XLIB Programming Manual, Rel. 5, Third Edition

Appendix H. Release Notes

This appendix describes the changes between recent releases of X Version 11. It begins with the changes in the most recent version and works back. There were no changes in the underlying X protocol.

H.1 Changes from Release 4 to Release 5

The major additions in Release 5 were support for internationalization and support for device-independent color (the X Color Management System). There were also a few new resource management functions added mainly to support the R5 changes in the Xt Intrinsics.

H.1.1 Internationalization

The largest new part of X11R5 is the support for writing internationalized programs. An internationalized application is one that runs, without changes to the binary, in any given “locale.” Among other things, this means that a program must display all text in the user’s language, accept input of all text in that same language, and display times, dates, and numbers in the user’s accustomed format.

The internationalization of terminal-based programs is a problem that has been satisfactorily solved where terminals exist that can display and accept input for a particular language. The ANSI-C library contains mechanisms for this terminal-based internationalization, and X11R5 internationalization is based on these mechanisms. Internationalized text input is based on the concept of an “input method,” which is a specialized program that allows user input of a particular language. Input methods are essential for Asian languages where there are more ...