Introduction

Archive-name: motif-faq/part1
Last-modified: Jan 02, 1994
Version: 3.6



Motif FAQ

[Last changed: 02 JAN 94]

This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 
often seen in comp.windows.x.motif. It is posted to help reduce volume in 
this newsgroup and to provide hard-to-find information of general interest.

		Please redistribute this article!

This FAQ is maintained by Brian Dealy <dealy@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov>.  Send
updates and corrections to me at that mail address.  It would help if
the subject line contained the phrase "FAQ".  I will Be making a
HTML version available in the very near future. It will hopefully provide 
a much fuller set of resources including URLs for examples and free software.
It will require a bit of reorganizing and rewriting, but it should be well 
worth the wait.

History:
From November 89-July 93 the FAQ was maintained by Jan Newmarch
<jan@ise.canberra.edu.au>

This article includes answers to the following questions. Ones marked with
a + indicate questions new to this issue; those with changes of content since
the last issue are marked by *:


 0)* TOPIC: WHAT ARE OTHER RELEVANT NEWSGROUPS?
 1)  TOPIC: FTP ARCHIVES
 2)  Is the FAQ list available for FTP anywhere?
 3)+ Is this FAQ accessible via WWW?
 4)  Is this newsgroup accessible via email?
 5)  Is this newsgroup archived?
 6)  Is the mail list motif-talk archived?
 7)  TOPIC: OSF AND MOTIF
 8)  Because of COSE, is Motif now in the public domain?
 9)* What versions of Motif are there?
10)* Where can I get Motif?
11)  Is there a list of Motif bugs?
12)  Where can I get public domain Motif source?
13)* Are the Motif examples publically available?
14)* Has anyone done a public domain Motif lookalike?
15)  Does anyone from OSF pay attention to our questions/suggestions?
16)  Does OSF have an application compliance validation service?
17)  What is the motif-talk mailing list?
18)  What MIT patches do I use, and when do I use fix-osf?
19)  How does Motif work with X11R5?
20)* How can I find which version of Motif I have?
21)  TOPIC: LITERATURE
22)* What books should I read or do I need to program using Motif?
23)  TOPIC: MWM
24)  What is the difference between Motif and mwm?
25)  Does anyone have an alternative set of  3-D  defaults  for  a  monochrome
screen?
26)  How can I modify the Motif window manager decorations?
27)  How can I turn off the Motif window manager  functions  from  the  system
menu?
28)  How can tell I if the user has selected the "Close" item  on  the  system
menu attached to the top-level shell?
29)  Is there an mwm virtual desktop manager?
30)  Why does mwm 1.2 crash on startup?
31)  TOPIC: MOTIF GENERATORS
32)  What prototyping tools are there to generate Motif code?
33)  TOPIC: TEXT WIDGET
34) What is the difference between a XmTextField widget and a single
35)  Why does  pressing  <return> in a text widget do nothing?
36)  When I add text to a scrolling text widget how can I get the new text  to
show?
37)  Does the text widget support 16 bit character fonts?
38)  How can I stop the text widget from echoing characters typed?
39)  How can I replace characters typed with say a `*'?
40)  How can I best add a large piece of text to a scrolled text widget?
41)  How can I highlight text in the Text widget?
42)  How can I select all of the text in a widget programmatically?
43)  How can I change colours of text in the Text widget?
44)  How can I change the font of text in the Text widget?
45)  Is there an emacs binding for the text widget?
46)  How can I use a file as the text source for a Text widget?
47)  How can put Text in overstrike mode instead of insert?
48)  How can I make the Delete key do a backspace?
49)  TOPIC: LIST WIDGET
50) Should I create an XmList widget as a child of automatic  XmScrolledWindow
or use the XmCreateScrolledList() convenience function?
51)  How do I best put a new set of items into a list?
52)  Can I have strings with different fonts in a list?
53)  Can I get a bitmap to show in a list item like I can in a Label?
54)  Can I have items with different colours in a list?
55)  Can I grey out an item in a list?
56)  Can I have multi-line items in a list?
57)  How can I tell the position of selected items in a list?
58)  TOPIC: FILE SELECTION BOX WIDGET
59)  What is libPW.a and do I need it?
60)  What are these compile errors: Undefined symbol _regcmp and _regex?
61)  What's wrong with the Motif 1.0 File Selection Box?
62)  TOPIC: FORM WIDGET
63)  Why don't labels in a Form resize when the label is changed?
64)  How can I center a widget in a form?
65)  How do I line up two columns of widgets of different types?
66)  TOPIC: PUSHBUTTON WIDGET
67)  Why can't I use accelerators on buttons not in a menu?
68)  TOPIC: LABEL WIDGET
69)  How can I align the text in a label (button, etc) widget?
70)  Why doesn't label alignment work in a RowColumn?
71)  How can I set a multiline label?
72)  How can I have a vertical label?
73)  How can I have a Pixmap in a Label?
74)  TOPIC: DRAWING AREA WIDGET
75)  How can I send an expose event to a Drawing Area widget?
76)  How can I know when a DrawingArea has been resized?
77)  TOPIC: MENUS
78)  What can I put inside a menu bar?
79)  Can I have a cascade button without a submenu in a pulldown menu?
80)  Should I have a cascade button without a submenu in a pulldown menu?
81)  What is the best way to create popup menus?
82)  How do popup menus work?
83)  Should I use translation tables or actions for popup menus?
84)  What are the known bugs in popup menus?
85)  Can I have multiple popup menus on the same widget?
86)  TOPIC: INPUT FOCUS
87) How can I specify the widget that should have the keyboard focus  when  my
application starts up?
88)  How can I direct the keyboard input to a particular widget?
89)  How can I have a modal dialog which has to be answered before the  appli-
cation can continue?
90)  TOPIC: MEMORY AND SPEED
91)  When can I free data structures passed to or retrieved from Motif?
92)  Why does my application grow in size?
93)  Why does my application take a long time to start up?
94)  My application is running too slowly. How can I speed it up?
95)  Why is my application so huge?
96)  TOPIC: XMSTRING
97)  How can I get the Ascii text out of an XmString?
98)  When can XmStrings used as resources be freed?
99)  Why doesn't XmStringGetNextSegment() work properly?
100)  Why does using XmStringDraw cause a Bad Font error?
101)  TOPIC: DIALOGS
102)  How do I stop my dialog disappearing when I press the help button?
103)  How do I make my own dialog?
104)  How come the title bars for my dialogs now have  "_popup"  or  "<-popup"
concatenated onto the widget name?
105)  How can I force a dialog window to display?
106)  How can I control placement of a popup widget?
107)  TOPIC: LANGUAGE BINDINGS
108)* Is there a C++ binding for Motif?
109)  How can I have a C++ member function in a callback?
110)  Is there a Common Lisp binding for Motif?
111)* Is there an Ada binding for Motif?
112)  Is there a Poplog binding for Motif?
113)  TOPIC: SPECIFIC PLATFORMS
114)  Is it easy to build Motif for a Sun?
115)  How do I build Motif 1.2.2 on Solaris 2.1 with Sun C?
116)  What compile errors/warnings might I get in both Sun 3 and Sun 4?
117)  On a Sun 3, what are the mwm startup error messages about?
118)  Are there problems making shared libraries on a Sun?
119)  The OpenWindows server hangs when I popup a menu with Button 3.
120)  Has anyone made shared libraries on an IBM RS/6000?
121)  What is the error  "Unaligned access in XmString" under Ultrix?
122)  TOPIC: KEYSYMS
123)  What is causing the messages "unknown keysym osfDown..."?
124)  What happens if I can't install Motif Keysyms?
125)  Why has OSF introduced Keysyms into Motif 1.1?
126)  TOPIC: ICONS
127)  How can I keep track of changes to iconic/normal window state?
128)  How can I check if my application has come up iconic?
129)  How can I start my application in iconic state?
130)  How can an application iconify itself?
131)  How can an application de-iconify itself?
132)  TOPIC: MISCELLANEOUS
133)+ How do I controll the repeat rate on a SUN keyboard ??
134)  How can I identify the children of a manager widget?
135)  How do I tell if a scrolled window's scrollbars are visible?
136)  How can I programatically scroll a XmScrolledWindow in XmAUTOMATIC mode?
137)  What functions can an application use to change the size or position  of
a widget?
138)  What widgets should I use to get the look of push buttons, but
139)+ How do I obtain the size of a unmanaged shell widget?
140)   Can  I  use  XtAddTimeOut(),  XtAddWorkProc(),  and  XtAddInput()  with
XtAppMainLoop()?
141)  Why does XtGetValues() XmNx and XmNwidth return extremely large values.
142)  Can I specify callback functions in resource files?
143)  How do I specify a search path for ".uid" files?
144)  XtGetValues() on XmNx and XmNy of my top level shell  don't  return  the
correct root window coordinates.  How do I compute these?
145)  Can I use XmGetPixmap() with widgets that have non-default visual types?
146)  How can I determine the item selected in a option menu or a RadioBox?
147)  What is the matter with Frame in Motif 1.2?
148)  What is IMUG and how do I join it?
149)  What is the X Professional Organization
150)  How do I set the title of a top level window?
151)  Can I use editres with Motif?
152)  How can I put decorations on transient windows using olwm?
153)  Why does an augment translation appear to act as replace for some  widg-
ets?
154)  How do you "grey" out a widget so that it cannot be activated?
155)  Why doesn't the Help callback work on some widgets?
156)  Where can I get a Table widget?
157)  Has anyone done a bar graph widget?
158)  Does anyone know of a source code of a graph widget
159)  Is there a help system available, such as in Windows 3?
160)  Can I specify a widget in a resource file?
161)  Why are only some of my translations are being installed?
162)  Where can I get the PanHandler code?
163)  What are these passive grab warnings?
164)  How do I have more buttons than three in a box?
165)  How do I create a "busy working cursor"?
166)  Can I use the hourglass that mwm uses?
167)  What order should the libraries be linked in?
168)  How do I use xmkmf for Motif clients?
169)  How do I make context sensitive help?
170)  How do I debug a modal interaction?
171)+ How can I disable Drag and Drop in my Motif 1.2 client ?
172)  Where can I get info on the Motif drag and drop protocol?
173)  TOPIC: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS













If you have suggestions or corrections for any of these answers or any 
additional information, please send them directly to dealy@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov;
the information will be included in the next revision (or possibly the one 
after that; thanks for the many suggestions which haven't been incorporated 
yet).  The answers in this iteration are acknowledged to be partial.

This posting is intended to be distributed at approximately the beginning of 
each month.

The information contained herein has been gathered from a variety of sources. In
many cases attribution has been lost; if you would like to claim responsibility
for a particular item, please let us know. 

Conventions used below: telephone numbers tend to be Bell-system unless 
otherwise noted; prices on items are not included.
copyright 1993 b.dealy

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