One of the major innovations in recent years has been the incorporation of the X Window System as an industry-standard part of UNIX as a software environment for engineering workstations. X offers a new applications world by taking full advantage of the windowing environment, which includes high-quality graphics, color support, and use of a mouse or other pointing device. Of the several graphical user interface (GUI) systems based on X, a common choice is the Motif system supported by the Open Software Foundation. X.desktop is a Motif-based desktop manager; that is, it provides a desktop that makes a UNIX workstation or terminal a more effective tool. X.desktop is a part of, and part of the reason for, the growth of X applications. It is a method of navigating the UNIX environment without knowing anything about UNIX, and this book will help X.desktop users (from beginners to system administrators) understand how to make it work for them. The book is built to increase confidence in using visual interfaces based on object orientation. It is not an easy book, so its authors have tried to make it informative and enjoyable to read, marking obscure and detailed information, labeling hot tips--boxes to give quick access to critical X.desktop information--and providing plenty of illustrations.
The book starts with many “whys,” an excellent idea for a book about such a complex and powerful software package. X.desktop is much more than a desktop window, but it is not a window manager. X.desktop is a file manager capable of simply and intuitively carrying out common file actions. It is a developer’s tool to create special interfaces for specific groups, individuals, or functions. The online help system--a taste of X.deskhelp’s power and flexibility--has hypertext links. The information manipulated by X.desktop operates on an object-oriented basis. X.desktop’s degree of flexibility is unique: the software can be configured on four levels (system-wide, user, directory, and task-oriented), giving the system administrator the ability to create powerful graphical interfaces tailored to each user’s needs. To find out how complex, rich, and powerful this package is, the only choice is to read this book.
Users’ approaches to this book will vary depending on their knowledge of UNIX and X.desktop. Chapters 1 to 3, covering basic concepts, the mechanism to make quick changes to the system, and an introduction to changing the desktop, are addressed to beginners and those interested in knowing the basics of X.desktop and how it works beneath the surface. For novice users, chapters 3 through 6 cover configuring the desktop, writing menus, creating objects, and changing rule files. Finally, for system administrators or programmers who would like to know more about X.desktop, chapters 7 through 14 present it in more depth, including command languages, objects, and methods, and introduce pop-up menus, system rule files, the API, and the X.desktop system. The book ends with a synthesis of all the ideas that appear throughout.
X.desktop has many wonderful aspects. Drag-and-drop has many applications; objects do marvelous things; and one of X.desktop’s strengths is flexibility (it can be changed, resized, colored, rearranged, and reordered).
As a cookbook, this book lists some pitfalls to avoid when designing an interface, regardless of the complexity or size of the user’s interface. Advice includes: pay attention to the details, do not finish prematurely, design interactively, have a fresh perspective, and take advantage of features found in X.desktop. Practice makes perfect, so this book contains plenty of worked examples to guide the user through all the principles involved.
Icons and objects are fundamental to X.desktop. This book offers a bag of tricks, including how to improve the quality of the icon and the ability to animate icons. The basics of what a rule file is, what goes into it, and how pictures and titles can be associated with individual files are covered in chapter 6. Rule files are not compiled, so the only method of error checking is to test the rule. This restriction makes correct syntax especially important. To build usable rule files and perform a task on the desktop, one uses the X.desktop command set. Tasks are described by a combination of two related command languages built into X.desktop: Deskshell and XCL. Keywords provide the desktop with structure, and Deskshell provides its control, but XCL commands give it its breath and life. The intention of this book is not to provide a line-by-line textbook of every possible programming option, but to demonstrate basic Deskshell techniques and options for programming flexibility by example. The approach to XCL is the same.
X.desktop is smart and elegant, and may be the best available GUI, having found adherents worldwide, as UNIX has. It is almost perfect, like anything that is part of the UNIX world, which this book amply proves.
