Volume 6A: Motif Programming Manual

course of writing this book, I developed the Motif interface for Z−Mail that you see here, which was my reality−check

that what I preach really does work.

It should be mentioned that Z−Mail also supports an OPEN LOOK interface. To do the OPEN LOOK version, I chose

to use OLIT (OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit) because, like Motif, it is based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics. Xt is a great

environment for developing applications for the X environment. I also believe that the best applications are those

whose user interfaces can be abstracted, generalized, and modularized so that you can unplug one interface and plug in

another. My approach to doing that is also reflected in this book, although not as a major topic.

Since the first writing of this book, I'm happy to say that Z−Mail has become a great success. It has been ported to

Microsoft Windows and to the Apple Macintosh, both of which have graphical user environments that are

substantially different from Motif in look, feel, and API implementations. However, the models described in this

book, namely the abstraction and generalization of core components from one another, were maintained throughout

the course of the porting processes.

Dan Heller

1.9 Acknowledgments

The current 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 ...