X-Designer - The Leading X/Motif GUI Builder - Click to download a FREE evaluation
|
X-Designer - The Leading X/Motif GUI Builder - Click to download a FREE evaluation |
Preface
By convention, a preface describes the book itself, while the introduction describes the subject matter. You should read through the preface to get an idea of how the book is organized, the conventions it follows, and so on.This book describes how to write applications using the Motif toolkit from the Open Software Foundation (OSF). The Motif toolkit is based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics (Xt), which is the standard mechanism on which many of the toolkits written for the X Window System are based. Xt provides a library of user-interface objects called widgets and gadgets, which provide a convenient interface for creating and manipulating X windows, colormaps, events, and other cosmetic attributes of the display. In short, widgets can be thought of as building blocks that the programmer uses to construct a complete application.
However, the widgets that Xt provides are generic in nature and impose no user-interface policy whatsoever. That is the job of a user-interface toolkit such as Motif. Motif provides a complete set of widgets designed to implement the application look and feel specified in the Motif Style Guide and the Motif Application Environment Specification.
The book provides a complete programmer's guide to the Motif toolkit. While the OSF/Motif toolkit is based on Xt, the focus of the book is on Motif itself, not on the Intrinsics.Detailed information about Xt is provided by Volume 4, and references are made to that volume throughout the course of this book. You are not required to have Volume 4 in order to use this book effectively, as the books are not companion volumes, but complementary ones. However, truly robust applications require a depth of knowledge about Xt and Xlib, the layer on which Xt itself is based, that is not addressed in this book alone. We never leave you completely in the dark about Xt or Xlib functions that we use or reference, but you won't learn everything there is to know about them through this particular volume.
This book covers Motif 2.1, which is the latest major release of the Motif toolkit. Motif 2.1 is based on Release 6 of the Xlib and Xt specifications (X11R6). This release of Motif provides many new features, as well as a number of enhancements to existing functionality. All of the changes in Motif 2.1 are summarized in Chapter 3, which provides references to other sections that describe the changes in more detail.
The Plot
There are several plots and subplots in this book and the stories told are intertwined. Our primary goal is to help you learn about the Motif environment from both the programmer's and the user's perspectives. However, we are talking to you as a programmer, not as a user.We treat the user as a third party who is not with us now. In order to create an application for the user, you sometimes have to assume her role, so at times we may ask you to play such a role to help you think about things from the user's perspective rather than the programmer's.Each chapter begins by discussing the goals that Motif is trying to achieve using a particular widget or gadget. For example, before we describe how to create a FileSelectionDialog, we introduce the object visually and conceptually, discuss its features and drawbacks, and put you in the role of the user. Once you understand what the user is working with, you should have a better perspective on the task of presenting it to her.
The next subplot is that of application design. Many design concepts transcend the graphical user interface (GUI) and are common to all programs that interact with users. You could even interpret this book as a programmer's guide that happens to use Motif as an example. As you read the material, you should stop and think about how you might approach a particular interface method if you were using another toolkit instead of Motif. A wild concept, perhaps, but this approach is the key to better application design and to toolkit independence. If Motif changes in a later release, or if you decide to port your application to another toolkit or even another windowing system, the more generalized your code is, the easier it will be to bring it into a new realm successfully.
The last story we are telling is that of general programming technique. By providing you with examples of good programming habits, styles, and usages, we hope to propagate a programming methodology that has proven to be successful over the years. These techniques have been applied to applications that have been ported to multiple architectures and operating systems. As an added bonus, we have thrown in a number of interesting programming tricks. No, these are not hacks, but conveniences that are particular to C, to UNIX, or even to the X Window System. We don't focus on these things, but they are made available to you in passing, so you should have no problem identifying them when they come up.
This book is intended to be used as a programmer's manual, not a reference manual. Volume 6B, contains reference material for all of the Motif library functions and widget classes. We have tried to identify those features of the toolkit that are most important for general discussion, so we do not discuss every aspect of the Motif toolkit in the body of this book.
Any major software development effort, especially in its early stages, has bugs that prevent certain features from being used and the Motif toolkit is no exception. There are some bugs in the Motif toolkit that have not yet been worked out, but this does not imply that the toolkit is poorly written or riddled with errors. Throughout the book, we try to alert you to any potential problems you may encounter due to bugs. In some cases, there are things that work in Motif, but they are poorly designed, and we don't recommend that you use them. Again, we provide an explanation of what's going on and sometimes describe an alternative solution. There are also some features, resources, and functions available in the toolkit that are not supported by OSF. OSF reserves the right to change anything not publicly documented, so rather than discuss undocumented features, we simply ignore them.
We should also point out that this book is not intended to solve all your problems or answer all your questions concerning Motif or its toolkit. It is not going to spoon feed you by giving you step-by-step instructions on how to achieve a particular task. You are encouraged, and even expected, to experiment on your own with the example applications or, better yet, with your own programs. We want to provide you with discussion and examples that provoke you into asking questions like, "What would happen if I changed this program to do this?" It would be unrealistic to believe that we could address every problem that might come up. Rather than approaching situations using overly specific examples, we discuss them in a generalized way that should be applicable to many different scenarios.
Assumptions
The basic method for creating simple applications in Motif is conceptually simple and straightforward. Even if you only dabble in C, you can probably understand the concepts well enough to do most things. However, unless you have a strong handle on the C programming language, there is an upper limit to what you will be able to do when you try to create a full-featured, functioning application. After all, the user-interface portion of most applications should make up no more than 30-40% of the total code. The functionality of an application is up to you and is not discussed here. Without a strong background with C, or some other structured programming language, you might have a problem keeping up with the material presented here.This book also assumes that you are familiar with the concepts and architecture of the X Toolkit Intrinsics, which are presented in Volume 4M, and Volume 5. A basic understanding of the X Window System is also useful. For some advanced topics, the reader may need to consult Volume 1, and Volume 2.
How This Book Is Organized
While this book attempts to serve the widest possible audience, that does not imply that the material is so simple that it is only useful to novice programmers. In fact, this book can be considered an advanced programmer's handbook, since in many places, it assumes a fairly sophisticated knowledge of many features of the X Window System.Each chapter is organized so that it gets more demanding as you read through it. Each chapter begins with a short introduction to the particular Motif element that is the subject of the chapter. The basic mechanics involved in creating and manipulating the object are addressed next, followed by the resources and other configurable aspects of the object. If there is any advanced material about the object, it is presented at the end of the chapter. Many chapters also include exercises that suggest how the material can be adapted for uses not discussed explicitly in the text.
While the chapters may be read sequentially, it is certainly not required or expected that you do so. As you will soon discover, there are many circular dependencies that justify skipping around between chapters. Since there is no organization that would eliminate this problem, the material is not organized so that you "learn as you go." Instead, we organized the material in a top-down manner, starting with several chapters that provide an introduction to the Motif look and feel, followed by chapters organized on a widget-by-widget basis. The higher-level manager widgets are discussed first, followed by the primitive widgets and gadgets. Advanced material is positioned at the end of the book, since the details are not of paramount importance to the earlier material.
In short, everything is used everywhere. Starting at the beginning, however, means that we won't necessarily assume you know about the material that is referenced in later chapters.On the other hand, the later chapters may make the assumption that you are aware of material in earlier chapters.
The book is broken down into twenty seven chapters and one appendix as follows:
Introduction to Motif answers the question "Why Motif?" and suggests some of the complexities that the programmer has to master in order to make an application easy to use.
Chapter 2
The Motif Programming Model teaches the fundamentals of Motif by example. It presents a simple "Hello, World" program that shows the structure and style common to all Motif programs. Much of this material is already covered in detail in Volume 4M, so the chapter can be read as a refresher, or a light introduction for those who haven't read the earlier book. The chapter references Volume 4 and Volume 1, to point out areas that the programmer needs to understand before progressing with Motif.
Chapter 3
Overview of the Motif Toolkit explains what is involved in creating a real application. The chapter discusses the arrangement of primitive widgets in an interface, the use of dialog boxes and menus, and the relationship between an application and the window manager. The chapter also describes all of the changes in Release 2.1 of the Motif toolkit. After reading this chapter, the programmer should have a solid overview of Motif application programming and be able to read the remaining chapters in any order.
Chapter 4
The Main Window describes the Motif MainWindow widget, which can be used to frame many types of applications. The MainWindow is a manager widget that provides a MenuBar, a scrollable work area, and various other optional display and control areas.
Chapter 5
Introduction to Dialogs describes the fundamental concepts that underly all Motif dialogs. It provides a foundation for the more advanced material in the following chapters. In the course of the introduction, this chapter also provides details on Motif's predefined MessageDialog classes.
Chapter 6
Selection Dialogs presents the more complex Motif-supplied dialogs for displaying selectable items, such as lists of files or commands, to the user.
Chapter 7
Custom Dialogs describes how to create new dialog types, either by customizing Motif dialogs or by creating entirely new dialogs.
Chapter 8
Manager Widgets provides detailed descriptions of the various classes of Motif manager widgets. Useful examples explore the various methods of positioning components in Form and RowColumn widgets.
Chapter 9
Containers and IconGadgets describes two components which are new to Motif 2. These were designed to work together in order to provide a more graphical presentation of the front end of the application than the older Main Window. The IconGadget pictorially represents application objects; the Container lays them out in a variety of styles, including Tablular, Grid, and Tree formats. The layout can be changed dynamically: the Container and IconGadget combination approximates to a Model-View-Controller (MVC) system for the Motif widget set.
Chapter 10
ScrolledWindows and ScrollBars describes the ins and outs of scrolling, with particular attention to application-defined scrolling, which is often required when the simple scrolling provided by the ScrolledWindow widget is insufficient.
Chapter 11
The DrawingArea Widget describes the Motif DrawingArea widget, which provides a canvas for interactive drawing. The chapter simply highlights, with numerous code examples, the difficulties that may be encountered when working with this widget, rather than trying to teach Xlib drawing techniques. Some knowledge of Xlib is assumed; we direct the reader to Volume 1, for additional information.
Chapter 12
Labels and Buttons provides an in-depth look at labels and buttons, the most commonly-used primitive widgets. The chapter discusses the Label, PushButton, ToggleButton, ArrowButton, and DrawnButton widget classes.
Chapter 13
The List Widget describes yet another method for the user to exert control over an application. A List widget displays a group of items from which the user can make a selection.
Chapter 14
The ComboBox Widget describes another component which is new in Motif 2. The ComboBox combines List display with Text input, although the List can be hidden until required. The widget therefore maximizes user convenience using the minimal of screen space.
Chapter 15
The SpinBox and SimpleSpinBox Widgets are also new in Motif 2. Similar in concept to the ComboBox, the widgets allow the user to choose from a set of values, and the current choice is presented through a TextField. The difference is that the user changes the current choice not by selecting from a List, but by rotating through the set of available values using ArrowButtons provided for the purpose.
Chapter 16
The Scale Widget describes how to use the Scale to display a range of values.
Chapter 17
The Notebook Widget describes a component which provides page or tab manager functionality to the Motif 2 toolkit. The programmer adds children to the Notebook, only one of which is visible at any given time. The user can select between pages using Tabs (PushButtons) aligned along the edges of the Notebook, or by selecting the required page number from a SpinBox which the Notebook creates automatically.
Chapter 18
Text Widgets explains how the Text and TextField widgets can be used to provide text entry in an application, from a single data-entry field to a full-fledged text editor. Special attention is paid to problems such as how to mask or convert data input by the user so as to control its format. The chapter also discusses the internationalization features of the widgets provided in Motif 1.2.
Chapter 19
Menus describes the menus provided by the Motif toolkit.The chapter examines how menus are created and presents some generalized menu creation routines.
Chapter 20
Interacting With the Window Manager provides additional information on the relationship between an application and the Motif Window Manager (mwm). It discusses the shell widget resources and window manager protocols that can be used to communicate with the window manager. It also discusses various CDE desktop aspects of the window manager interaction.
Chapter 21
The Clipboard describes a way for the application to interact with other applications. Data is placed on the clipboard, where it can be accessed by other windows on the desktop, regardless of the applications with which they are associated.
Chapter 22
Drag and Drop presents the drag and drop mechanism for transferring data that is provided in Motif 1.2. The chapter describes the built-in drag and drop features of the Motif toolkit and provides examples of adding drag and drop functionality to an application.
Chapter 23
The Uniform Transfer Model describes the scheme introduced in Motif 2 which allows the programmer to handle the various data transfer operations supported by Motif (Primary and Secondary Selections, the Clipboard, Drag-and-Drop) using a single programming interface.
Chapter 24
Render Tables describes the Motif 2 mechanisms which control the way in which compound strings are displayed by the toolkit. In Motif 2, strings which appear in widgets can be multi-colored, multi-font, and laid out in a multi-column arrangement. The coloration, font, and tabular information is held separately from the string which is to be drawn in the form of a render table.
Chapter 25
Compound Strings describes Motif's technology for encoding font and directional information in the strings that are used by almost all Motif widgets. It discusses how to use compound strings in an internationalized application.
Chapter 26
Signal Handling presents the problems that can be encountered when mixing UNIX signals with X applications. It explains how signals work and why they can wreak such havoc with X. It presents the new features of X11R6 which are expressly designed to handle this problem.
Chapter 27
Advanced Dialog Programming describes the issues involved in creating multi-stage help systems, using WorkingDialogs that allow the user to interrupt long-running tasks, and dynamically changing the pixmaps displayed in a dialog.
Appendix A
Additional Example Programs provides several additional examples that illustrate techniques not discussed in the body of the book.
Related Documents
The following books on the X Window System are available from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.:
Volume Zero X Protocol Reference ManualVolume One Xlib Programming Manual
Volume Two Xlib Reference Manual
Volume Three X Window System User's Guide, Motif Edition
Volume Four X Toolkit Intrinsics Programming Manual, Motif Edition
Volume Five X Toolkit Intrinsics Reference Manual
Volume Six A Motif Programming Manual
Volume Six B Motif Reference Manual
Volume Seven XView Programming Manual with accompanying reference volume.
Volume Eight X Window System Administrator's Guide
Quick Reference The X Window System in a Nutshell
Programming Supplement for Release 6 of the X Window System
Conventions Used in This Book
Italic is used for:
UNIX path names, filenames, program names, user command names, options for user commands, and variable expressions in syntax sections.
New terms where they are defined.
Anything that would be typed verbatim into code, such as examples of source code and text on the screen.
Variables, data structures (and fields), symbols (defined constants and bit flags), functions, macros, and a general assortment of anything relating to the C programming language.
All functions relating to Motif, Xt, and Xlib.
Names of subroutines in example programs. Italic Typewriter Font is used for:
Arguments to functions, since they could be typed in code as shown but are arbitrary names that could be changed.
Names of buttons and menus.
Obtaining Motif
Motif sources can be obtained from a number of locations, although the primary reference site is:These sources are known as Open Motif, and the use of such sources in applications is restricted to Open Source platforms.http://www.opengroup.org/motifAlternatively, if your hardware vendor is an OSF member, they may be able to provide Motif binaries for your machine. Various independent vendors also provide binaries for some machines.Source licenses must be obtained directly from OSF:
OSF Direct
Open Software Foundation
11 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
USA
+1 617 621-7300
Internet: direct@osf.org
Obtaining the Example Programs
The example programs in this book are available electronically in a number of ways: by FTP, FTPMAIL, BITFTP, and UUCP. The cheapest, fastest, and easiest ways are listed first. If you read from the top down, the first one that works for you is probably the best. Use FTP if you are directly on the Internet. Use FTPMAIL if you are not on the Internet but can send and receive electronic mail to internet sites (this includes CompuServe users). Use BITFTP if you send electronic mail via BITNET.Use UUCP if none of the above works.Versions of the example programs for Motif 2.1, Motif 1.2 and Motif 1.1 are available electronically. If you want the Motif 2.1 version, use the filename examples21.tar.Z, as shown in the sample sessions below. The filename for the Motif 1.2 version is examples12.tar.Z.
FTP
To use FTP, you need a machine with direct access to the Internet. A sample session is shown, with what you should type in boldface.If the file is a compressed tar archive, extract the files from the archive by typing:% ftp ftp.uu.net Connected to ftp.uu.net.220 FTP server (Version 6.21 Tue Mar 10 22:09:55 EST 1992) ready. Name (ftp.uu.net:paula): anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send domain style e-mail address as password. Password: paula@ora.com (use your user name and host here) 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. ftp> cd /published/oreilly/xbook/motif 250 CWD command successful. ftp> binary (Very important! You must specify binary transfer for compressed files.) 200 Type set to I. ftp> get examples12.tar.Z 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for examples12.tar.Z 226 Transfer complete. ftp> quit 221 Goodbye. %System V systems require the following tar command instead:% zcat examples12.tar.Z | tar xf -If zcat is not available on your system, use separate uncompress and tar commands.% zcat examples12.tar.Z | tar xof -
FTPMAIL
FTPMAIL is a mail server available to anyone who can send electronic mail to and receive it from Internet sites. This includes any company or service provider that allows email connections to the Internet. Here's how you do it.You send mail to ftpmail@online.ora.com. In the message body, give the FTP commands you want to run. The server will run anonymous FTP for you and mail the files back to you. To get a complete help file, send a message with no subject and the single word "help" in the body. The following is an example mail session that should get you the examples. This command sends you a listing of the files in the selected directory, and the requested example files. The listing is useful if there's a later version of the examples you're interested in.
A signature at the end of the message is acceptable as long as it appears after "quit."% mail ftpmail@online.ora.com Subject:reply paula@ora.com (where you want files mailed) opencd /published/oreilly/xbook/motif dirmode binary uuencode get examples12.tar.Z quit %All retrieved files will be split into 60KB chunks and mailed to you. You then remove the mail headers and concatenate them into one file, and then uudecode or atob it. Once you've got the desired file, follow the directions under FTP to extract the files from the archive.
VMS, DOS, and Mac versions of uudecode, atob, uncompress, and tar are available.
BITFTP
BITFTP is a mail server for BITNET users. You send it electronic mail messages requesting files, and it sends you back the files by electronic mail. BITFTP currently serves only users who send it mail from nodes that are directly on BITNET, EARN, or NetNorth. BITFTP is a public service of Princeton University. Here's how it works.To use BITFTP, send mail containing your ftp commands to BITFTP@PUCC. For a complete help file, send HELP as the message body.
The following is the message body you should send to BITFTP:
Once you've got the desired file, follow the directions under FTP to extract the files from the archive. Since you are probably not on a UNIX system, you may need to get versions of uudecode, uncompress, atob, and tar for your system. VMS, DOS, and Mac versions are available. The VMS versions are on gatekeeper.dec.com in /archive/pub/VMS.FTP ftp.uu.net NETDATA USER anonymous PASS your Internet email address (not your bitnet address) CD /published/oreilly/xbook/motif DIR BINARYG ET examples12.tar.Z QUITQuestions about BITFTP can be directed to Melinda Varian, MAINT@PUCC on BITNET.
UUCP
UUCP is standard on virtually all UNIX systems, and is available for IBM-compatible PCs and Apple Macintoshes. The examples are available by UUCP via modem from UUNET; UUNET's connect-time charges apply.You can get the examples from UUNET whether you have an account or not. If you or your company has an account with UUNET, you will have a system with a direct UUCP connection to UUNET. Find that system, and type:
The backslashes can be omitted if you use the Bourne shell (sh) instead of csh. The file should appear some time later (up to a day or more) in the directory /usr/spool/uucppublic/yourname. If you don't have an account but would like one so that you can get electronic mail, then contact UUNET at 703-204-8000.uucp uunet\!~/published/oreilly/xbook/motif/examples12.tar.Z yourhost\!~/yourname/It's a good idea to get the file /published/oreilly/xbook/motif/ls-lR.Z as a short test file containing the filenames and sizes of all the files in the directory.
Once you've got the desired file, follow the directions under FTP to extract the files from the archive.
Copyright
The example programs are written by Dan Heller, Paula Ferguson, Antony Fountain, and Jeremy Huxtable for the Motif Programming Manual, Copyright 1994 O'Reilly &Associates, Inc. Permission to use, copy, and modify these programs without restriction is hereby granted, as long as this copyright notice appears in each copy of the program source code.For the purposes of making the book easier to read, the above copyright notice does not appear in the program examples. However, the copyright does exist in the electronic form of the programs available on the Internet.
Compiling the Example Programs
Once you have the examples and you've unpacked the archive as described above, you're ready to compile them. The easiest way is to use imake, a program supplied with the X11 distribution that generates proper Makefiles on a wide variety of systems. imake uses configuration files called Imakefiles that are included with the examples. If you have imake, you should go to the top-level directory containing the examples, and type:The examples all have the same application class for purposes of the app-defaults file. The class name is "Demos" and the app-defaults file (Demos) in the main examples directory should be placed in /usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults/Demos on a UNIX system. If you can't write to that directory, or if your normal X11 directory tree is installed elsewhere, you should set the environment variable XAPPLRESDIR to the directory where you installed the examples.% xmkmf % make Makefiles % make
Acknowledgments
Third Edition. The current edition of this book was updated to cover Motif 2.1 by Antony Fountain and Jeremy Huxtable, both of Imperial Software Technology. Jerry originally wrote most of the Motif 2.1 sample programs which appear in the book. He also wrote the utility Snap, which was used to recreate all the screen shots for this manual. Originally we intended to include this in the Appendix as a sample application, but space forbade this. For myself, I simply made sure that the examples were non-deprecated. The text, however, is mine, and I accept the blame for everything.Special thanks go to the people who worked on the production of this book. The final form of this book is the work of the staff at O'Reilly & Associates. I would like to thank all of them for allowing me to take on this project; a special thanks to Paula Ferguson, without whom the manuscript would never have reached the printer. The authors would like to thank all at IST for their patience and support. A special thanks must go to Denise Buckler, John Bishop, Andy Davies, Simon Davies, Ruth Lambert, Andy and Tricia Lovell, Graham Salisbury, and Rob Snell, who all cheerfully assisted in the onerous task of proof reading. Thanks to Alan Sandell for keeping the printer working. A big thanks to Andy Lovell, Neil Smyth, and Derek Lambert for their patience and support when I could have been working on company matters. And last but definitely not least, a very special thank you to my wife Emma for keeping the home fires burning.
Second Edition. The second edition of this book was updated to cover Motif 1.2,including drag and drop and internationalization, by Paula Ferguson. Dave Brennan, of HaL Computer Systems, took on the unenviable task of learning everything he could about UIL and Mrm, in order to write the UIL programming material for this edition. He did a great job of covering a complex subject.
Adrian Nye deserves recognition for allowing me to work on this project, when I'm sure that he had other projects he would have liked to send my way. I don't think either one of us had any idea how involved this update project would become. He also provided editorial support that helped keep me on track in the final stages of the work on the book.
The other writers at O'Reilly &Associates in Cambridge, Valerie Quercia and Linda Mui, provided support that kept me sane while I was working on the book. Their willingness to listen and offer advice is greatly appreciated. Extra gratitude goes to Valerie Quercia for her help with the screen dumps for the book.
David Flanagan deserves credit for always being willing to answer my questions about the technical details of Motif and X. Douglas Rand, Scott Meeks, and David Brooks at OSF answered questions and helped review the new material. Daniel Jahn, of SAS Institute, Inc., also provided valuable review comments for this edition.
Special thanks go to the people who worked on the production of this book. The final form of this book is the work of the staff at O'Reilly &Associates. The authors would like to thank Chris Reilly for the figures, Donna Woonteiler, Chris Tong, and Ellie Cutler for indexing, Lenny Muellner for tools support, and Stephen Spainhour, Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary, Kismet McDonough, and Eileen Kramer for copy editing and production of the final copy. Thanks also to Donna Woonteiler for her patience in helping me understand the production process.
Finally, I'd like to thank my friends for putting up with me when I kept telling them that I'd be done working non-stop in a month or two. Special thanks to my house mate, Meredith Hunt, who put up with me when I was stressed out and not much fun to live with, and who took care of the cats when I wasn't around. My friends Karen Lewis and Liz Bradley opened their house to me when I needed to escape and be someplace where there are mountains. And thanks to the great people at the Boston Rock Gym, who provided me with a much-needed outlet for climbing the walls.
Despite the efforts of all of these people, the authors alone are responsible for any errors or omissions that remain.
First Edition. The first edition of this book took over a year and a half to write and compile from the beginning. But when I look back on the entire effort, and I think about what it takes to do things like this (and other difficult things in life), I realize that what it really requires is a state of mind and a mental model that lends itself to seeing the big picture and choosing to do what's necessary to get the job done.
To this, I can only credit one person, Tim O'Reilly, my friend and editor of this book. It's his approach to life, his values, his way of thinking about things, and his talent for expressing them is what has influenced me more than anything else in adopting the kind of mental framework necessary to write a book like this (or to start my company, Z-Code Software, or to do anything I do in life). He never gives me advice when I ask for it, nor does he tell me what to do. Instead, he uses quotes, cites anecdotes, or just describes an abstract thought that always seems to be appropriate to every situation. In short, he's shown me a way of thinking about things that appreciates the big picture. I take this with me wherever I go, and in whatever I do. Without it, I couldn't have written this book.
Those who worked most closely with me on the project include Irene Jacobson, who dedicated long hours to meticulous editing and support. Her intuition and insistence on proper use of words saved many cuts of Tim O'Reilly's scalpel. David Lewis also gets super-high marks for his excellent feedback, for his technical expertise, and for helping take care of certain Z-Mail ports while I was busy hunched over this computer. More thanks go to the great folks at Z-Code Software, Bart Schaefer and Don Hatch, for not laughing at me when I told people for at least six months that the book would take "just two more weeks now."(I really meant it, too!) Actually, they helped quite a bit with reading nroff'd manuscripts, and by taking care of the business whenever I was at O'Reilly &Associates' offices in "Bahston."
The figures in this book come in two forms: screen dumps and hand-generated figures done by Chris Reilly. What a super job he did--and always on time. And how can I thank Kismet McDonough, Lenny Muellner, Rosanne Wagger, Mike Sierra, Eileen Kramer, and the other production folks at O'Reilly &Associates, who did a wonderful job of copy editing, proofing, page layout, and all the other things that make the difference between a manuscript and a finished book. And that's not all: Ellie Cutler wrote the index. Tony Marotto of Cambridge Computer Associates figured out how to convert our screen dumps into PostScript files and how to scale screen dumps without the moire and plaid patterns you see in many books. He used Jeff Poskanzer's pmbplus to convert xwd dumps to gif format, and then wrote a set of image-processing programs that shift and enhance the tones. Daniel Gilly took on the enormous job of developing the reference appendices when it became clear that I wouldn't have time.
Enthusiastic applause goes to Libby Hanna (do I get a real official OSF/Motif decoder ring now!!??), David Brooks, Scott Meeks, Susan Thompson, Carl Scholz, Benjamin Ellsworth, and the entire cast at OSF in Cambridge for their support. And, of course, everyone on the motif-talk mailing list.(I wish I could remember all your names!)
People I can't forget: Bill "Rock" Petro, Akkana, Mike Harrigan at NCD for the terminal, Danny Backx at BIM (sorry I didn't get you any review copies!), John Harkin, and certain folks at Sun that I'd love to mention, but I can't because they're into that OL-thang and they wouldn't want to be associated with the M-word, Jordan Hayes, Paula Ferguson, and Kee Hinckley (just because he's cool).Also thanks to Ralph Swick and Donna Converse at the X Consortium for being somewhat patient with me.
Added thanks to Lynn Vaughn at CNN for keeping me informed about what's going on in the world, since I have no time to look out the window; to Short Attention-Span Theatre, for keeping me amused; and to Yogurt World, for keeping me fed.
This book was written using a Sun workstation, the vi editor (for which I guess I ought to thank Bill Joy), SoftQuad's sqtroff, X11R4 and various versions of Motif (1.0 through 1.1.3).
For catching and reporting errors that have been fixed in the second printing, I'd like to thank Akkana, Wayne Robertz, Glen Shute, Scott Strool, Trevor Taylor, Peter Wagner, Andrew Wason, Tim Weinrich, and Bill Wohler.
We'd Like to Hear From You
We have tested and verified all of the information in this book to the best of our ability, but you may find that features have changed (or even that we have made mistakes!). Please let us know about any errors you find, as well as your suggestions for future editions, by writing:
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
103 Morris Street, Suite A
Sebastopol, CA 95472
1-800-998-9938 (in the US or Canada)
1-707-829-0515 (international/local) You can also send us messages electronically. To be put on the mailing list or request a catalog, send email to:
1-707-829-0104 (FAX)
info@ora.com (via the Internet) To ask technical questions or comment on the book, send email to:
uunet!ora!info (via UUCP)
bookquestions@ora.com (via the Internet)
|
|