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The X Window System
Graphics for Linux and Unix systems.
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Listing Available Fonts
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The X Window system comes with a huge set of fonts.
To see a listing of the fonts available on your system, try a program
called xlsfonts:
xlsfonts | more
This lists out many fonts, such as:
-adobe-courier-bold-r-normal--12-120-75-75-m-70-iso8859-1
-adobe-new century schoolbook-medium-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-181-iso8859-1
-daewoo-gothic-medium-r-normal--16-120-100-100-c-160-ksc5601.1987-0
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-140-jisx0208.1983-0
lucidasans-bold-14
cursor
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Decoding Long Font Names
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Some of the multi-part names are quite long. These names follow a standard
called X Logical Font Description, or XLFD.
Each part of an XLFD name is separated by a hyphen. If a part is missing,
you'll see two hyphens in a row. You can also use wildcards, such as
* for fields you don't care about.
Going in order, from left to right, the fields follow:
| Field |
Example |
Description |
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Foundry
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adobe,b&h
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The company that created the font.
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Font family
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times, lucidasans
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Basic font family name
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Weight
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bold, medium
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How thick the letters are
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Slant
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i, r
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Italic, roman, oblique, etc.
| Code |
Meaning |
| i | Italic |
| o | Oblique |
| r | Roman |
| ri | Reverse Italic |
| ro | Reverse Oblique |
| ot | Other |
| number | Scaled font (R6) |
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Set-width name
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normal, condensed
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Width of characters
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Additional style
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sans
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Extra info to describe font
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Pixel size
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26, 20
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Height, in pixels, of characters
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Point size
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190, 140
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Ten times height of characters in points
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Dots-per-inch
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100-100, 75-75
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Dots per inch in X and Y directions. You can generally ignore this.
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Spacing
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m, p, c
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Spacing
| Spacing |
Meaning |
| c | Character-cell/monospaced |
| m | Monospaced |
| p | Proportional |
| number | Scaled font (R6) |
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Average width
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94, 159
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Ten times the average width in pixels
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Charset registry
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iso8859-1
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Character set encoding in the font, some examples:
| Character Set |
Meaning |
| iso8859-1 | Western Europe |
| hp-roman8 | Western Europe (Hewlett-Packard only) |
| iso8859-2 | Eastern Europe |
| ksc5601.1987-0 | Korean |
| jisx0208.1983-0 | Japanese |
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For more information on XLFD fonts, see chapter 7 in
The UNIX System Administrator's Guide to X.
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Window Managers
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One of the main things that distinguish X from most other windowing
systems, such as Windows or Macintosh, is that X separates the
window manager from the windowing system. X allows you to run any window
manager you want, and it is the window manager that controls the title
bar and other "decorations" around your windows' client areas.
Major desktop environments, such as GNOME and KDE, come pre-built with one
or more window managers that help provide a consistent desktop.
The window manager controls the initial placement of windows on your
screen. It also controls the title bar. (The title bar is actually
a window that the window manager creates.) The window manager is
in charge of how you go about resizing and moving windows. And,
some window managers provide a set of virtual screens, which
allow you to organize your windows (and applications) across a number
of virtual screens, each of which looks like the full screen you have.
This is all quite
a lot different from Windows or Macintosh systems, where the window
manager comes built-in and you don't have a lot of control
over how it acts. In X, you can simply run a different window
manager. Also in X, the title bar is a separate window, owned and managed
by the window manager program. In the Windows and Macintosh environments,
the title bar is part of your application's window and your application
draws into the client area of the window. In X, all you have is
the client area. The window manager controls the rest.
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Controlling Window Decorations
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Because the window manager is in charge of so much, you'll oftentimes
want your programs to communicate with the window managers to request
various features, such as the title to display in the title bar and so on.
The X Window method to do this is by following the
Inter-Client Communications Conventions Manual,
or ICCCM. (X defines application programs as clients.)
Unfortunately, the ICCCM does not define all you'll normally want for
communicating with the window manager. The problem is that the two main
window managers, Motif and Open Look, each use proprietary extensions
to the ICCCM to control things like whether the window title bar has resize
handles and so on. Therefore, the ICCCM is no good for dealing with this.
Instead, you need to program to the proprietary extensions used by
both the Motif and Open Look window managers (luckily, these extensions
don't overlap).
The following charts, extracted
from Power Programming Motif, may help.
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Window Manager Resources in Motif
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If you're programming with Motif, you can
use traditional Xt resources to control many aspects of the window
manager, with special emphasis on the Motif window manager, mwm.
If the current window manager is compatible with Motif conventions,
then the following will also apply.
| Resource |
Type |
Default |
Use |
| baseHeight
| int
| dynamic
| Base size
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| baseWidth
| int
| dynamic
| Base size
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| deleteResponse
| unsigned char
| XmDESTROY
| Action to take on wm Close
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| height
| Dimension
| dynamic
| Widget height
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| heightInc
| int
| dynamic
| Increment for resizing
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| iconic
| Boolean
| False
| Start as icon?
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| iconMask
| Pixmap
| NULL
| Mask for icon
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| iconName
| String
| NULL
| Name for icon
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| iconNameEncoding
| Atom
| STRING
| Char set
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| iconPixmap
| Pixmap
| NULL
| Icon bitmap
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| iconWindow
| Window
| NULL
| Icon window, if used
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| iconX
| int
| -1
| Icon location
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| iconY
| int
| -1
| Icon location
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| initialState
| int
| NormalState
| One of NormalState,
IconicState or WithdrawnState
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| input
| Boolean
| True
| Want keyboard input?
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| inputMethod
| String
| NULL
| Locale modifier
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| keyboardFocusPolicy
| unsigned char
| XmEXPLICIT
| Click to type
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| maxAspectX
| int
| dynamic
| Max aspect ratio
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| maxAspectY
| int
| dynamic
| Max aspect ratio
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| maxHeight
| int
| dynamic
| Max size
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| maxWidth
| int
| dynamic
| Max size
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| minAspectX
| int
| dynamic
| Min aspect ratio
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| minAspectY
| int
| dynamic
| Min aspect ratio
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| minHeight
| int
| dynamic
| Min size
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| minWidth
| int
| dynamic
| Min size
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| mwmDecorations
| int
| -1
| Mwm window decoration flags
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| mwmFunctions
| int
| -1
| Mwm window function flags
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| mwmInputMode
| int
| -1
| Sets if modal
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| mwmMenu
| String
| NULL
| Additional wm menu choices
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| overrideRedirect
| Boolean
| False
| Override wm?
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| preeditType
| String
| dynamic
| Implementation dependent
for input method
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| title
| String
| dynamic
| Window title
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| titleEncoding
| Atom
| dynamic
| Title char set
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| transient
| Boolean
| False
| Transient? (I.e., dialog)
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| transientFor
| Widget
| NULL
| Set to main app if
this widget is a dialog
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| useAsyncGeometry
| Boolean
| False
| Wait for wm on geometry?
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| waitForWm
| Boolean
| True
| Wait for wm?
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| width
| Dimension
| dynamic
| Widget width
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| widthInc
| int
| dynamic
| Increment for resizing
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| windowGroup
| Window
| dynamic
| Holds group leader
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| winGravity
| int
| dynamic
| Controls how things move
inside when window gets resized.
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| wmTimeout
| int
| 5000 (ms)
| Timeout
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Open Look Window Manager
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The Open Look window manager, olwm, uses a different set
of X window properties than mwm for controlling its behavior.
The bad part about this is that you have to set both types of
properties to make your application robust in a number of different
window manager environments. The good part, though, is that the
Motif and Open Look properties don't conflict, so you can safely
set both types for all your application's top-level windows.
Since the designers of Motif assumed you'd only run the Motif window
manager, there are no nice resources for the Open Look window manager,
at least not from within Motif applications. Instead, you need to
set X properties on your top-level windows.
To control olwm title bar decorations, the first step is to
set the _OL_WIN_ATTR property, which contains five 32-bit numbers:
- flags
- window type
- window manager menu information
- pushpin state information
- limited menu information
You don't have to fill in all the fields. Instead, you set the flags
to a bit-mask specifying which fields are actually filled in:
| Value |
Usage |
| 0x0001
| Window-type information field is filled in
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| 0x0002
| Window menu information field is filled in
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| 0x0004
| Pushpin state information field is filled in
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| 0x0008
| Limited menu field is filled in
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The window types include the following:
| Atom |
Usage |
| _OL_WT_BASE
| Base window
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| _OL_WT_CMD
| Command window
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| _OL_WT_HELP
| Help window
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| _OL_WT_NOTICE
| Notice (dialog) window
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| _OL_WT_OTHER
| No default olwm decorations
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To change window decorations, I normally use a type of _OL_WT_OTHER.
To add window decorations, fill in the _OL_DECOR_ADD property with the
Atom IDs of the decorations you want to add to the default set.
To remove decorations, fill in the _OL_DECOR_DEL property with the
Atom IDs of the decorations you want to remove.
Both properties contain any of the following Atoms:
| Atom |
Usage |
| _OL_DECOR_CLOSE
| Close (iconify) button
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| _OL_DECOR_HEADER
| Title bar
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| _OL_DECOR_PIN
| Pushpin
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| _OL_DECOR_RESIZE
| Resize handles
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