
A
The Selection Service
This appendix describes the compatibility procedures and attributes that support the XView
Selection Service. If you are creating a new application that uses selections, refer to Chapter
18, Selections. This appendix is provided only for those who need to use the selection ser-
vice for compatibility reasons. It contains the text on selections that was found in older ver-
sions of this book. XView still supports the procedures and attributes described in this
appendix. Details on these procedures and attributes may be found in appendices in the
XView Reference Manual.
The X Window System provides several methods for separate applications to exchange infor-
mation with one another. One of these methods is the use of the selection service. A
selection transfers arbitrary information between two clients. An in-depth discussion of the
selection mechanism that X provides is discussed in Volume One, Xlib Programming Man-
ual. This chapter addresses XView’s programmatic interface to the selection service pro-
vided by the X server.
While XView provides all the functions for applications to set and get selections of various
sorts, OPEN LOOK applications must follow the conventions outlined in the OPEN LOOK GUI
Specification Guide. All XView packages that have interactive text entry support the ability
to make selections and to get selections from the server. In OPEN LOOK, you select ...