XLIB Programming Manual, Rel. 5, Third Edition

Chapter 12. Interclient Communication

As a multi-window environment, X must support a mechanism for communication between applications. There are three: properties, selections, and cut buffers, all of which are described in this chapter. The special case of communication between an application and the window manager is also covered here. Internationalized interclient communication is described in Section sintcom. Standard conventions for additional aspects of interclient communication are covered in Appendix L of Volume Zero, X Protocol Reference Manual.

Communication is necessary to make sure that all applications running under X cooperate properly with the window manager and share the system resources politely. Communication also allows applications to interchange data. Most applications in an integrated computing environment should have the ability to transfer data to and accept data from other applications.

Communication between clients takes place through properties. Sometimes properties are set directly by one application and read by another. This is the case with most communication between the window manager and the clients.

There is also a simple but limited means of communication through properties called cut buffers. But the preferred and most powerful method of general communication between clients is called selections. Selections actually establish a dialog between the two applications, not just a one-way communication. Both cut buffers and selections are ways of using ...