager should ring the bell when a new status message is posted. 

-whether the iconified Process Manager should be opened when a new status message is posted. 

FILES

/tmp/pm.log
The default file for logged messages.

SEE ALSO

xview(1), pm(3), pmwrap(6), psm(6)

BUGS

Properties set in the Property Window are not saved between invocations of the Process Manager.  They must be reset each time the Process Manager is run. 

When the Process Manager window is resized, the List of Current Background Processes scrolling list does not resize correctly. 

As process status messages accumulate, the Process Manager uses more and more memory and can eventually fail. 
 

Sun Release 4.1  —  Last change: 9/14/91