ximtool and colors

[RobSwaters]

Let's start with the good news: with the help of previous posts on this site I have managed to get ximtool working properly. For me, the trick was to start the a vncserver -depth 8 :1 (on my 24 bits display), then vncviewer :1, and display ximtool in display :1. Images display correctly, and when the stretch is adjusted, the colors in the display change accordingly.

Now for the question: ximtool does not appear to work correctly when displayed on my second monitor, which has an 8-bit display. ximtool starts fine, but it does not appear to get a private color map. The colors are random, and when I change the stretch, nothing happens.
I'm running the KDE desktop, and KDE has used up pretty much all colors, so ximtool should use a private color map to work correctly. I have tried several other applications (mozilla -install, saoimage, GIPSY's "gids" display"). These all work as I would expect, in the sense that they get a private colormap, and moving between these windows causes the characteristic "flashing" of loosing and then reacquiring the color map. ds9 -private kind-of works: it does get a private color map initially, but it does not reacquire it after loosing and then reacquiring focus.
Ximtool, on the other hand, never seems to get a private color map. In some of the posts I read that some window managers do not give ximtool proper colormap focus.

Interestingly, if I run xwininfo on some of the windows with "correct" private color maps, this is the result:
Colormap: 0x4e00008 (installed)
Colormap: 0x6e00005 (installed)
The colormap for the root window is:
Colormap: 0x12f (installed)
The colormap for ximtool is:
Colormap: 0x12f (installed)
I.e., the same as the root window. I would have expected that ximtool would have a unique colormap ID.
For completeness, the colormap for ds9 -private is:
Colormap: 0x12f (not installed)

Given that some display programs apparently can get proper colormap focus with the window manager that I use, and given that ximtool appears to share its colormap with the root window, is it possible that ximtool does not optimally handle the colormap?

Of course, this is not a critical issue, because I have several display programs that work as I would expect, and I have a workaround for ximtool, but it would be nice to use ximtool without the extra steps involved.

In any case, the vncserver/vncclient is a great solution for computers with single displays, such as laptops.

Thanks,

Rob.