8    The Windowing Environment

This chapter discusses the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), and the X11R6.3 and Motif components of the Tru64 UNIX windowing environment. The following topics are discussed:

8.1    Common Desktop Environment

The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a jointly developed graphical user interface based on industry standards. It is built upon the Open Software Foundation's Motif user interface. CDE provides a consistent look and feel as well as common APIs across multivendor platforms.

CDE presents a visual desktop that you can customize. Using the CDE interface, you can use the mouse or keyboard to navigate and interact with applications. The desktop itself offers a Front Panel, which is a graphical display at the bottom of the screen area that provides access to applications, printers, and frequently used objects, including online help.

In addition to user services, CDE provides everything needed to implement fully integrated applications. Because CDE is standards based, such integration work is transportable to other platforms that comply with these standards. For example, the help files and the means to access them apply across all compliant platforms. For more information, see the Common Desktop Environment: Programmer's Overview.

The CDE Front Panel displays the tools that you use to start applications, manage tasks in a desktop session, or change workspaces. Each tool is represented by an icon that indicates its purpose. A workspace is the screen itself, which includes the Front Panel. A tool on the Front Panel is provided to switch between different workspaces.

The following tools are available on the Front Panel:

For detailed information on the use of each tool, see the Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide.

CDE Window List is incorporated into the Common Desktop Environment; it is invoked by clicking the middle mouse button while the mouse pointer is located in the root window. It finds application windows on any workspace of your desktop and searches for a specific application window given its name, application class, or workspace name. For more information, see the online help for CDE Window List.

CDE Setup facilitates the setting up and customization of CDE through a graphical user interface, and facilitates the creation of Front Panel controls, which can be assembled into Front Panel types. These types can be customized for different users. Furthermore, the user can set parameters for CDE windows, icons, and bindings; set options for the dtterm, dtmail, and dtfile applications; and determine their Front Panel terminal emulator.

The system administrator has increased capabilities including the configuration of the X server, login greeting, and system services. See the dtsetup(8) reference page and the online help for CDE Setup for further information. For more information, see the CDE documentation set.

8.2    X Window System

The X Window System Version 11, Release 6.3 software consists of the following components:

8.2.1    X Client Libraries

Tru64 UNIX supports the complete set of X11R6.3 X client libraries:

For more information on individual X client libraries, see the X Window System documentation in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set.

8.2.2    X Server

Through the extensive use of shared libraries, Tru64 UNIX supports a single X11R6.3 X server image for all graphic options. The X server dynamically configures itself during initialization, loading only those server components required by a specific system configuration, and rarely requires any intervention by a system administrator.

8.2.3    Multihead Graphic Support

Multihead graphic support is transparent in Tru64 UNIX, provided the proper option cards are installed and support is built into the kernel. The PanoramiX extension, known as Xinerama in X11R6.4, can be used to take better advantage of multihead systems.

8.2.4    X Server Extensions

Tru64 UNIX supports the following X server extensions. (Note that to conserve memory, the X server, by default, defers loading most server extensions until it receives a request from a client for that specific extension.)

For more information on individual X client libraries, see the X Window System documentation in the Tru64 UNIX documentation set and the X(1X) and the Xdec(1X) reference pages.

8.2.5    Display Manager

Tru64 UNIX supports the standard Xdm terminal manager software. The Xdm terminal manager starts the X server locally and allows for network-transparent login prompting, so that users can log in to any system on their network supported by xdm as if the remote system's graphic console were in front of them. This software provides for the seamless integration of X terminals into the Tru64 UNIX environment. For more information on using Xdm, see the System Administration guide and the xdm(1X) reference page.

Keymap Format

The default keymaps used by Tru64 UNIX use the XKB standard keymap format. These keymaps can be used by any X server that supports and runs the XKB extension. The XKB keymap files are text files that can be easily customized and compiled for use with the system.

The xmodmap keymap format is also supplied for backward compatibility. Should you want to run the xmodmap keymap format, custom key maps should use this format. The xmodmap keymap format is a de facto industry standard, which uses symbolic key names and can be easily customized.

Both these keymap formats support the ability to specify modifier keys (Compose, Alt, Shift, and so forth).

You should use the XKB standard keymap format instead of the xmodmap keymap format.

XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1

Whenever an X client application establishes a connection to the X server, it passes an authorization code, called a key, to the X server. If the X server recognizes this key, the connection is allowed. When the user's X session is started, xdm (the X Display Manager) writes one or more keys into the .Xauthority file in a user's home directory. The X Display Manager (xdm) also writes these keys into a file that the X server can read.

To improve security, Tru64 UNIX supports both the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 key format as well as the XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 encrypted key format, which is the default.

8.2.6    Font Server

Tru64 UNIX supports a standard scalable font server that supplies a network of systems with access to fonts that reside on any Tru64 UNIX system. The font server maintains a repository of fonts and responds to requests from other X servers on the network for fonts that they may not have locally. In addition to providing network-transparent access to fonts, the font server unloads the compute burden of font scaling from local X servers, because it scales fonts appropriately before supplying them to the requesting X server.

Before a font can be displayed by an X server, its glyphs must be converted from their on-disk formats into bitmaps. This conversion is done by font renderer code in the X server or in a font server that may be supplying fonts to the X server.

Tru64 UNIX supports loadable font renderers, so that users who adhere to the X11R6.3 standard can write their own font renderer for their own set of fonts and install them on a Tru64 UNIX system. After the fonts and the font renderer are installed, the necessary entries for them are placed in the X server configuration file (/usr/var/X11/Xserver.conf), the font server configuration file (/usr/var/X11/fs/config), or in both configuration files. The new font renderer is then recognized the next time the X server or font server (whichever has the font renderer configured) is reset.

8.2.7    X Clients

Tru64 UNIX supports the entire X11R6.3 suite of X clients, including appres, atobm, bdftopcf, bitmap, bmtoa, chooser, editres, fs, fsinfo, fslsfonts, fstobdf, iceauth, ico, imake, listres, lndir, maze, mkfontdir, oclock, optacon, puff, puzzle, restart, resize, showfont, showrgb, smproxy, twm, uil, viewres, x11perf, x11perfcomp, xauth, xbiff, xcalc, xcd, xclipboard, xclock, xcmsdb, xconsole, xcutsel, xdm, xdpr, xdpyinfo, xedit, xemacs, xev, xeyes, xfd, xfindproxy, xfwp, xfontsel, xfwp, xhost, xkbbells, xkbcomp, xkbprint, xkbdfltmap,, xkbvleds, xkbwatch, xkill, xload, xlogo, xlsatoms, xlsclients, xlsfonts, xmag, xman, xmbind, xmh, xmkmf, xmodmap, xon, xpr, xprop, xrdb, xrefresh, xset, xsetroot, xsoundsentry, xstdcmap, xterm, xwd, xwininfo, and xwud.

For more information on individual X clients, see the appropriate reference page.

8.3    Motif Suite of Components

Tru64 UNIX supports the entire suite of Motif Version 1.0 components, including the widget library (Xm), the resource manager (Mrm), the widget metalanguage (wml), the User Interface Language (UIL), the Motif window manager (mwm), the key binding utility (xmbind), and the Motif Demonstration programs (examples).

In Motif Version 1.2, the Open Software Foundation added support for ANSI C, Internationalization, Drag and Drop, and TearOff Menus. Unfortunately, much of this support required breaking binary compatibility with Motif Version 1.1.3.

To mitigate this problem, Tru64 UNIX provides the Motif Version 1.1.3 libraries through versioning to allow applications that are linked against Motif Version 1.1.3 to continue to run. These libraries are available in an optional subset. For more information on versioning, see the Programmer's Guide.

For more information on Motif, see the OSF/Motif Programmer's Guide and the appropriate reference pages. For information on Motif support for internationalization, see Chapter 10.

8.3.1    Extended Widget Set

Tru64 UNIX supports the Extended Widget Set (DXm), which contains the following widgets:

8.3.2    X Clients

In addition to the entire X11R6.3 suite of X clients, Tru64 UNIX supports a variety of X clients including accessx, dxconsole, dxdiff, dxkbledpabel, dxkeyboard, dxkeycaps, dxpresto, and dxterm.