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 | | From: | Ken Lee | | Subject: | Motif FAQ (Part 1 of 9) | | Date: | 17 Jan 2005 05:41:11 GMT |
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 | Archive-name: motif-faq/part1
Last-modified: 1 FEB 2002
Posting-Frequency: irregular
Organization: Kenton Lee, X/Motif Consultant, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
URL: http://www.rahul.net/kenton/mfaq.html
Version: 8.1
Subject: Motif FAQ (all parts)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif,comp.answers,news.answers
Reply-To: kenton@rahul.net (Ken Lee)
Summary: Motif Frequently Asked Questions (with answers).
Posting-Freq.: irregular (re-posted monthly to comp.windows.x.motif)
Organization: Kenton Lee, X/Motif Consultant, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
URL: http://www.rahul.net/kenton/mfaq.html
Motif FAQ
[Last changed: 1 FEB 2002]
This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
often seen in comp.windows.x.motif. It is posted to help reduce volume in
this newsgroup and to provide hard-to-find information of general interest.
This article includes answers to the questions listed below. Key:
+ questions NEW to this issue;
* CHANGES since last issue.
This FAQ is maintained by Ken Lee (kenton@nojunk.rahul.net)
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
You can obtain the most recent version of this FAQ via anonymous ftp from
a server which will seldom refuse you access. Try any of these URLs:
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ or
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.gz
or get the HTML version as one big 600KB file from:
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html or
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html.gz
The Motif FAQ is mirrored at several sites around the world.
Sites closer to you should load faster. These sites are listed at:
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/mfaq.html
I also maintain a WWW page of over 700 technical X Window System and OSF/Motif
links at:
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/xsites.framed.html
Send updates and corrections to kenton@nojunk.rahul.net.
Please include the phrase "For Motif FAQ" in your subject line.
*** SUN READERS ***
The Motif FAQ is now included in a different HTML format with Java applets
on the premiere issue of the SunSoft Developer CD-ROM.
*** CAVEAT ***
If an answer does not have a "Last modified" date, it's possible the
information may no longer be accurate. Modification dates go back to
August 1992. More than half the answers have such a modification
date. Note also that the older the "Last modified" date, the more
likely the information may be suspect. Pay close attention to version
information discussed in answers, since the information may pertain
only to that specific release.
This posting is Copyright (c) 1997-2002 by Kenton Lee.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Permission is hereby granted to read and
distribute this posting for non-commercial purposes. Permission to use
this material for any other purpose must first be obtained in writing
from the author.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0) TOPIC: SUBMITTING SUGGESTIONS, CORRECTIONS, NEW ANSWERS
1) TOPIC: WHAT IS MOTIF?
2)* Is the Motif source code publically available?
3)* What is Motif and how does it relate to the X Toolkit and X Window Sys-
tem?
4) Where did the name "Motif" come from?
5) TOPIC: OTHER RELEVANT NEWSGROUPS AND FAQS
6) TOPIC: FAQ and NEWSGROUP FTP ARCHIVES
7) Is the FAQ available via FTP?
8) Can I receive email notification when the Motif FAQ is updated?
9) Is this FAQ accessible via WWW?
10)* Is this newsgroup archived?
11) TOPIC: OSF, MOTIF VERSIONS, CDE, COSE, DCE, The OPEN GROUP
12) How can I contact the Open Group?
13) Where can I find OSF press releases on Motif and DCE?
14)* What versions of Motif are there?
15)* How can I find which version of Motif I have? Xlib or Xt version?
16) Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.0?
17) What are the details about new features in Motif 2.0?
18) Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.1?
19)+ Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.2?
20) Where can I find Motif 2.1 documentation?
21)* Is the official Motif documentation available on-line?
22) I want to use C++ with Motif. Where can I find C++ examples?
23) Is Motif 2.0 backward compatible with Motif 1.2?
24) How compatible are Motif 1.2.* and X11R6?
25) Why aren't the big UNIX vendors shipping Motif 2.0?
26) Where can I get Motif for UNIX, Linux, or Microsoft Windows?
27) Is there a list of Motif bugs?
28) Where can I get a Motif 1.2 Certification Checklist?
29) What is CDE? What is COSE and how does it relate to Motif?
30)* Is there a CDE FAQ or newsgroup?
31) What is the current version of CDE and what are its features?
32) How does Motif relate to X/Open and CDE?
33) What is The Open Group?
34) Is The Open Group assuming responsibility for the X Window System?
35) What are the current correct trademark statements for X and Motif?
36) Will CDE and Motif converge? What is the CDE/Motif JDA?
37)* Has anyone done a public domain Motif lookalike?
38) Does the Open Group have an application compliance validation service?
39) What is the motif-talk mailing list?
40) How does Motif work with X11R5?
41) Where can I find X technical info on the WWW?
42) What is Broadway? I've heard it called "X on the Web".
43) Where's an HTML version of the Motif FAQ on World Wide Web (WWW)?
44) Where can I get the HTML widget used in Mosaic?
45)* What widgets does Netscape use for its bookmarks list and preference
panels?
46) TOPIC: BOOKS and JOURNALS
47) Is there a Motif tutorial? Xt tutorial? X11 tutorial?
48) What books are available for Motif application programmers?
49) What relevant journals are available?
50) TOPIC: MWM and the SHELL WIDGET
51) What is the difference between Motif and mwm?
52) Does anyone have an alternative set of 3-D defaults for a monochrome
screen?
53) What are some useful mwm resources I can control?
54) How can I configure mwm, such as changing or adding to root menus?
55) How can my program determine which window manager is running?
56) How can I modify the mwm's window decorations with a resource file?
57) How can I programatically modify the mwm's window decorations?
58) Is there an ICCCM compliant way of setting window manager decorations?
59) How can I put decorations on transient windows using olwm?
60) How can I turn off the Motif window manager functions from the system
menu?
61) How can I create a multi-colored window manager icon?
62) How can I keep my shell windows fixed in size?
63) Why is XtGetValues of XmNx and XmNy of my toplevel shell wrong?
64) How do I get XmNx and XmNy positions to be honored correctly?
65) How can my application know when the user has quit Mwm?
66) How can I tell if the user has selected "Close" from the system menu? How
do I catch the "Close"?
67) Is there an mwm virtual desktop manager?
68) Why does mwm 1.2 crash on startup?
69) How do I obtain the size of a unmanaged shell widget?
70) How can I create a shell widget with a non-default visual type?
71) Can a non-shell Motif widget have a different visual type from its
parent?
72) Why do I get BadMatch errors from my menus when I use a non-default visu-
al type for my application shell?
73) How do I popup a scrolled list on top of other widgets?
74) How can I keep my application's window always on top of all other appli-
cations' windows?
75) How can I maximize my top level shell?
76) TOPIC: MOTIF DEVELOPMENT TOOLS (GUI BUILDERS and UIMS's)
77)* What GUI tools exist to assist in developing Motif applications?
78) TOPIC: GEOMETRY MANAGEMENT
79) Why is geometry management so important?
80) Why don't my labels resize in a RowColumn widget?
81) Does XmRowColumn support multiple columns with different column widths?
82) Why do composite widgets (including dialogs) that were created after
their parents were realized appear smaller under 1.2.3 and later?
83) How does the ScrolledWindow manage resizing?
84) Does the XmPanedWindow widget support horizontal paning?
85) TOPIC: TEXT WIDGET
86) How do XmTextField and a single line XmText widget differ?
87) Why does pressing RETURN in a text widget do nothing?
88) Can you reuse the return value from XtParseTranslationTable?
89) When I add text to a scrolling text widget, how can I get the new text to
show?
90) How do I scroll text to display the most recently added information?
91) Does the text widget support 16 bit character fonts?
92) How can I stop the text widget from echoing characters typed?
93) How can I replace characters typed with say a `*'?
94) How can I make a text widget insensitive without graying out the text?
95) How can I best add a large piece of text to a scrolled text widget?
96) How can I get the correct colors for scrolled text widget scrollbars (Sun
only)?
97) How can I highlight text in the Text widget?
98) How can I select all of the text in a widget programmatically?
99) Can I customize the pointer cursor or insert position indicator used by
the text widget?
100) How can I change colours of text in the Text widget?
101) How can I change the font of text in the Text widget?
102) Is there an emacs binding for the text widget?
103) What if I have problems with the backspace/delete keys?
104) How can I use a file as the text source for a Text widget?
105) How can put Text in overstrike mode instead of insert?
106) How can I make the Delete key do a Backspace?
107) Can I change the tab stops in the XmText widget?
108) TOPIC: LIST WIDGET
109) Should I create an XmList widget as a child of automatic XmScrolledWin-
dow or use the XmCreateScrolledList() convenience function?
110) How do I best put a new set of items into a list?
111) Can I have strings with different fonts in a list?
112) Can I get a bitmap to show in a list item like I can in a Label?
113) Can I have items with different colors in a list widget?
114) How can I line up columns in a list widget?
115) Can I grey out an item in a list widget?
116) Can I have multi-line items in a list?
117) How can I tell the position of selected items in a list?
118) How can I configure a scrolled list widget to show a horizontal
scrollbar when some list items are wider than the window?
119) How can I programatically select all of the items in an XmList?
120) TOPIC: FILE SELECTION BOX WIDGET
121) What is libPW.a and do I need it?
122) What are these compile errors: Undefined symbol _regcmp and _regex?
123) What's wrong with the Motif 1.0 File Selection Box?
124) How can I keep my file selection boxes from resizing when I change
directories or filters?
125) What's wrong with the FileSelectionBox under Solaris?
126) TOPIC: FORM WIDGET
127) Why don't labels in a Form resize when the label is changed?
128) How can I center a widget in a form?
129) How do I line up two columns of widgets of different types?
130) TOPIC: PUSHBUTTON WIDGET
131) Why doesn't the enter or return key activate the button with focus?
132) Why can't I use accelerators on buttons not in a menu?
133) TOPIC: TOGGLEBUTTON WIDGET
134) What widgets give the look of push buttons, but behavior of toggle but-
tons?
135) Can I customize XmToggleButton to use my own indicator graphic (e.g., a
check mark)?
136) TOPIC: ICON WIDGET and PIXMAPS
137) What is XPM?
138) How do I convert my XPM file into a Pixmap?
139) How can I display a multi-color image in a widget?
140) Can I use XmGetPixmap in Motif 1.2 to create colored images?
141) Why does XpmCreatePixmapFromData fail with a pixmap containing a large
number of colors?
142) How can I convert a Sun/GIF/TIFF image to a pixmap?
143) How can I use Motif's pre-defined pixmaps?
144) TOPIC: SCALE AND SCROLLBAR WIDGET
145) Can the XmScale widget have arrows or tick marks in Motif 2.0?
146) How can I set the color of a XmScale widget's trough?
147) How does Motif implement mouse button auto-repeat on the scrollbar's ar-
row buttons?
148) TOPIC: LABEL WIDGET
149) How can I align the text in a label (button, etc) widget?
150) Why doesn't label alignment work in a XmRowColumn?
151) How can I set a multi-line label?
152) How can I have a vertical label?
153) How can I have a Pixmap in a Label?
154) Why doesn't the XmLabel widget obey the XmNwith and XmNheight that I
give it?
155) How do you set the background color of a label widget using XtVa-
TypedArg?
156) TOPIC: DRAWING AREA WIDGET
157) How can I send an expose event to a Drawing Area widget?
158) How can I know when a DrawingArea has been resized?
159) How can I create a drawing area widget with a visual type different from
its parent?
160) How can I display postscript in a Motif widget, such as XmDrawingArea?
161) TOPIC: MAIN WINDOW WIDGET
162) How can I create a message window in an XmMainWindow?
163) TOPIC: SCROLLED WINDOW WIDGET
164) How do I tell if a scrolled window's scrollbars are visible?
165) How can I programatically scroll a XmScrolledWindow in XmAUTOMATIC mode?
166) What widget does the XmScrolledWindow use for its clip window?
167) How do I create a scrolled window with only one scrollbar?
168) TOPIC: MENUS
169) How can I change the cursor used in Motif menus?
170) How do I put my help menu on the far right of my menubar?
171) Can I change or disable the menu bar accelerator from the default (F10)?
172) How do I set the current choice in a radio box or an option menu?
173) How can I determine the item selected in a a radio box or option menu?
174) How can I change the cascade indicator on an option menu?
175) How do I unset an XmToggleButton in a radio box?
176) Can I place a radio box in a pulldown menu?
177) How do I make a menu choice insensitive if it was created with XmVa-
CreateSimplePulldownMenu?
178) What widgets can I put inside a menubar?
179) Can I have a cascade button without a submenu in a pulldown menu?
180) Should I have a cascade button without a submenu in a pulldown menu?
181) What is the best way to create popup menus?
182) How do popup menus work?
183) How can I disable the button 3 grab if I am not using popup menus?
184) Should I use translation tables or actions for popup menus?
185) What are the known bugs in popup menus?
186) Can I have multiple popup menus on the same widget?
187) How can I change the shell title of a tear-off menu?
188) Can I programmatically tear-off a menu?
189) What widgets are valid within Motif menus?
190) Can I create multi-column popup or pulldown menus?
191) How can I keep my program from hanging if a user activates a popup that
is a child of an insensitive push button?
192) TOPIC: DRAG AND DROP
193) Where can I find info and examples of the Motif drag and drop protocol?
194) How can I disable Drag and Drop in my Motif 1.2 client ?
195) Can I register client data for the Motif XmDropSite drop callback?
196) Can unmanged widgets be valid (drag-and-drop) drop sites?
197) TOPIC: INPUT FOCUS
198) How can I specify the widget that should have the keyboard focus when my
application starts up?
199) How can I specify my own keyboard traversal order?
200) How can I determine which widget has keyboard focus?
201) How can I direct the keyboard input to a particular widget?
202) How can I have a modal dialog which has to be answered before the appli-
cation can continue?
203) TOPIC: MEMORY AND SPEED
204) When can I free data structures passed to or retrieved from Motif?
205) What memory leaks are known? Why does my application grow in size?
206) Why do I get so many uninitilized memory read (UMR) errors when I run
Purify[tm] on my Motif programs?
207) Why does my application take a long time to start up?
208) My application is running too slowly. How can I speed it up?
209) Why is my application so huge?
210) How can I improve performance when creating and deleting hundreds of
text widgets?
211) After I call XtSetValues, when will I see the changes in my GUI?
212) TOPIC: XMSTRING
213) What string functions differ in Motif 1.1 and 1.2?
214)* How can I get the ASCII text out of an XmString?
215) When can XmStrings used as resources be freed?
216) Why doesn't XmStringGetNextSegment() work properly?
217) Why does using XmStringDraw cause a BadFont error?
218) How can I control color of individual strings to show status, etc.?
219) TOPIC: DIALOGS
220) How do I stop my dialog disappearing when I press the help button?
221) How do I make my own dialog?
222) Why do dialog title bars have "_popup" or "<-popup" concatenated onto
the widget name?
223) How can I force a dialog window to display?
224) How can I control placement of a popup widget?
225) How can I set the dialog's default button?
226) How can I create a dialog that behaves like, but looks a little dif-
ferent from, XmMessageBox?
227) How can I use Motif's message dialog bitmaps in my own dialogs?
228) TOPIC: LANGUAGE BINDINGS
229) What is ViewKit? Is there a free version?
230) Is there a C++ binding for Motif?
231) How can I avoid C++ String class and typedef char *String conflicts?
232) How can I have a C++ member function in a callback?
233) Is there a Common Lisp binding for Motif?
234) Is there an Ada binding for Motif? (Part 1 of 2)
235) Is there an Ada binding for Motif? (Part 2 of 2)
236) Is there a Poplog binding for Motif?
237) TOPIC: SPECIFIC PLATFORMS
238) Is it easy to build Motif for a Sun?
239) How do I build Motif 1.2.2 on Solaris 2.1 with Sun C?
240) What compile errors/warnings might I get in both Sun 3 and Sun 4?
241) On a Sun 3, what are the mwm startup error messages about?
242) Are there problems making shared libraries on a Sun?
243) Why does the OpenWindows server hangs when I popup a menu with Button 3?
244) Has anyone made shared libraries on an IBM RS/6000?
245) What is the error "Unaligned access in XmString" under Ultrix?
246) Can bugs in Sun's OpenWindows server cause Motif clients to crash?
247) Why does Motif on Linux crash when I open a file selection box?
248) Are there compatibility problems between some Linux Motif libraries and
libc5 or glibc?
249) How can I install Motif on my PC?
250) TOPIC: KEYSYMS
251) What is causing the messages "unknown keysym name osfDown..."?
252) What happens if I can't install Motif Keysyms?
253) Why has OSF introduced Keysyms into Motif 1.1?
254) Why do accented characters not work with Motif applications linked with
X11R6? What is the Compose file?
255) TOPIC: UIL
256) What is UIL and why is it so popular?
257) What is Mrm?
258) How do I specify a search path for ".uid" files?
259) Can I specify callback functions in resource files?
260) How can I set a multi-line label in UIL?
261) Is there a program that can convert a UIL file to tclMotif?
262) Why does my SCO UIL application fail to open 60 UID files?
263) TOPIC: ICONIFICATION and DE-ICONIFICATION
264) How can I keep track of changes to iconic/normal window state?
265) How can I check if my application has come up iconic?
266) How can I start my application in iconic state?
267) How can an application iconify itself?
268) How can an application de-iconify itself?
269) Why doesn't MWM display an iconify button on my dialog windows?
270) TOPIC: SPECIALIZED WIDGETS
271) Where can I get ComboBox, SpinBox, or Tree graph widgets?
272) How can I create a transparent widget?
273) TOPIC: CREATING WIDGETS
274) What are some good references for creating widgets (subclassing widg-
ets)?
275) How can I achieve binary compatibility using the XmResolvePartOffset
API?
276) TOPIC: MISCELLANEOUS
277) How can an application be informed of signals?
278) How do I control the repeat rate on a SUN keyboard?
279) How can I identify the children of a manager widget?
280) What functions can an application use to change the size or position of
a widget?
281) Can I use XtAddTimeOut, XtAddWorkProc, and XtAddInput with XtAppMain-
Loop?
282) Why does XtGetValues for XmNx and XmNwidth return extremely large
values?
283) Can I use XmGetPixmap() with widgets that have non-default visual types?
284) What is the matter with Frame in Motif 1.2?
285) What is IMUG and how do I join it?
286) How do I set the title of a top level window?
287) How can I disable the color scheme mechanism in CDE or HP VUE?
288) Can I use editres with Motif? Is there an editres tutorial?
289) Where is the editres protocol documented?
290) Why does an augment translation appear to act as replace for some widg-
ets?
291) How do you "grey" out a widget so that it cannot be activated?
292) Can I change the graphics drawn by insensitive widgets?
293) Why doesn't the Help callback work on some widgets?
294)* How can I implement "bubble help" or "tool tips" with Motif?
295) Can I specify a widget in a resource file?
296) Why are only some of my translations are being installed?
297) Can I have separate translations for shifted and unshifted keys?
298) What are these "non-existant passive grab" warnings?
299) How do I have more buttons than three in a MessageBox?
300) How do I create a "busy working cursor"?
301) Can I use the hourglass that mwm uses?
302) What order should the libraries be linked in?
303) How do I use xmkmf for Motif clients?
304) How do I use imake with Motif 2.0?
305) How do I make context sensitive help?
306) How do I debug a modal interaction?
307) Why can't I install my own colormap using XInstallColormap?
308) How do I install a private colormap?
309) How do I get correct shadow colors to match other color changes?
310) What color algorithm does Motif use?
311) How can you access the superclass widget from which Motif convenience
dialogs are subclassed?
312) Can the Motif 2.0 Notebook widget display non-rectangular "file tabs"?
313) How does the clipboard mechanism work?
314) Why does the xyz application core dump when I cut and paste?
315) Why is XtWindow(widget) == 0?
316) How do I debug X protocol errors (e.g., BadWindow, BadMatch) in Motif
applications?
317) Why doesn't XtNameToWidget (widget, "MyName") work?
318) Why does my callback's client data structure contain incorrect values
when the callback is called?
319) How can an application manage events on multiple displays?
320) Can a Motif application create windows on mutiple screens (on a multi-
screen workstation)?
321) Why do I get "Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to parent"?
322) Why do I get link errors about "XShape" symbols?
323) Why do I get link errors about "ICE" and "SM" symbols?
324) Why does my X11R6 program crash with undefined symbol "LowerCase"?
325) How do I programatically control xwd to dump a specific window?
326) How can I display an xwd in a window (without using xwud)?
327) Can I write a multi-threaded Motif application?
328) How can I dump my widget instance tree in a way that reflects the
hierarchy?
329) How do I get the events for gadgets? Or the name of the gadget?
330) Can I set the foreground and background colors of gadgets (e.g., con-
venience dialog buttons)?
331) Can I use a gadget as the parent of a dialog shell?
332) Which other widget features do gadgets lack?
333) Where can I get the xmon or xscope programs to trace my X protocol?
334) What does the error "Couldn't find per display information" mean?
335) Can I set widget fallback resources after I've called XtAppInitialize()?
336) Can I use the newline character in widget names?
337) Is anybody out there selling Windows95 look-alike widgets?
338) How can I convert my OLIT programs to the Motif look & feel?
339) What does this mean: Warning: Cannot find callback list in XtAddCall-
back?
340) If a single widget has multiple callback functions, are they all execut-
ed? If so, in what order?
341) Why are some widgets still visible after I call XtDestroyWidget() on
them?
342) If I call XtGetValues on a resource that does not exist for a given
widget, what value is returned?
343) Can I reparent a widget (change its parent)?
344) Are there any "year 2000" issues within Motif?
345) Can I suppress or customize Motif warning and error messages?
346) TOPIC: Motif FAQ HISTORY and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 0) TOPIC: SUBMITTING SUGGESTIONS, CORRECTIONS, NEW ANSWERS
[Last modified: May 97]
Answer: If you want to add to the FAQ, here's the procedure....
If you have suggestions or corrections for any of these answers or any
additional information, please send them to the e-mail address below. The
information will be included in the next revision or two.
o Send updates, suggestions, corrections, new answers to:
kenton@nojunk.rahul.net (Ken Lee)
X/Motif Consultant
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
o _Please_ put "For Motif FAQ" in the Subject line!
(This is the best way to catch my attention. Really.)
o Please include answers with your FAQ questions.
(If are looking for an answer to your questions, you may
want to hire a consultant. My company can do e-mail consulting.)
o For coding-related issues, I would prefer a short textual
description of the your design rather than a long code sample.
o If you do submit code, make sure it is well tested, portable,
and robust.
o If you _do not_ want your name or email address listed
in the FAQ, explicitly state this.
The information contained herein has been gathered from a variety of sources.
In many cases attribution has been lost; if you would like to claim
responsibility for a particular item, please let us know.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 1) TOPIC: WHAT IS MOTIF?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 2)* Is the Motif source code publically available?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: On May 15, 2000 the Open Group released the Motif source code for
Motif 2.1, using a public license, to the Open Source community. On January
29, 2002, Open Motif 2.2 was released.
For more information on Open Motif, see:
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/
This web site includes the latest announcements, open source license details,
a FAQ and other documentation, and allows you to download the Motif source
code.
Some other web sites dedicated to Open Motif are:
http://www.motifzone.net/
http://www.metrolink.com/openmotif/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 3)* What is Motif and how does it relate to the X Toolkit and X
Window System?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: Motif is a widely-accepted set of user interface guidelines developed
by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) around 1989 which specifies how an X
Window System application should "look and feel". Motif includes the Motif
Toolkit (also called "Xm" or the "Motif widgets"), which enforce a policy on
top of the X Toolkit Intrinsics ("Xt"). Xt is really a "mechanism not policy"
layer, and Xm provides the specific "look and feel". For example, Xt does not
insist that windows have titlebars or menus, but it provides hooks for
developers of specific toolkits (Motif, OpenLook, Athena widgets) to take
advantage of. In addition to widgets, Motif includes the Motif Style Guide
document (as well as several others listed in my FAQ) which details how a
Motif user interface should look and behave to be "Motif compliant".
The X Toolkit Intrinsics are built upon the lowest programming level API
called "Xlib" (X library). Both Xlib and Xt are specified by the Open Group
(formerly called the MIT X Consortium), which you can reach at:
http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/x/
In early 1996, OSF merged with X/Open to form the Open Group. At the
beginning of 1997, the X Consortium closed and transfered ownership of its
projects to the Open Group. The Open Group continues development and support
on the X Window System, Motif, CDE, and other technologies.
On May 15, 2000 the Open Group released the Motif source code, using a public
license, to the Open Source community. The current version of Open Motif 2.2,
which was released January 29, 2002. For more information, see:
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/
http://www.motifzone.net/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 4) Where did the name "Motif" come from?
[Last modified: Jun 98]
Answer: We had a contest inside of what was then The Open Software Foundation
to name this thing that we had up to then called the UEC for User Environment
Component. Lots of things were suggested, but Motif was suggested by one of
the employees.
Ken Flowers, k.flowers@opengroup.org
FYI - in the art world, a motif is a recurring artistic symbol or theme. The
meaning obviously carries over to the GUI world.
Ken Lee, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 5) TOPIC: OTHER RELEVANT NEWSGROUPS AND FAQS
[Last modified: Aug 98]
Answer: This newsgroup is "comp.windows.x.motif". The WWW URL is:
news:comp.windows.x.motif
Many other X-related newgroups and FAQs are available. For a full list, see
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/xsites.framed.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 6) TOPIC: FAQ and NEWSGROUP FTP ARCHIVES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 7) Is the FAQ available via FTP?
[Last modified: Apr 98]
Answer: The Motif FAQ is available as a large single file on Kenton Lee's web
site:
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.gz
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html.gz
A number of FAQ's (including this one) are available via anonymous ftp at
rtfm.mit.edu under the directory pub/usenet.
The Motif FAQ is available in 9 parts via anonymous ftp in any of the
following directories at rtfm.mit.edu:
/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.windows.x.motif
/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/motif-faq
/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/motif-faq
There is also a mail server called mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu. To retrieve a
file send mail to the server with a subject or body similar to
send usenet/comp.windows.x.motif/Motif_FAQ_(Part_1_of_9).Z
The Motif FAQ is also available via anonymous ftp as a single file:
/contrib/faqs/Motif-FAQ from ftp.x.org.
(See also "Is this FAQ accessible via WWW?")
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 8) Can I receive email notification when the Motif FAQ is updated?
[Last modified: Sept 95]
Answer: Yes! Simply follow this link to "The URL-minder: Your Own Personal Web
Robot!"
http://www.netmind.com/URL-minder/URL-minder.html
and register the following ftp URL:
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ (text version)
or
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html (HTML version)
This free service is brought to you by Netmind at:
http://www.netmind.com/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 9) Is this FAQ accessible via WWW?
[Last modified: Apr 98]
Answer: You can access the HTML version of this FAQ from my web site, either
uncompressed (600KB) or compressed (180KB):
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html
ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/kenton/faqs/Motif-FAQ.html.gz
A list of other web sites (including mirror sites around the world) carrying
text and HTML versions of this FAQ is available at:
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/mfaq.html
Ken Lee
Thanks to Greg Ercolano (erco@netcom.com) for providing an awk script that
converts my Motif FAQ to HTML.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 10)* Is this newsgroup archived?
[Last modified: Nov 98]
Answer: http://www.google.com/ archives several years of Usenet traffic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 11) TOPIC: OSF, MOTIF VERSIONS, CDE, COSE, DCE, The OPEN GROUP
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 12) How can I contact the Open Group?
[Last modified: Aug 97]
Answer: For more information on the Open Group, including a list of e-mail and
telephone contacts, see their WWW home page:
http://www.opengroup.org/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 13) Where can I find OSF press releases on Motif and DCE?
[Last modified: May 97]
Answer: The Open Group web page:
http://www.rdg.opengroup.org/press/titles.htm
contains Motif and DCE press releases dating back to August, 1996.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 14)* What versions of Motif are there?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: Motif 1.0 is based on the R3 toolkit. There are patch releases to
1.0: 1.0.1, 1.0.A, 1.0.2 and 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.5. 1.0.A was a fairly major
patch, as it involved a complete re-engineering of UIL and Mrm. Almost
everyone who has 1.0.x has either 1.0.A or 1.0.3.
Motif 1.1 is based on the R4 toolkit. The intial version was Motif 1.1.0.
Motif 1.1.1 has been released as a patch to licensees with Full Support or
Technical Update service. Motif 1.1.2 is a patch release which contains the
necessary changes to fix over 80 bugs reported against Motif. It is available
to support contract holders (including both full support and update service).
The 1.1.3 release fixed a further 150 bugs and was available from August 1991
to support contract holders (including both full support and update service).
1.1.4 offers X11R5 support, but is not an X11R5 product. 1.1.5 was released
in June 92 to licensees who hold a Motif Full Support or Update Support
contract
Motif 1.2.0 was released in April 1992 and is based on the X11R5 toolkit. It
offers increased compatibility with international standards, PC-style
behavior and binary compatibility with Motif 1.1 applications. New features
include drag-and-drop, tear- off menus, toolkit enhancements and new
documentation. toolkit. The code is totally ANSI C.
Motif 1.2.1 was released September, 1992. Due to an optimisation from 1.2.0
to 1.2.1 object code compiled under 1.2.1 (that is, using 1.2.1 header files)
will not link with 1.2.0 libraries (and, very probably, clients that use
shared libraries and are linked against 1.2.1 won't startup against 1.2).
Motif 1.2.2 was released March, 1993. This release contains over 250 bug
fixes, improved text, drag-and-drop features and has less than one reported
defect per 1000 lines of code.
from dbrooks@osf.org Motif 1.2.3 was released on September 13, 1993. The
defect density is measured at < 0.8 known reports per thousand lines. In this
release, we have paid particular attention to memory leaks, and have improved
drag-and-drop performance greatly.
Motif 1.2.4 was released April, 1994. from the OSF README: This patch release
contains approximately 240 bug fixes for Motif 1.2. The number of CRs resolved
in this release is about 330....Apart from the 64-bit changes, all changes
made in this release are fixes for reported bugs.
Motif 2.0 was released in August, 1994. For details, see the questions "Is
there a concise features list for Motif 2.0?" and "What are the details about
new features in Motif 2.0?" Due to binary compatibility problems, this
release was not very popular with UNIX vendors.
Motif 1.2.5 was released June 15, 1995 ONLY to OSF Motif Support Licensees as
part of their maintenance agreement. Motif 1.2.5 includes minor enhancements
to support CDE 1.0. Vendors not supporting CDE generally ignored this release
and continued to use Motif 1.2.4.
Motif 2.1 was released February 5, 1997. For details, see the questions "Is
there a concise features list for Motif 2.1?"
Open Motif 2.2 was released January 29, 2002. For details, see the questions
"Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.2?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 15)* How can I find which version of Motif I have? Xlib or Xt
version?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: The macro XmVERSION gives you the version number. The macro
XmREVISION gives you the major revision number. The macro XmVersion combines
these e.g. a value of 1002 is Motif 1.2. In Motif 1.2, the macro
XmUPDATE_LEVEL was added to give the minor revision number (also known as the
patch level).
To find the version of a compiled Motif library:
grep XmVERSION_STRING libXm.a
To find the Motif version at run-time, use the global variable:
xmUseVersion
Ken Lee adds the following for determining the Xlib and Xt version:
X11/Xlib.h should have macros like this:
#define XlibSpecificationRelease 6
meaning X11R6.
Similarly, X11/Intrinsic.h has this in X11R6:
#define XtSpecificationRelease 6
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 16) Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.0?
[Last modified: Sept 94]
Answer:
New widgets
ComboBox.
Notebook.
Container/IconGadget.
SpinBox.
CSText.
New features
Thermometer Scale and tic marks.
ScrollBar sliding/arrow and snapback modes.
ScrolledWindow autoscroll and childType.
Toggle indeterminate state and new visual.
Colors in Gadgets.
XmIm API for I18N.
XmNlayoutDirection resource everywhere.
Natural UnitType conversion syntax.
XPM3 (colored icon) format support.
The Uniform Transfer Model.
General Rendition attributes in XmString (color, multiple fonts, etc)
Several Display resources for CDE visual/behavior compatibility.
New FileSelectionBox mode (again from CDE).
Quick navigate in List.
Oriented PanedWindow.
Popup menus support.
and much more...
Extensibility
Traits.
C++ foundry.
Widget writer doc.
Exm widget source examples.
Xme API (useful _Xm).
Desktop
Virtual MWM.
Workspace Manager.
TearOff menu in MWM.
Client Command Interface.
Colored icon pixmaps (from Xm).
Performance & Quality
No known Memory Leaks.
XmString sharing.
XmList creation/setup speedup.
GC usage improved.
Malloc/free usage.
Bitmap allowed for pixmap resources.
XmManager no longer blindly selects for PointerMotion
XmFileSelectionBox better stat cache.
Broader use of Hash tables.
Better link profile (Trait + remodularization).
X11R6 unofficial support.
Hundreds of bug fixes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 17) What are the details about new features in Motif 2.0?
[Last modified: Aug 97]
Answer: (See the previous question for a more compact features list.)
NOTE: This is a posting by Douglas Rand that was composed by
one of the OSF business managers, Darrell Crow (crow@osf.org).
OSF also published a nice technical overview in the X Journal.
A copy of that report is available on-line at:
http://www.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/motif/xjournal.htm
Date: 11 Jul 94 15:49:27 GMT
From: (Douglas Rand)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Subject: Motif 2.0 announcement
To: uunet!lobo.gsfc.nasa.gov!motif
The following was composed by one of our business managers, Darrell Crow
(crow@osf.org), questions may be directed to him.
----------------------------------------
With this posting I hope to answer many questions I've been receiving
regarding what is in Motif 2.0 and how does if differ from Release 1.2. This
posting contains an overview followed by a bullet item listing of the features
and benefits added to Motif in this release. If I didn't answer your questions
feel free to direct them to me. At the end, I'll list additional
documentation available from OSF. If you're also interested in the licensing
and pricing information you can also contact me or the official OSF/Motif
channel: direct@osf.org. I hope that this information update is of benefit to
you.
OSF/Motif has become the major Graphical User Interface (GUI) technology for
Open Systems, as well as an IEEE 1295 standard. On Tuesday, June 21, OSF
announced its next major release of OSF/Motif, Release 2.0. This release,
which is the most extensive and colaborative release of Motif since Motif 1.0
was introduced five years ago, includes new features organized around four
major themes:
I. Extensibility,
2. Consistency,
3. Improvements and
4. CDE Convergence.
Motif 2.0 was a collaborative development effort. Contributors to this
release include Lotus Development, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment,
Integrated Computer Solutions, Computer Automation, Groupe Bull, HaL Computer
Systems and Unix Systems Laboratories.
This release had the goal of allowing developers to easily build new widgets
and with support for C++ . This required new extensible features such as
subclassing, traits, C++ support and detailed documentation. Like all Xt-
based toolkits, subclassing requires detailed knowledge, experience and access
to the source code to fully understand Motif's class methods. Motif 2.0
simplified this process by providing extensive documentation and allowing
subclassing from the Primitive and Manager classes without requiring access to
source code. Documentation of Motif's class methods are included in a new
book, The OSF/Motif Widget Writer's Guide. This book provides all necessary
information to subclass from Primitive and Manager and numerous examples of
subclassing are provided. Traits are a new feature with Motif 2.0 which
essentially allow a given behaviour to be associated to a widget irrespective
of the widget hierarchial relationships. The number of applications developped
in C++ is rapidly growing and C++ programmers are now able to derive new
subclasses and still have those C++ widgets usable as regular widgets with the
standard API in Motif 2.0
CDE (Common Desktop Environment) convergence. The previous version of
OSF/Motif (Release 1.2) introduced major new features such as
internationalization, drag-and-drop and tear-off menus. Those features were
intended to allow application developers to produce interoperable, easy to use
applications for a worldwide market. As a result, this technology was selected
to become the basis of the Common Desktop Environment jointly developed by HP,
IBM, Novell and SunSoft, proposed to become an X/Open standard. These features
as well as the GUI extensions added to the CDE specifications have been added
to Release 2.0.
PC Consistency has been a major theme of this release. This includes
improvements and completions to the toolkit that was begun with Motif 1.2 as
well as the addition of seven new widgets (Container, Notebook, icon gadget,
spinbox, combobox, CSText and thermometer) common to this environment and
finally a new Style Guide. Extensive work has been expended to ensure the
convergence of the Windows, CUA, CDE and Motif style both in technology and
terminology into a single document. The work for this book will be submitted
to the X/Open Fast Track process for incorporation into the X/Open set of
specifications.
Improvements to the OSF/Motif toolkit are far too numerous to adequately list
here. However a brief mention of a few of the major improvements includes the
addition of the Unified Transfer Model that simplifies data transfer by all
Motif's previous methods, XPM support (ability to read colored icon file for
pixmap resources), ScrolledWindow partial scroll and autodrag,Toggle
checkmark, indeterminate state, documenting the input methods API for
internationalization, upgrading UIL to support 64-bit architecture, platform
independence, and support of the new extensibility features and widgets, and
finally the Motif Window Manager support of virtual screen, workspace
management protocol and root menu additions and etc.
This release brings together the most requested features from development
community with the single purpose of extending application developers' mission
of producing portable, consistent and interoperable applications to the open
systems community.
Listing of the OSF/MotifR 2.0 Features and Benefits
I. MORE EFFICIENT APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Easier application development to meet new business opportunities and deploy
applications faster...
Benefit Allows easier extensions to Motif for custom user
Features:
* New, formal Xme API for integrating custom widgets interfaces,
without access to Motif source code
* All extensions using Xme API are "full citizens"
* Widgets may be added to off-the-shelf Motif products, without
recompiling Motif source code
* Manager and primitive widget subclassing
* C++ base classes provided for C++ widget development
* C++ is used for inheritance, but X intrinsics are used for other
characteristics
* Trait mechanism for OSF/Motif widgets, allowing "multiple
inheritance" of C class methods
* Extensibility fully documented in Widget Writer's Guide, and
Reference documentation
* New OSF training: Widget Writing with Motif 2.0
* Examples of custom widgets in C and C++
Feature:
Makes it easier for C++ developers to use Motif
Benefit:
* Motif source code compilable by C++ compiler
* Ability to integrate C++ widget extensions (above)
Feature:
Allows easier exploitation of Motif features for end user benefits
Benefit:
XmNotebook
* Subclass of XmManager
* Organizes children into pages, tabs, status area and page scroller
XmContainer
* Subclass of XmManager
* Manages IconGadget children
XmIconGadget
XmComboBox
* Subclass of XmManager
* Combines capabilities of a single line
XmTextField and XmList
XmSpinBox
* Subclass of XmManager
* Manages multiple traversable children
XmScale (thermometer) widget
* Subclass of XmManager
* New resources added for thermometer behavior
XmCSText
* Subclass of XmPrimitive
* Provides facilities which parallel XmText, but using XmString
Uniform transfer model for primary transfer,
* secondary transfer, cut and paste, drag and drop
Uniform API (with backward compatibility)
2 new callback functions for target identifcation
Misc. toolkit enhancements:
* Menu system
Simplified programming of popup menus
Source code reorganization
* X pix map (XPM) format, with multicolor icons
Misc. toolkit enhancements (continued):
* New rendering characteristics for XmString:
renditions (fonts, color), tabs, localization
components, parsing
* List -- Quick navigate
* Traversal -- drawing area traversable via keys,
virtual key associated with multiple real keys
* Visuals (in addition to Toggle Button)
* XmScreen resources
* Resolution independence -- unit conversion
UIL enhancements:
* Support for new and custom widgets
* UID files -- platform independence
* 64-bit architecture support
Updates to documentation: Programmer's Guide, Reference
Updates to OSF training:
* Introduction to Programming
* User Interface Design
* 2.0 Technical Update
Feature:
Allows easy integration of applications with Common Desktop
Environment (CDE)
Benefit:
* Contains foundation GUI for CDE
* Client-command interface allowing other clients to add commands to
MWM menus
Feature:
Allows easy migration of applications to Motif 2.0
Benefit
* Upward binary compatibility of Motif 1.2 toolkit API
(Motif 1.2 applications need only re-link)
Feature
Makes applications easier to troubleshoot & maintain
Benefit
* Overall quality improvements in Motif
* Default density lower than 0.5 DPKLOC
EASE OF USE
Ease of use by individual computer users... at the application user
interface level...
Feature:
Satisfies rising user expectations for ease of use, leveraging
experience with other user interfaces
Benefit:
User interface capabilities equivalent to those on PCs:
* Notebook widget
* Container widget
* ComboBox widget
* SpinBox widget
* Scale (thermometer) widget
* Availability of formatted editable text
Compound String text widget
Compound String enhancements to support color, tabs, multiple
fonts, etc.
* Auto Scrolling
* Vertical Paned Window
* Update to User Guide
Ease of use by individual computer users... at the desktop level...
Feature:
Allows easier integration with the desktop
Benefit:
* Contains foundation GUI for Common Desktop Environment (CDE)
* Tear-off menu support of mwm's root menu
Feature:
Allows more natural organization of users' work
Benefits:
* Virtual screen (desktop panning) support
* Workspace management protocol
(for third party workspace management solutions that
allow users to switch computing context "rooms" for
different tasks)
EASE OF ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
Easier integration of Motif and Motif applications into the
enterprise computing environment...
Feature:
Increases consistency of user interface style across platforms &
applications; increases user skill portability
Benefits:
* Motif 2.0 Style Guide work Technical and terminology convergence
among Motif, CDE and CUA
* New widget support of converged style
* Increased similarity to Windows & CUA behavior:
Check marks and crosses in Toggle Button
Indeterminate state in Toggle Button
Ctrl Button 1 takes focus
Menu unpost behavior
Quick navigate in list
Feature:
Increases consistency of a complete user environment across open
systems
Benefits:
* Consistency with the X/Open CDE specification, including virtually
all CDE Motif vendor extensions:
XmCascadeButton activation via BMenu
Enhanced XmFileSelectionBox
Default XmNshadowThickness to 1
Thermometer-style XmScale
Color pixmaps in XPM format
Additional virtual key bindings
SpinBox, ComboBox
Message catalogs for toolkit error messages
Other items controlled by a global resource:
ColorObject (standarizes colormap allocation for
applications, to enable use of Style Manager application)
BSelect and BTransfer integration
Dragging non-selectable items disabled
Use of TAB key -- XmPushButton navigation
Visual additions to XmToggleButton
Visual modifications to menus (etched in)
Visual modifications to default button in dialogs (focus
highlight outside of default visual)
Visual modifications to MWM
Additional drag icons
* Compliance with IEEE 1295 standard
* Consistency of Motif vendor implementations:
AES Rev D for API stability
Validation Test Suite 2.0 for certification
Updated Quality Assurance Test Suite for consistency in
quality
* Continued support of the X Window system (based on
* X11R5; tested also with X11R6 )
Feature:
Ease of integrating Motif and PC environments
Benefits:
* Favorable licensing terms to support:
PC client-server computing
Deployment of PC applications using Motif DLLs
* Style convergence to support hybrid user environments
WORLD-WIDE ACCEPTANCE
Even more acceptable as the preferred user interface for Open Systems,
worldwide...
Feature
Applicable to a wider range of computer users
Benefits:
* Internationalization enhancements:
New API for widget writers to make use of input methods
Higher level of internationalization for Middle Eastern
languages:
Bi-directional layout -- left-to-right/right-to-left geometry
management
Bi-directional text editing -- left-to-right/right-to-left,
single level (unsupported)
* 64-bit architecture support
* Favorable licensing terms to support:
Single user systems
Embedded systems
Cross-vendor Motif upgrades
Shared library distribution with applications
* Performance
Memory usage
Start-up time, for list widget
Decreased X resource usage
Various optimizations
ADDITIONAL AVAILABLE DOCUMENTS FROM OSF.
OSF/Motif 2.0 Datasheet
OSF/Motif 2.0 Price List
OSF/Motif 2.0 Licensing Kit
OSF/Motif 2.0 Laymen's Explanation
OSF/Motif 2.0 FAQ
X/Journal July-August Feature Article on Motif 2.0
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OSF/MOTIF 2.0, PLEASE CONTACT OSF DIRECT CHANNELS
AT: (617)621-7300; email: direct@osf.org
OSF and Motif are registered trademarks of the Open Software Foundation, Inc.
[end of message from Darrell Crow (crow@osf.org)]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 18) Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.1?
[Last modified: Aug 97]
Answer: The Open Group's press release for Motif 2.1 is available at:
http://www.rdg.opengroup.org/press/5feb97.htm
A technical report is also available at:
http://www.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/motif/motif.data.sheet.htm
The major differences from Motif 2.0 are:
1) The CS text widget from Motif 2.0 is not included.
2) Motif 2.0 word-size independent UID files are no longer supported. Only
the Motif 1.2 word-size dependent format is supported.
3) To promote convergence with dtwm, mwm's panning, virtual screen, and
workspace features have been removed
4) Support was added for the X print server, including a new print dialog
widget
5) The Motif libraries are now thread-safe (if the underlying libraries and
system are also thread-safe)
6) Several internationalization features were added, including an on-the-spot
input method and vertical text writing
7) Motif 2.1 is based on X11R6.2 and will work properly with X11R6.3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 19)+ Is there a concise features list for Motif 2.2?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: The Open Group's press release for Open Motif 2.2 is available at:
http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/openmotif-2.2.html
OpenMotif 2.2 updates OpenMotif 2.1.30. The major change is the addition of
10 new widgets:
1) XmButtonBox
2) XmColorSelector
3) XmColumn
4) XmDataField
5) XmExt18List
6) XmFontSelector
7) XmIconBox
8) XmIconButton
9) XmTabStack
10) XmTree
In addition, a ToolTips feature is implemented within the XmPrimitive and
XmGadget classes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
END OF PART ONE
|
|
| | From: | Ken Lee | | Subject: | Motif FAQ (Part 9 of 9) | | Date: | 17 Jan 2005 05:46:16 GMT |
|
|
| Archive-name: motif-faq/part9
Last-modified: 1 FEB 2002
Posting-Frequency: irregular
Organization: Kenton Lee, X/Motif Consultant, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/
URL: http://www.rahul.net/kenton/mfaq.html
Version: 8.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 293) Why doesn't the Help callback work on some widgets?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: If you press the help key the help callback of the widget with the
keyboard focus is called (not the one containing the mouse). You can't get
the help callback of a non-keyboard-selectable widget called. To get `context
sensitive' help on these, you have to find the mouse, associate its position
with a widget and then do the help.
The X Resource, Issue 6, has an article on implementing context help in Motif
in this manner, that is, using the mouse position to indicate the widget for
which context help is desired, as well as using resources to specify the help.
The demo program lets you toggle between using the method described in the
article and XmTrackingLocate() for comparision purposes.
Contributed by: Jay Schmidgall jay@vnet.ibm.com (author of the article
mentioned above). Thanks to chen@adi.com (Franklin Chen) for correcting the
URL.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 294)* How can I implement "bubble help" or "tool tips" with Motif?
[Last modified: Jan 02]
Answer: Open Motif 2.2 includes a built-in ToolTips feature. The following
material may be of interest to users of earlier versions of Motif.
Gary Aviv (gary@compgen.com) informed this maintainer about the free LiteClue
widget from Computer Generation, Inc. (http://www.compgen.com/). LiteClue is
a widget which pops a one line help message when the user passes the pointer
over another "watched" widget. This is known by various names in the industry
such as hints, clues, tips, bubble help and balloon help. Technical
documentation and source for the LiteClue widget are available from:
http://www.compgen.com/widgets/LiteClue.html
ftp://ftp.compgen.com/pub/widgets/LiteClue.tar.Z
Ken Lee (http://www.rahul.net/kenton/) writes: A simple technique is to popup
a shell containing your message whenever an enter event occurs (possibly
delayed by a timer) and pop it down again after a leave event.
David Lewis (dbl@ics.com) writes: To those resources I should add that the
XmHTML sources (HTML parser, browser, etc) have this ToolTip/bubble-help/popup
feature, in readily-usable code. In addition, the ICS EnhancementPak widget
set (http://www.ics.com) has both a toolbar with built-in popups for its
entries and a small library which adds popup capabilities to any widget.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 295) Can I specify a widget in a resource file?
Answer: This answer, which uses the Xmu library, is due to David Elliott. If
the converter is added, then the name of a widget (a string) can be used in
resource files, and will be converted to the appropriate widget.
This code, which was basically stolen from the Athena Form widget, adds a
String to Widget converter. I wrote it as a general routine that I call at
the beginning of all of my programs, and made it so I could add other
converters as needed (like String to Unit Type ;-).
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
void
setupConverters()
{
static XtConvertArgRec parentCvtArgs[] = {
{XtBaseOffset, (caddr_t)XtOffset(Widget, core.parent),
sizeof(Widget)}
};
XtAddConverter(XmRString, XmRWindow, XmuCvtStringToWidget,
parentCvtArgs, XtNumber(parentCvtArgs));
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 296) Why are only some of my translations are being installed? I
have a translation table like the following, but only the first ones are
getting installed and the rest are ignored.
*Text.translations: #override \
Ctrla: beginning-of-line() \n\
Ctrle: end-of-line() \n\
Ctrlf: forward-character() \n\
Answer: Most likely, you have a space at the end of one of the lines (the
first in this case).
Ctrla: beginning-of-line() \n\
^ space here
The second backslash in each line is there to protect the real newline
character and so you must not follow it with anything other than the newline
itself. Otherwise it acts as the end of the resource definition and the
remaining lines are not added.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 297) Can I have separate translations for shifted and unshifted
keys?
[Last modified: Jan 99]
Answer: Alec Flett writes:
I've got an addition for the motif FAQ that just solved a problem I've been
wrestling with for a month - it's really an addition to #303 "Why are only
some of my translations being installed?"
On certain platforms you cannot use an upper-case key in combination with the
Shift modifier. For example,
Meta Shift F: find-in-list()
will not always work because the F is capitalized.
The reason for this is because some platforms (such as IRIX) distinguish upper
case and lowercase keysyms. Using Jamie Zawinski's xkeycaps program
(http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/), you will see that on Solaris the "F" key just
has one keysym: "F" On IRIX they same key has two: "f" and "F".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 298) What are these "non-existant passive grab" warnings? When I
destroy certain widgets I get a stream of messages
Warning: Attempt to remove non-existant passive grab
Answer: They are meaningless, and you want to ignore them. Do this (from Kee
Hinckley) by installing an XtWarning handler that explicitly looks for them
and discards them:
static void xtWarnCB(String message) {
if (asi_strstr(message, "non-existant passive grab", TRUE)) return;
...
They come from Xt, and (W. Scott Meeks): "it's something that the designers of
Xt decided the toolkit should do. Unfortunately, Motif winds up putting
passive grabs all over the place for the menu system. On the one hand, we
want to remove all these grabs when menus get destroyed so that they don't
leak memory; on the other hand, it's almost impossible to keep track of all
the grabs, so we have a conservative strategy of ungrabbing any place where a
grab could have been made and we don't explicitly know that there is no grab.
The unfortunate side effect is the little passive grab warning messages.
We're trying to clean these up where possible, but there are some new places
where the warning is generated. Until we get this completely cleaned up (1.2
maybe), your best bet is probably to use a warning handler."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 299) How do I have more buttons than three in a MessageBox? I want
to have something like a MessageBox (or other widget) with more than three
buttons, but with the same nice appearance.
[Last modified: Feb 95]
Answer: The Motif 1.2 MessageBox widget allows extra buttons to be added after
the OK button. Just create the extra buttons as children of the MessageBox.
Similarly with the SelectionBox.
Pre-Motif 1.2, you have to do one of the following methods.
A SelectionBox is created with four buttons, but the fourth (the Apply button)
is unmanaged. To manage it get its widget ID via
XmSelectionBoxGetChild(parent, XmDIALOG_APPLY_BUTTON) and then XtManage it.
Unmanage all of the other bits in the SelectionBox that you don't want. If
you want more than four buttons, try two SelectionBoxes (or similar) together
in a container, where all of the unwanted parts of the widgets are unmanaged.
Alternatively, build your own dialog:
/* Written by Dan Heller. Copyright 1991, O'Reilly && Associates.
* This program is freely distributable without licensing fees and
* is provided without guarantee or warranty expressed or implied.
* This program is -not- in the public domain. This program is
* taken from the Motif Programming Manual, O'Reilly Volume 6.
*/
/* action_area.c -- demonstrate how CreateActionArea() can be used
* in a real application. Create what would otherwise be identified
* as a PromptDialog, only this is of our own creation. As such,
* we provide a TextField widget for input. When the user presses
* Return, the Ok button is activated.
*/
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
typedef struct {
char *label;
void (*callback)();
caddr_t data;
} ActionAreaItem;
static void
do_dialog(), close_dialog(), activate_cb(),
ok_pushed(), cancel_pushed(), help();
main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
Widget toplevel, button;
XtAppContext app;
toplevel = XtVaAppInitialize(&app, "Demos",
NULL, 0, &argc, argv, NULL, NULL);
button = XtVaCreateManagedWidget("Push Me",
xmPushButtonWidgetClass, toplevel, NULL);
XtAddCallback(button, XmNactivateCallback, do_dialog, NULL);
XtRealizeWidget(toplevel);
XtAppMainLoop(app);
}
/* callback routine for "Push Me" button. Actually, this represents
* a function that could be invoked by any arbitrary callback. Here,
* we demonstrate how one can build a standard customized dialog box.
* The control area is created here and the action area is created in
* a separate, generic routine: CreateActionArea().
*/
static void
do_dialog(w, file)
Widget w; /* will act as dialog's parent */
char *file;
{
Widget dialog, pane, rc, label, text_w, action_a;
XmString string;
extern Widget CreateActionArea();
Arg args[10];
static ActionAreaItem action_items[] = {
{ "Ok", ok_pushed, NULL },
{ "Cancel", cancel_pushed, NULL },
{ "Close", close_dialog, NULL },
{ "Help", help, "Help Button" },
};
/* The DialogShell is the Shell for this dialog. Set it up so
* that the "Close" button in the window manager's system menu
* destroys the shell (it only unmaps it by default).
*/
dialog = XtVaCreatePopupShell("dialog",
xmDialogShellWidgetClass, XtParent(w),
XmNtitle, "Dialog Shell", /* give arbitrary title in wm */
XmNdeleteResponse, XmDESTROY, /* system menu "Close" action */
NULL);
/* now that the dialog is created, set the Close button's
* client data, so close_dialog() will know what to destroy.
*/
action_items[2].data = (caddr_t)dialog;
/* Create the paned window as a child of the dialog. This will
* contain the control area (a Form widget) and the action area
* (created by CreateActionArea() using the action_items above).
*/
pane = XtVaCreateWidget("pane", xmPanedWindowWidgetClass, dialog,
XmNsashWidth, 1,
XmNsashHeight, 1,
NULL);
/* create the control area (Form) which contains a
* Label gadget and a List widget.
*/
rc = XtVaCreateWidget("control_area", xmRowColumnWidgetClass, pane, NULL);
string = XmStringCreateLocalized("Type Something:");
XtVaCreateManagedWidget("label", xmLabelGadgetClass, rc,
XmNlabelString, string,
XmNleftAttachment, XmATTACH_FORM,
XmNtopAttachment, XmATTACH_FORM,
NULL);
XmStringFree(string);
text_w = XtVaCreateManagedWidget("text-field",
xmTextFieldWidgetClass, rc, NULL);
/* RowColumn is full -- now manage */
XtManageChild(rc);
/* Set the client data "Ok" and "Cancel" button's callbacks. */
action_items[0].data = (caddr_t)text_w;
action_items[1].data = (caddr_t)text_w;
/* Create the action area -- we don't need the widget it returns. */
action_a = CreateActionArea(pane, action_items, XtNumber(action_items));
/* callback for Return in TextField. Use action_a as client data */
XtAddCallback(text_w, XmNactivateCallback, activate_cb, action_a);
XtManageChild(pane);
XtPopup(dialog, XtGrabNone);
}
/*--------------*/
/* The next four functions are the callback routines for the buttons
* in the action area for the dialog created above. Again, they are
* simple examples, yet they demonstrate the fundamental design approach.
*/
static void
close_dialog(w, shell)
Widget w, shell;
{
XtDestroyWidget(shell);
}
/* The "ok" button was pushed or the user pressed Return */
static void
ok_pushed(w, text_w, cbs)
Widget w, text_w; /* the text widget is the client data */
XmAnyCallbackStruct *cbs;
{
char *text = XmTextFieldGetString(text_w);
printf("String = %s0, text);
XtFree(text);
}
static void
cancel_pushed(w, text_w, cbs)
Widget w, text_w; /* the text field is the client data */
XmAnyCallbackStruct *cbs;
{
/* cancel the whole operation; reset to NULL. */
XmTextFieldSetString(text_w, "");
}
static void
help(w, string)
Widget w;
String string;
{
puts(string);
}
/*--------------*/
/* When Return is pressed in TextField widget, respond by getting
* the designated "default button" in the action area and activate
* it as if the user had selected it.
*/
static void
activate_cb(text_w, client_data, cbs)
Widget text_w; /* user pressed Return in this widget */
XtPointer client_data; /* action_area passed as client data */
XmAnyCallbackStruct *cbs; /* borrow the "event" field from this */
{
Widget dflt, action_area = (Widget)client_data;
XtVaGetValues(action_area, XmNdefaultButton, &dflt, NULL);
if (dflt) /* sanity check -- this better work */
/* make the default button think it got pushed. This causes
* "ok_pushed" to be called, but XtCallActionProc() causes
* the button appear to be activated as if the user selected it.
*/
XtCallActionProc(dflt, "ArmAndActivate", cbs->event, NULL, 0);
}
#define TIGHTNESS 20
Widget
CreateActionArea(parent, actions, num_actions)
Widget parent;
ActionAreaItem *actions;
int num_actions;
{
Widget action_area, widget;
int i;
action_area = XtVaCreateWidget("action_area", xmFormWidgetClass, parent,
XmNfractionBase, TIGHTNESS*num_actions - 1,
XmNleftOffset, 10,
XmNrightOffset, 10,
NULL);
for (i = 0; i < num_actions; i++) {
widget = XtVaCreateManagedWidget(actions[i].label,
xmPushButtonWidgetClass, action_area,
XmNleftAttachment, i? XmATTACH_POSITION : XmATTACH_FORM,
XmNleftPosition, TIGHTNESS*i,
XmNtopAttachment, XmATTACH_FORM,
XmNbottomAttachment, XmATTACH_FORM,
XmNrightAttachment,
i != num_actions-1? XmATTACH_POSITION : XmATTACH_FORM,
XmNrightPosition, TIGHTNESS*i + (TIGHTNESS-1),
XmNshowAsDefault, i == 0,
XmNdefaultButtonShadowThickness, 1,
NULL);
if (actions[i].callback)
XtAddCallback(widget, XmNactivateCallback,
actions[i].callback, actions[i].data);
if (i == 0) {
/* Set the action_area's default button to the first widget
* created (or, make the index a parameter to the function
* or have it be part of the data structure). Also, set the
* pane window constraint for max and min heights so this
* particular pane in the PanedWindow is not resizable.
*/
Dimension height, h;
XtVaGetValues(action_area, XmNmarginHeight, &h, NULL);
XtVaGetValues(widget, XmNheight, &height, NULL);
height += 2 * h;
XtVaSetValues(action_area,
XmNdefaultButton, widget,
XmNpaneMaximum, height,
XmNpaneMinimum, height,
NULL);
}
}
XtManageChild(action_area);
return action_area;
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 300) How do I create a "busy working cursor"?
[Last modified: Feb 95]
Answer: - in Baudouin's code (following), the idea is to keep in an array an
up-to-date list of all shells used in the application, and set for all of them
the cursor to a watch or to the default cursor, with the 2 functions provided.
- in Dan Heller's code (later), the idea is to turn on the watch cursor for
the top-level shell only, popup a working window to possibly abort the
callback, and manage some expose events during the callback.
- in the FAQ for comp.windows.x, the idea is to bring a large window on top of
the application, hide all windows below it, and turn on the watch cursor on
this large window. Unmapping the large window resets the default cursor,
mapping it turns on the watch cursor.
Baudouin Raoult (mab@ecmwf.int) wrote:
void my_SetWatchCursor(w)
Widget w;
{
static Cursor watch = NULL;
if(!watch)
watch = XCreateFontCursor(XtDisplay(w),XC_watch);
XDefineCursor(XtDisplay(w),XtWindow(w),watch);
XmUpdateDisplay(w);
}
void my_ResetCursor(w)
Widget w;
{
XUndefineCursor(XtDisplay(w),XtWindow(w));
XmUpdateDisplay(w);
}
Answer: A solution with lots of bells and whistles is
/* Written by Dan Heller. Copyright 1991, O'Reilly && Associates.
* This program is freely distributable without licensing fees and
* is provided without guarantee or warrantee expressed or implied.
* This program is -not- in the public domain.
*/
/* busy.c -- demonstrate how to use a WorkingDialog and to process
* only "important" events. e.g., those that may interrupt the
* task or to repaint widgets for exposure. Set up a simple shell
* and a widget that, when pressed, immediately goes into its own
* loop. First, "lock" the shell so that a timeout cursor is set on
* the shell and pop up a WorkingDialog. Then enter loop ... sleep
* for one second ten times, checking between each interval to see
* if the user clicked the Stop button or if any widgets need to be
* refreshed. Ignore all other events.
*
* main() and get_busy() are stubs that would be replaced by a real
* application; all other functions can be used "as is."
*/
#include
#include
#include
Widget shell;
void TimeoutCursors();
Boolean CheckForInterrupt();
main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
XtAppContext app;
Widget button;
XmString label;
void get_busy();
shell = XtVaAppInitialize(&app, "Demos",
NULL, 0, &argc, argv, NULL, NULL);
label = XmStringCreateLocalized(
"Boy, is *this* going to take a long time.");
button = XtVaCreateManagedWidget("button",
xmPushButtonWidgetClass, shell,
XmNlabelString, label,
NULL);
XmStringFree(label);
XtAddCallback(button, XmNactivateCallback, get_busy, argv[1]);
XtRealizeWidget(shell);
XtAppMainLoop(app);
}
void
get_busy(widget)
Widget widget;
{
int n;
TimeoutCursors(True, True);
for (n = 0; n < 10; n++) {
sleep(1);
if (CheckForInterrupt()) {
puts("Interrupt!");
break;
}
}
if (n == 10)
puts("done.");
TimeoutCursors(False, NULL);
}
/* The interesting part of the program -- extract and use at will */
static Boolean stopped; /* True when user wants to stop processing */
static Widget dialog; /* WorkingDialog displayed when timed out */
/* timeout_cursors() turns on the "watch" cursor over the application
* to provide feedback for the user that he's going to be waiting
* a while before he can interact with the appliation again.
*/
void
TimeoutCursors(on, interruptable)
int on, interruptable;
{
static int locked;
static Cursor cursor;
extern Widget shell;
XSetWindowAttributes attrs;
Display *dpy = XtDisplay(shell);
XEvent event;
Arg args[1];
XmString str;
extern void stop();
/* "locked" keeps track if we've already called the function.
* This allows recursion and is necessary for most situations.
*/
on? locked++ : locked--;
if (locked > 1 || locked == 1 && on == 0)
return; /* already locked and we're not unlocking */
stopped = False; /* doesn't matter at this point; initialize */
if (!cursor) /* make sure the timeout cursor is initialized */
cursor = XCreateFontCursor(dpy, XC_watch);
/* if "on" is true, then turn on watch cursor, otherwise, return
* the shell's cursor to normal.
*/
attrs.cursor = on? cursor : None;
/* change the main application shell's cursor to be the timeout
* cursor (or to reset it to normal). If other shells exist in
* this application, they will have to be listed here in order
* for them to have timeout cursors too.
*/
XChangeWindowAttributes(dpy, XtWindow(shell), CWCursor, &attrs);
XFlush(dpy);
if (on) {
/* we're timing out, put up a WorkingDialog. If the process
* is interruptable, allow a "Stop" button. Otherwise, remove
* all actions so the user can't stop the processing.
*/
str = XmStringCreateLocalized("Busy. Please Wait.");
XtSetArg(args[0], XmNmessageString, str);
dialog = XmCreateWorkingDialog(shell, "Busy", args, 1);
XmStringFree(str);
XtUnmanageChild(
XmMessageBoxGetChild(dialog, XmDIALOG_OK_BUTTON));
if (interruptable) {
str = XmStringCreateLocalized("Stop");
XtVaSetValues(dialog, XmNcancelLabelString, str, NULL);
XmStringFree(str);
XtAddCallback(dialog, XmNcancelCallback, stop, NULL);
} else
XtUnmanageChild(
XmMessageBoxGetChild(dialog, XmDIALOG_CANCEL_BUTTON));
XtUnmanageChild(
XmMessageBoxGetChild(dialog, XmDIALOG_HELP_BUTTON));
XtManageChild(dialog);
} else {
/* get rid of all button and keyboard events that occured
* during the time out. The user shouldn't have done anything
* during this time, so flush for button and keypress events.
* KeyRelease events are not discarded because accelerators
* require the corresponding release event before normal input
* can continue.
*/
while (XCheckMaskEvent(dpy,
ButtonPressMask | ButtonReleaseMask | ButtonMotionMask
| PointerMotionMask | KeyPressMask, &event)) {
/* do nothing */;
}
XtDestroyWidget(dialog);
}
}
/* User Pressed the "Stop" button in dialog. */
void
stop(dialog)
Widget dialog;
{
stopped = True;
}
Boolean
CheckForInterrupt()
{
extern Widget shell;
Display *dpy = XtDisplay(shell);
Window win = XtWindow(dialog);
XEvent event;
/* Make sure all our requests get to the server */
XFlush(dpy);
/* Let motif process all pending exposure events for us. */
XmUpdateDisplay(shell);
/* Check the event loop for events in the dialog ("Stop"?) */
while (XCheckMaskEvent(dpy,
ButtonPressMask | ButtonReleaseMask | ButtonMotionMask |
PointerMotionMask | KeyPressMask | KeyReleaseMask,
&event)) {
/* got an "interesting" event. */
if (event.xany.window == win)
XtDispatchEvent(&event); /* it's in our dialog.. */
else /* uninteresting event--throw it away and sound bell */
XBell(dpy, 50);
}
return stopped;
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 301) Can I use the hourglass that mwm uses?
[Last modified: March 93]
Answer: The hourglass used by mwm is hard-coded into code that is subject to
OSF copyright. In Motif 1.2 though, the bitmaps for this and other things
(information, no_enter, question, warning, working) were made available. The
install process will probably add them to /usr/include/X11/bitmaps.
Otherwise, just use the watch cursor XC_watch of the previous question,
because that has the same semantics.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 302) What order should the libraries be linked in?
[Last modified: August 92]
Answer: At link time, use the library order -lXm -lXt -lX11. There are two
reasons for this (dbrooks@osf.org):
On most systems, the order matters because the linker won't re-scan a library
once it is done with it. Thus any references to Xlib calls from Xm will
probably be unresolved.
The [other] problem is that there are two VendorShell widgets. A dummy is
provided in the Xt library, but a widget set will rely on its own being
referenced. If you mention Xt first, the linker will choose the wrong one.
Motif code will wrongly assume the Motif VendorShell has been class-
initialized [and will probably crash]. Xaw has a similar problem, but a
softer landing; it only complains about unregistered converters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 303) How do I use xmkmf for Motif clients?
[Last modified: July 96]
Answer: This advice comes from dbrooks@osf.org. For another answer, see the
question immediately following this one ("How do I use imake with Motif
2.0?").
There are a number of intractable problems with using X configuration files
and xmkmf, while trying to make it easy to build Motif. Not the least of
these, but one I've never heard mentioned yet, is that the rules for
contructing the names of shared library macros are machine-dependent, and in
the various xxxLib.tmpl files. Do we edit all those files to add definitions
for XMLIB, DEPXMLIB, etc., or do we put a maze of #ifdefs into the Motif.tmpl
file?
Please note that, if you install Motif, it overwrites your installed
Imake.tmpl with one that includes Motif.tmpl and Motif.rules.
With those caveats, I think the following guidelines will help.
David Brooks OSF
Clients in the X11R5 release use the xmkmf command to build Makefiles. In
general, the xmkmf command cannot be used for Motif clients, because of the
need to consider the UseInstalledMotif flag separately. Since xmkmf is a
simple script that calls imake, it is easy to construct the proper call to
imake using the following rules.
In the following, replace {MTOP} by the toplevel directory with the Motif
source tree, and {XTOP} by the toplevel ("mit") directory with the X source.
It is assumed that the directory containing your installed imake is in your
PATH.
When needed, the imake variables XTop and MTop are normally set in your
site.def (to {XTOP} amd {MTOP} respectively); however they may also be set
with additional -D arguments to imake.
1. With both X and Motif in their source trees, ensure the imake variables
XTop and MTop are set, and use:
${XTOP}/config/imake -I{MTOP}/config
2. With Motif in its source tree, and X installed, ensure MTop is set, and
use:
imake -I{MTOP}/config -DUseInstalled
3. With both Motif and X installed, and a nonstandard ProjectRoot (see
site.def for an explanation of this), use:
imake -DUseInstalled -DUseInstalledMotif -I{ProjectRoot}/lib/X11/config
or, if the configuration files are in /usr/lib/X11/config:
imake -DUseInstalled -DUseInstalledMotif -I/usr/lib/X11/config
[Thanks to Paul DuBois (dubois@primate.wisc.edu) for correcting this.]
To build a simple Imakefile, remember to include lines like this:
LOCAL_LIBRARIES = XmClientLibs
DEPLIBS = XmClientDepLibs
Or, for a client that uses uil/mrm, replace these by MrmClientLibs and
MrmClientDepLibs, and also use:
MSimpleUilTarget(program)
to build the client and uid file. Look at the demos for more examples.
And Paul Howell added:
i did this, calling the new script "xmmkmf". It passes both -DUseInstalled
and -DUseInstalledMotif.
and i modified the stock R5 Imake.tmpl to do this:
#include
#ifdef UseInstalledMotif
#include
#endif
#include
#ifdef UseInstalledMotif
#include
#endif
the result was something that does both athena and motif rules. and it really
works, just that easy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 304) How do I use imake with Motif 2.0?
[Last modified: July 96]
Answer: Paul DuBois (dubois@primate.wisc.edu), the author of the O'Reilly and
Associates book, Software Portability with imake, recently wrote some notes on
the use of imake to configure Motif (2.0). It has some discussion on the roles
of UseInstalled and UseInstalledMotif, for instance, which seem to be murky to
many people. The document is available at:
http://www.primate.wisc.edu/software/imake-stuff
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 305) How do I make context sensitive help? The Motif Style Guide
says that an application must initiate context-sensitive help by changing the
shape of the pointer to the question pointer. When the user moves the pointer
to the component help is wanted on and presses BSelect, any available context
sensitive help for the component must be presented, and the pointer reverts
from the question pointer.
[Last modified: August 92]
Answer: A widget that gives context sensitive help would place this help in
the XmNhelpCallback function. To trigger this function: (from Martin G C
Davies, mgcd@se.alcbel.be)
I use the following callback that is called when the "On Context" help
pulldown menu is selected. It does the arrow bit and calls the help callbacks
for the widget. It also zips up the widget tree looking for help if needs be.
I don't restrict the arrows motion so I can get help on dialog boxes. No
prizes for guessing what "popup_message" does.
static void ContextHelp(
Widget w ,
Opaque * tag ,
XmAnyCallbackStruct * callback_struct
)
{
static Cursor context_cursor = NULL ;
Widget context_widget ;
if ( context_cursor == NULL )
context_cursor = XCreateFontCursor( display, XC_question_arrow ) ;
context_widget = XmTrackingLocate( top_level_widget,
context_cursor, FALSE ) ;
if ( context_widget != NULL ) /* otherwise its not a widget */
{
XmAnyCallbackStruct cb ;
cb.reason = XmCR_HELP ;
cb.event = callback_struct->event ;
/*
* If there's no help at this widget we'll track back
up the hierarchy trying to find some.
*/
do
{
if ( ( XtHasCallbacks( context_widget, XmNhelpCallback ) ==
XtCallbackHasSome ) )
{
XtCallCallbacks( context_widget, XmNhelpCallback, & cb ) ;
return ;
}
else
context_widget = XtParent( context_widget ) ;
} while ( context_widget != NULL ) ;
}
popup_message( "No context-sensitive help found0or the selected object." ) ;
}
Dave Bonnett suggested, to use the following translations for XmText (and
XmTextField) widgets to get the same help with key strokes, and to provide an
accelerator label in the Context help menu entry.
MyApp*XmText*translations: #override\n\
F1: Help()
MyApp*Help_menu*Contextual Help.acceleratorText: F1
MyApp*defaultVirtualBindings: osfBackSpace : Delete\n\
osfRight : Right\n\
osfLeft : Left\n\
osfUp : Up\n\
osfHelp : F1\n\
osfDown : Down
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 306) How do I debug a modal interaction?
When an application crashes in a modal section (such as in a modal dialog, a
menu or when a drag and drop is in action), I cannot access the debugger.
[Last modified: January 1993]
Answer: Run the debugger on one display while the application writes to
another display.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 307) Why can't I install my own colormap using XInstallColormap?
[Last modified: Nov 96]
Answer: You shouldn't install the colormap yourself using XInstallColormap.
See the ICCCM document for all the reasons. Instead put the colormap as an
argument on the Shell widget and the window manager will take care of this.
When the colormap is installed, unless you have a display with multiple
colormaps, the other windows will go "technicolor" and there is no way around
this problem.
Thanks to Doug Rand (drand@sgi.com)
Kenton Lee (http://www.rahul.net/kenton/) adds: Use XtSetWMColormapWindows()
to specify non-default colormaps.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 308) How do I install a private colormap?
[Last modified: Jan 96]
Answer: Mark Buser (buser@tartan.com) writes: If you find that your
XAllocNamedColor is failing or XpmCreatePixmapFromData is dieing from
XpmColorFaileds, you may have exhausted the number of colormap entries. One
way to install a new colormap is the following:
Toplevel = XtVaAppInitialize ( &app, ...
dpy = XtDisplay (Toplevel);
cmap = DefaultColormapOfScreen ( XtScreen( Toplevel) );
/* Detect color errors due to colormap depletion */
if (colors_depleted) {
cmap = XCopyColormapAndFree ( dpy, cmap );
/* Run through color allocation again to see if ok now */
}
/* Install colormap into toplevel widget. This must be done
** before any child widgets are created.
*/
XtVaSetValues ( Toplevel, XmNcolormap, cmap, NULL);
/* Create any children of toplevel, they will inherit new colormap */
This is only one way to go, there are other possibilities, but this seems to
be the simplest.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 309) How do I get correct shadow colors to match other color
changes?
[Last modified: Sept 95]
Answer: Thanks to Craig MacFarlane (craigm@chateau-rouge.ICS.UCI.EDU) for the
following explanation and code:
You have to make a call to calculate the new shadow colors. The trick is
actually getting a value of type Pixel when all you have is the string "Blue".
I use the XtConvertAndStore() function to convert from a char * to a Pixel.
For example:
char *color = "blue";
XrmValue color_value, pixel_value;
Pixel background;
color_value.size = strlen(color);
color_value.addr = (XtPointer) color;
pixel_value.size = sizeof(Pixel);
pixel_value.addr = (XtPointer) 0;
result = XtConvertAndStore(widget,
XtRString, &color_value,
XtRPixel, &pixel_value);
background = (*(Pixel *)pixel_value.addr);
You can then use the pixel value obtained by XtConvertAndStore() in the
XmGetColors call. XmGetColors calculates appropriate foreground, topshadow,
bottomshadow, and select colors for the given background. e.g.
XmGetColors(screen,
DefaultColormap(display_id, DefaultScreen(display_id)),
background,
&foreground, &topshadow, &bottomshadow, &select);
Then it's trivial to set the shadow colors at the same time you set the
foreground and background colors. For example:
XtVaSetValues(widget,
XmNforeground, foreground,
XmNbackground, background,
XmNarmColor, select,
XmNtopShadowColor, topshadow,
XmNbottomShadowColor, bottomshadow,
NULL);
You'll get asthetically pleasing colors every time. :)
Wolfram Gries <1gries@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> adds:
The function XmChangeColor() takes a Widget and a Pixel-value for the new
background-color and does the calculation of the new shadow-colors on its own.
But it seems to me that this function is rather slow, so if you often change
the color of your widgets, the XmGetColors()/XmSetColors() approach might be
better.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 310) What color algorithm does Motif use? I am told that Motif uses
some sort of algorithm that will take a single color that is defined for the
"background" and scale it so that the widget remains discriminable from the
background, etc. What is the algorithm?
[Last modified: Oct 94]
Answer: Chris Flatters (cflatter@nrao.edu) writes: Shiz Kobara's book "Visual
Design with OSF/Motif", Addison Wesley, 1991, ISBN 0-201-56320-7) is a good
source for information of this sort. I haven't seen it in bookshops for a
while so it may have gone out of print (which would be a pity). In essence
each widget has 4 colours which, to first order, are
background
select (background * 85%)
top shadow (background * 150%)
bottom shadow (background * 50%)
An additional correction may be applied to the hues of the calculated colours
if any of the RGB values saturates. The algorithm works best if the brightest
of the RGB components lies in the range 155-175 (on a scale of 0-255). The
top shadow becomes darker than the background for light background colours
which does not lead to a particularly pleasing effect.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 311) How can you access the superclass widget from which Motif
convenience dialogs are subclassed?
[Last modified: Oct 94]
Answer: Kim Frei (uunet!ask.uniras.dk!kimf) wrote: If you are using Motif 1.2,
read about XmTemplateDialog.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 312) Can the Motif 2.0 Notebook widget display non-rectangular "file
tabs"? Is it possible to use the Shape extension to fiddle with the shape of
the major tabs (XmPushButtons right now) to get non-rectangular buttons, going
for that "file tab" look?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: Vania Joloboff wrote:
On the Motif 2.0* CD-ROM, in the demos directory, there is a library of
additional widgets lib/Exm. Among the widgets, there is a ExmTabButton
especially designed to fit within a Notebook. It has a smooth shape like real
tabs in folders.
It also a good example on how to use the new traits and the Xme API for widget
writers.
(Thanks to Ken Lee, http://www.rahul.net/kenton/, for a correction here.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 313) How does the clipboard mechanism work?
[Last modified: Dec 94]
A. Doug Rand writes:
Basically there are two selections CLIPBOARD_MANAGER and CLIPBOARD which are
used. The Motif clipboard is not a clipboard manager, but xclipboard, or a
more functional clipboard client would be. The newest ICCCM (2.0) spells this
out.
The basic process is that the clipboard manager:
1) Check to see if CLIPBOARD_MANAGER is owned by anyone, abort if it is.
2) Assert ownership of CLIPBOARD_MANAGER and CLIPBOARD
3) When the CLIPBOARD selection is lost, query new owner for data and then
retake ownership of CLIPBOARD
#3 is done until the application exists. What you do with the data is up to
the application.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 314) Why does the xyz application core dump when I cut and paste?
Answer: Application crashes when text is cut and pasted into an XmText widget
may occur with statically linked executables linked with X11R5 libraries under
SunOS. For example, a Netscape README file says:
The SunOS 4.1 [Netscape 0.94] distribution also includes a directory called
"nls". This directory is a standard part of the MIT X11R5 distribution, but
is not included with OpenWindows 3.0 or earlier. We have linked Netscape
against the MIT R5 libraries because they are less buggy in general; however,
they have one rather serious bug, which is that if this "nls" directory does
not exist, the program will dump core any time you try to paste into a text
field!
So, if you don't have the "nls" directory on your system, you will need to
install it first. The usual place is /usr/lib/X11/nls, but you can put it
anywhere: just point the $XNLSPATH environment variable at it.
Some sites don't have their X libraries installed in /usr/lib/X11/. This
doesn't matter. You either need to put the nls directory in /usr/lib/X11/, or
every user will need to set this environment variable.
So, for example, we do:
setenv XNLSPATH /usr/local/x11r5/lib/X11/nls
since our X11R5 is not installed in the default location.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 315) Why is XtWindow(widget) == 0?
[Last modified: Oct 95]
Answer: The window is not created (and is NULL) until the widget is realized.
In general, using XtWindow() is a bad idea. In most cases, you can create
more robust code by subclassing the widget and putting your window code in new
wiget class methods.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 316) How do I debug X protocol errors (e.g., BadWindow, BadMatch) in
Motif applications?
[Last modified: Jun 98]
Answer: For a general tutorial on X protocol errors, see:
http://www.rahul.net/kenton/perrors.html
Here are two common problems. First, if you get a BadWindow error showing a
0x0 window ID, you're probably calling XtWindow() on a widget that is not
realized. See the previous subject.
Second, a BadMatch error often indicates that the depth of a window or a
pixmap is not correct. You could be using a depth 1 pixmap when you should be
using a pixmap with the depth of the associated window. Or, you could be
creating a new shell with a depth that does not match its visual type or
colormap.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 317) Why doesn't XtNameToWidget (widget, "MyName") work?
[Last modified: Apr 95]
Answer: The second argument must be a qualified specification (like a resource
specification). In most cases, you'll use something like "*MyName". The
leading '*' is required.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 318) Why does my callback's client data structure contain incorrect
values when the callback is called? I created a structure and used a pointer
to it as callback client data.
[Last modified: Apr 95]
Answer: If your structure is declared as automatic, the callback will probably
not be executed within the structure's scope, so the pointer to the structure
will become invalid. You can avoid this problem by declaring your structure
external or by allocating with malloc or (in C++) new.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 319) How can an application manage events on multiple displays?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: Just put multiple display pointers into one application context. (You
normally specify which application context as an argument to XtOpenDisplay()).
XtAppNextEvent() and XtAppMainLoop() automatically poll all displays in the
application context.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 320) Can a Motif application create windows on mutiple screens (on a
multi-screen workstation)?
[Last modified: Sep 97]
Answer: Multiple screens is simpler than multiple displays, since one X server
controls all of the screens. Simply specify the XmNscreen resource when you
create your top level (or other) shell widget and the X Toolkit will create
the shell on that screen. You should generally also explicitly set your
XmNcolormap, XmNdepth, and XmNvisual resources for the new shell, since the
defaults may not be valid on the second screen.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 321) Why do I get "Error: attempt to add non-widget child "dsm" to
parent"?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: Most likely, you are linking your libraries in the wrong order. You
must link -lXm *before* -lXt.
Ken Lee
Ken Sall (ksall@cen.com) adds: This same error occurs if you combine Motif and
Athena widgets in the same application. If you link with "-lXaw" before "-
lXm", you get the runtime error. However, if you switch the order of the two
libraries, there is no problem. For example:
cc mothena.c -o mothena -lXm -lXaw -lXt -lXmu -lX11
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 322) Why do I get link errors about "XShape" symbols?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: You must link with the X extensions library, -lXext, after any widget
libraries. For example,
cc -o myapp myapp.o -lXm -lXt -lXext -lX11
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 323) Why do I get link errors about "ICE" and "SM" symbols?
[Last modified: Sep 97]
Answer: You must link with the the X ICE and/or SM libraries. For example,
cc -o myapp myapp.o -lXm -lXt -lXext -lICE -lSM -lX11
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 324) Why does my X11R6 program crash with undefined symbol
"LowerCase"?
[Last modified: May 95]
Answer: If you are using Motif version 1.1.[123], then the problem may be a
failure to set MotifBC to YES in your site.def.
Thanks to Geoffrey Leach, geoff@netcom.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 325) How do I programatically control xwd to dump a specific window?
I need a non-interactive way to tell xwd what X window to make an image of...
NOT by the traditional point-and-click method.
[Last modified: July 95]
Answer: Ken Sall (ksall@cen.com) wrote:
1. Get the window id of the toplevel shell widget using the "XtWindow"
function.
2. Invoke "xwd" from the program that has access to the window id, such as:
Window dumpId; /* returned from XtWindow */
sprintf (cmd_string, "xwd -frame -out tmp.xwd -id 0x%x", dumpId);
system (cmd_string);
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 326) How can I display an xwd in a window (without using xwud)?
[Last modified: Sept 95]
Answer:
1. read the xwd file into an XImage
2. create a pixmap and XPutImage the image into the pixmap
3. use the pixmap as the XmNlabelPixmap of a label widget
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 327) Can I write a multi-threaded Motif application?
[Last modified: May 97]
Answer: Motif 2.1 can be compiled to be thread-safe (if libX11 and libXt are
also compiled to be thread-safe).
Motif releases prior to Motif 2.1 were not thread-safe. In these releases,
you can use Motif from one thread and do other things in other threads but you
cannot call Motif functions from more than one thread.
Try looking in the X FAQ for information on threads:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/x-faq/top.html
ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/faqs/FAQ
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 328) How can I dump my widget instance tree in a way that reflects
the hierarchy?
[Last modified: July 97]
Answer: Jeremy Jameson (jameson@drmail.dr.att.com) posted this code to c.w.x.m
in 5/95.
[Note: this code does not consider popup children, which are not listed in
the XmNchildren array. To find those, you have to peek at the popup_list in
core widget record. - K.Lee 7/97]
/*******************************************************************************
* dumpWidgetTree( Widget w )
*
* This function will recursively descend throught the Widget tree
* and print the children and their pointer addresses.
*
* Jeremy Jameson 5/17/95
*
*******************************************************************************/
static void dumpWidgetTree( Widget w )
{
WidgetList list = NULL;
Cardinal num_children = 0;
int i;
static int n = 0;
Widget child;
static char* indent =
"-----------------------------------------------------------------------------";
char tmp[256];
*tmp = ' ';
if ( n >= strlen( indent ) +1 )
{
printf(
"ERROR:Widget tree is too deep, not enough indent string ( < %d )!\n",
n );
n = 0;
return;
}
strncpy( tmp, indent, n );
tmp[n] = ' ';
printf( "%s> Dumping widget tree of %s - %#x \n", tmp, XtName( w ), w );
if ( ! XtIsComposite( w ) )
{
printf(
"%s> %s is not a subclass of Composite and therefore has no children\n",
tmp, XtName( w ) );
return;
}
XtVaGetValues( w,
XmNchildren, &list,
XmNnumChildren, &num_children,
NULL );
printf( "%s> %s has %d %s\n", tmp, XtName( w ),
num_children, num_children == 1 ? "child" : "children" );
for ( i = 1; i <= num_children; i++ )
{
child = list[i-1];
printf( "%s> child %2d %20s \t (%#x)\n", tmp, i, XtName( child ), child );
}
printf( "\n" );
for ( i = 1; i <= num_children; i++ )
{
child = list[i-1];
n += 3;
dumpWidgetTree( child );
n -= 3;
}
printf( "\n" );
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 329) How do I get the events for gadgets? Or the name of the gadget?
[Last modified: July 96]
Answer: Get events from the gadget's parent. Ken Lee
A related question is "How the name of a gadget an event is directed to?"
Daniel Dardailler (daniel@x.org) writes:
Motif 2.0 provides a XmObjectAtPoint public function that support this
functionality. For earlier version, something like the undocumented
_XmInputInGadget( wid, x, y ) should do it.
_XmInputInGadget
Given a composite widget and an (x, y) coordinate, see if the
(x, y) lies within one of the gadgets contained within the
composite. Return the gadget if found, otherwise return NULL.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 330) Can I set the foreground and background colors of gadgets
(e.g., convenience dialog buttons)?
[Last modified: Nov 96]
Answer: Not in Motif 1.x. Gadgets don't have their own colors, they use those
of their parents. Notice that Motif's convenience dialogs generally use label
gadgets, not widgets, so you cannot customize the colors of individual
buttons.
Beginning in Motif 2.0, gadgets do have their own color resources.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 331) Can I use a gadget as the parent of a dialog shell?
[Last modified: Dec 97]
Answer: No. The Core widget class contains the functionality for popup
children. Since the Gadget class is not a subclass of Core, gadgets cannot
have popup children (like dialogs).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 332) Which other widget features do gadgets lack?
[Last modified: Dec 97]
Answer: Here's a list from Asente & Swick (p. 397). Note that many of these
restrictions are primarily of interest to widget (and gadget) writers, not to
application writers.
1. gadgets have no background or border colors or pixmaps
2. gadgets cannot have event handlers
3. gadgets have no translations, accelerators, or actions
4. gadgets cannot have pop-up children
5. gadgets cannot do grabs
6. gadgets cannot redirect the Intrincis keyboard focus or take the X focus
7. gadgets cannot own or request selections
8. gadgets do not need to be and cannot be realized
9. gadgets cannot have their window, display, or screen queried (but
there are separate functions for computing these)
10. gadgets have no stacking order
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 333) Where can I get the xmon or xscope programs to trace my X
protocol?
[Last modified: Mar 96]
Answer: Both are included in the contrib section of X11R5:
ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R5/
Xmon is also available at: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/devel_tools/ and
ftp://ftp.crl.research.digital.com/pub/X11/contrib/devel_tools/
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 334) What does the error "Couldn't find per display information"
mean?
[Last modified: Mar 96]
Answer: Xt often needs information about the current X display. It generates
this error when it couldn't find the display pointer. Common causes
applications accidentally destroying widgets twice or trying to generate fake,
incomplete events with XSendEvent().
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 335) Can I set widget fallback resources after I've called
XtAppInitialize()?
[Last modified: Mar 96]
Answer: No. Fallbacks are only checked when displays are initialized.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 336) Can I use the newline character in widget names?
[Last modified: Mar 96]
Answer: No. Widget names are designed to be used in resource specifications.
The Xlib resource file syntax says the only alphanumeric characters (plus '-'
and '_') may be used in a resource component name. If you want more than one
line of text in a label widget, set the XmNlabelString resource.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 337) Is anybody out there selling Windows95 look-alike widgets? Why
isn't there a Widget builder for Motif/X yet? Something like OCX (I believe on
Windows95).
[Last modified: Mar 96]
Answer: David B. Lewis (dbl%craft@uunet.uu.net) writes:
None that I know of. There are similar widgets available in Motif 2.0. There
are similar widgets available in the ICS EnhancementPak.
[For the second part of the question...] Because it's very hard to do. I don't
know what OCX is, but I can't imagine that the technology is so much better
than that used in Xt that it's possible to write something to generate real
code. It's trivial, of course, to generate the framework for a widget given
only its name, superclass, and resources; but everything else is real code.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 338) How can I convert my OLIT programs to the Motif look & feel?
[Last modified: July 96]
Answer: Mark Fresolone (mjf@mjm.com) writes: There are a number of translator
products on the market which translate OLIT source code or DevGuide builder
files into Motif source code and builder files.
In 1995, MJM Software (Melillo Consulting Inc.) released the MoOLIT 5.1
toolkit, which allows one to simply re-compile Sun or UnixWare OLIT programs,
and have them be switchable between the OPENLOOK and Motif look and feels.
MoOLIT 5.1 is available on most popular UNIX platforms. More information is
available at:
http://www.mjm.com/Products/MoOLIT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 339) What does this mean: Warning: Cannot find callback list in
XtAddCallback?
[Last modified: July 96]
Answer: It means that you gave an invalid callback name to XtAddCallback,
e.g., using XmNactivateCallback when the widget does not have a callback with
that name.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 340) If a single widget has multiple callback functions, are they
all executed? If so, in what order?
[Last modified: Nov 96]
Answer: Yes, they are all executed. The order, however, is not defined by the
X Toolkit specifications. If you really want a certain order, you should
register a single callback function and have it call your other functions in
the order you want.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 341) Why are some widgets still visible after I call
XtDestroyWidget() on them?
[Last modified: Nov 96]
Answer: To avoid memory corruption problems, the X Toolkit uses a 2 phase
destroy process. When you call XtDestroyWidget(), the widgets are not really
destroyed until after you return to the Xt main loop. Until then, the widget
will behave (mostly) as if they were not destroyed. If this is a problem, you
should unmanage them as well (you can safely unmanage them after you destroy
them and before you return to the main loop).
Ken Lee
Note: The details of the two-phase destruction are described on the
XtCreateWidget(3Xt)/XtDestroyWidget(3Xt) man page. - ksall@cen.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 342) If I call XtGetValues on a resource that does not exist for a
given widget, what value is returned?
[Last modified: Nov 96]
Answer: No value is returned. Your return variable is not modified. If it
was uninitialized (i.e., garbage) before the call to XtGetValues, it will
remain uninitialized.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 343) Can I reparent a widget (change its parent)?
[Last modified: Aug 97]
Answer: Xt does not support reparenting of widgets within the widget
hierarchy. This would complicate the hierarchical resource model. You can
destroy the old hierarchy and create a new one. On most systems, this is
pretty fast for reasonably sized widget hierarchies.
Note, however, that X11R6.3 provides an "application group" extension that
allows one X client to act as the root of another X client's window hierarchy.
See the X11R6.3 documentation for more details.
Ken Lee
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 344) Are there any "year 2000" issues within Motif?
[Last modified: Jun 98]
Answer: According to
http://www.camb.opengroup.org/tech/desktop/faq/y2k.htm
Dear Customer:
The Open Group has completed a review of Motif (OSF/Motif) and the X Window
System with regard to Year 2000 issues, and has determined that Motif
(versions 1.0 through 2.1) and X Window System (X11 Releases 5 through 6.4)
source code, as provided directly by The Open Group (or, previously provided
by Open Software Foundation, Inc.; or X Consortium in the case of X Window
System) does not contain any date-dependent source code. The arrival of the
year 2000 should have no effect on the operation of Motif or X Window System
source code.
Please note, however, that Motif & X Window System object code or
applications, or derivative works thereof, which would have been provided to
you by a third party, are not covered by the above statement. You are hereby
referred to your supplier for statements regarding Year 2000 issues for such
third-party products.
Very truly yours,
The Open Group
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 345) Can I suppress or customize Motif warning and error messages?
[Last modified: Aug 97]
Answer: A better idea is usually to fix problems indicated by the messages.
If you must, Motif justs uses Xt's message system which can be customized with
XtAppSetWarningHandler and XtAppSetErrorHandler.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: 346) TOPIC: Motif FAQ HISTORY and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
[Last modified: April 97]
Answer:
History:
-------
November 89 to July 93: FAQ was maintained by Jan Newmarch
(jan@ise.canberra.edu.au)
July 93 to August 94: FAQ was maintained by Brian Dealy
(dealy@c3i.saic.com)
Sept. 94 to April 97: FAQ was maintained by Ken Sall
(ksall@cen.com)
beginning April 97: FAQ was maintained by Kenton Lee
(http://www.rahul.net/kenton/)
Acknowledgments:
----------------
This list was compiled using questions and answers posed to
comp.windows.x.motif and motif-talk. Some information was excerpted from the
comp.windows.x FAQ. To all who contributed one way or the other, thanks! We
try to give individual references, but you may recognize something
(jan@ise.canberra.edu.au)
July 93 to August 94: FAQ was maintained by Brian Dealy
(dealy@c3i.saic.com)
Sept. 94 to April 97: FAQ was maintained by Ken Sall
(ksall@cen.com)
beginning April 97: FAQ was maintained by Kenton Lee
(http://www.rahul.net/kenton/)
Acknowledgments:
----------------
This list was compiled using questions and answers posed to
comp.windows.x.motif and motif-talk. Some information was excerpted from the
comp.windows.x FAQ. To all who contributed one way or the other, thanks! We
try to give individual references, but you may recognize something uncredited
as your contribution. If we've mangled the words (or, heaven forbid, the code)
too much, let the current maintainer know.
NOTE: If you are a two-or-more-time contributor to this FAQ and you have a WWW
personal home page which you'd like to have listed, see the subject: "Which X
and Motif developers have their own home page URLs?"
Jan Newmarch, Information Science and Engineering,
University of Canberra, PO Box 1, Belconnen, Act 2616
Australia. Tel: (Aust) 6-2522422. Fax: (Aust) 6-2522999
ACSnet: jan@ise.canberra.edu.au
ARPA: jan%ise.canberra.edu.au@uunet.uu.net
UUCP: {uunet,ukc}!munnari!ise.canberra.edu.au!jan
JANET: jan%au.edu.canberra.ise@EAN-RELAY
Jan Newmarch maintained this FAQ for a long time and has really helped a great
many of us by providing this valuable service. He deserves a big round of
applause for his efforts. I use this resource all the time and it has saved
me countless hours with manuals and source code trying to relearn what others
have already discovered. Jan`s efforts are gratefully acknowledged here.
Brian Dealy, SAIC
dealy@c3i.saic.com
Likewise, Brian Dealy of SAIC did an admirable job taking over the Motif FAQ
from Jan. A considerable amount of information was added during his tenure and
we greatly appreciate Brian's work on the FAQ, as well as his efforts in
maintaining the comp.windows.x.motif newsgroup reflector, for the good of all
Motif-dom.
Ken Sall
ksall@cen.com
Tel: (301) 953-3330 FAX: (301) 953-2368
Century Computing, Inc.
http://www.cen.com/
My thanks t |
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