About This Manual

The Digital UNIX X Window System Environment manual discusses various aspects of the X Window System (X11) Release 6.3 implementation on the DIGITAL UNIX® operating system.

Audience

This manual provides general information as well as specific information about the X Window System as supplied by the DIGITAL UNIX operating system. The audience for this information includes end users, system administrators, and applications programmers.

New and Changed Features

This manual has been revised to document X11 R6.3.

Organization

This document has three chapters:

Chapter 1 Discusses X Window System system administration topics for DIGITAL UNIX systems.
Chapter 2 Explains how to customize X environment resources and keysyms on DIGITAL UNIX systems.
Chapter 3 Discusses X server extensions that are part of the DIGITAL UNIX X Window System environment as well as other programming topics that apply to DIGITAL UNIX systems.

Related Documents

The following books are part of the DIGITAL UNIX hardcopy documentation set. The information in the DIGITAL UNIX X Window System Environment supplements information found in these books:

For DIGITAL UNIX, the X Consortium provides programming documentation. See the Documentation Overview, Glossary, and Master Index for information on where this documentation is located.

The following manuals are available on DIGITAL UNIX through Bookreader as well as being part of the hardcopy documentation set:

The following book provides extensive information about the Motif window interface, including topics on the mwm window manager, font specification, graphics utilities, and customizing your X Window System working environment:

Programmers creating Display PostScript applications can find detailed information in the following book:

Documents from the X Consortium describing the X Image Extension, Version 5, protocols and architecture are provided in PostScript files in the /usr/share/doclib/xie directory. This directory is available only after the OSFXIEDOC400 subset is installed.

Reference pages document all DIGITAL UNIX X Window System commands, OSF/Motif routines, DECwindows routines, and most X Window System routines. Use the man or xman command to review these pages.

The following list summarizes the available documentation. For further information, see the Documentation Overview, Glossary, and Master Index.

The printed version of the DIGITAL UNIX documentation set is color coded to help specific audiences quickly find the books that meet their needs. (You can order the printed documentation from DIGITAL.) This color coding is reinforced with the use of an icon on the spines of books. The following list describes this convention:

Audience Icon Color Code
General users G Blue
System and network administrators S Red
Programmers P Purple
Device driver writers D Orange
Reference page users R Green

Some books in the documentation set help meet the needs of several audiences. For example, the information in some system books is also used by programmers. Keep this in mind when searching for information on specific topics.

The Documentation Overview, Glossary, and Master Index provides information on all of the books in the DIGITAL UNIX documentation set.

Reader's Comments

DIGITAL welcomes any comments and suggestions you have on this and other DIGITAL UNIX manuals.

You can send your comments in the following ways:

Please include the following information along with your comments:

The DIGITAL UNIX Publications group cannot respond to system problems or technical support inquiries. Please address technical questions to your local system vendor or to the appropriate DIGITAL technical support office. Information provided with the software media explains how to send problem reports to DIGITAL.

Conventions

This document uses the following typographical and symbol conventions:

%
$

A percent sign represents the C shell system prompt. A dollar sign represents the system prompt for the Bourne, Korn, and POSIX shells.

% cat

Boldface type in interactive examples indicates typed user input.

file

Italic (slanted) type indicates variable values, placeholders, and function argument names.

[ | ]
{ | }

In syntax definitions, brackets indicate items that are optional and braces indicate items that are required. Vertical bars separating items inside brackets or braces indicate that you choose one item from among those listed. 


colored text

In syntax definitions, literal elements are colored green. Variable values, placeholders, and function argument names are colored red. No special colored text is used outside of syntax descriptions.

cat(1)

A cross-reference to a reference page includes the appropriate section number in parentheses. For example, cat(1) indicates that you can find information on the cat command in Section 1 of the reference pages.