re: Reading the init file before mapping the first frame...
I run XEmacs from a shell script that starts it with -unmapped -f
gnuserv-start, and then only after XEmacs is all the way up does it
use gnuclient to bring up the first frame.
It works a lot better this way. On my laptop, I've got the color
scheme and faces set up to give me a light on black color scheme and
smaller frames for the old 800x600 laptop's screen. Without the
-unmapped start up, though, the initial frame is standard grey and
standard size, and only when I use `C-x 5 2' do I get light on black
with the smaller frame size.