X Toolkit Intrinsics Prog Vol 4M: Motif Edition (Definitive Guides to the X Window System) (Paperback)

by Adrian Nye (Author), Tim O'Reilly (Author)

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Product Description
A complete guide to programming with the X Toolkit Intrinsics, the library of C language routines that facilitates the design of user interfaces with reusable components called widgets. This book provides concepts and examples that show how to use the various X Toolkit routines. The first few chapters are devoted to using widgets; the remainder of the book covers the more complex task of writing new widgets. Uses the Motif 1.2 widget set in examples and covers X11 Release 5.

From the Publisher
Volume 4 is a complete guide to programming with the X Toolkit Intrinsics, the library of C language routines that facilitates the design of user interfaces with reusable components called widgets. It provides concepts and examples that show how to use the various X Toolkit routines. The first few chapters are devoted to using widgets; the remainder of the book covers the more complex task of writing new widgets. Uses the Motif 1.2 widget set in examples and covers X11 Release 5. Volume 4 includes: Introduction to the X Window System. Building applications with widgets. Constructing a bitmap editor with widgets. An overview of each widget in the widget set. Basic widget methods. Events, translations, and accelerators. Event handlers, timeouts, and work procedures. Resource management and type conversion. Selections and window manager interaction. Geometry management. Menus, gadgets, and cascaded pop-ups. Miscellaneous techniques. Comparison of Athena, OSF/Motif, and AT&T OPEN LOOK widgets. Master index to volumes 4 and 5. This book is designed to be used with Volume 5, X Toolkit Intrinsics Reference Manual, which provides reference pages for each of the Xt functions, the widget classes defined by Xt, and the Athena widget set.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 712 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 2 edition (August 2, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565920139
• ISBN-13: 978-1565920132
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,217,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hardly relevant for anyone..., September 29, 2002

By	Jo Totland (Oslo, Oslo Norway) - See all my reviews

This book must have been a major inspirational source for developers of toolkits not based on Xt. Because after reading the book, you will know why Xt was a giant mistake that only served to introduce additional problems into GUI programming.

For some reason, the book does not focus on Motif, but on Xaw, a completely useless set of widgets hacked onto Xt as a proof of concept. True, there are some free software programs using Xaw, but that was because they were written before other alternatives existed, and they generally all suck...

The simple fact that no other usable set of widgets for Xt than Motif exists, should be enough to convince you that Xt failed to reduce the complexity any more than it managed to introduce simply by sitting in the way of Xlib. A geometry manager or event-handling mechanism is not hard to write, and modern toolkits have avoided Xt completely.

There exists little reason to read this book today, as the only reason to use Xt is to use Motif, and this book won't help you with that. Still, if you work extensively with Motif, this book may carry some value...