Detailed reference material is provided for programmers who want to use Open Software Foundation (OSF) Motif, a graphical user interface system that runs on the X Window environment. The first three chapters describe Motif and its central objects (widgets and resources); chapter 4 describes the format of a typical Motif program. The bulk of the book, chapters 5 through 14, is dedicated to the description of individual widgets and their use in application programs. The last three chapters are dedicated to advanced topics, including the use of the Xlib library of drawing functions and how to program interclient communication. The final 120 pages contain detailed reference material in the form of appendices.
I definitely consider this book reference material. While the author suggests reading it from cover to cover, the presentation may be too dry for the average reader. I would suggest, instead, skimming through the book to see what is there and then using it as a reference when a programming problem arises. While not as detailed as the OSF/Motif Programmer’s Reference (as the author acknowledges right away), the book should provide ample reference material for all but the most sophisticated Motif programmers.
The presentation is tailored toward experienced C programmers who already know about the X Window System and have some idea of how Motif works. I doubt that complete beginners could use this document as their only introduction to Motif. This limitation is the main problem I found with the book. The same material, with a different organization and perhaps a little more introductory material, might have served as a tutorial and a reference manual. As it is, I would not suggest it as a tutorial. Introductory concepts are indeed present, but they are often scattered throughout the major portion of the book, where widgets are described. Less experienced programmers may have difficulty determining what material is advanced and what is more elementary, as no clear separation exists between the two.
The reference part of the book is well organized, with lots of illustrations that show the exact results of each piece of code. Each widget is listed with its position in the Motif object hierarchy, a table of the resources used in specifying the widget, illustrations of the widget’s appearance on the screen, detailed descriptions of each resource, and sample code that uses the widget. While I found the format of these sections a little cluttered visually, the material is well written and well organized.
The book is generously sprinkled with program listings, including a text editor that is developed through many chapters as a more complex programming example. Unlike other books that describe Motif (many of which are oriented to less experienced programmers), however, most of the program listings are only partial and refer to previous examples. In a few cases, it might have been better to provide complete listings, even though this would have meant repeating parts of the code. The example programs are available for retrieval via ftp, so the reader will not have to retype any code.
The book does not contain a traditional bibliography, but Appendix E, “Where to Go for More Information,” lists the most important OSF publications and a number of useful resources, including computer bulletin boards and archives for the publicly available X sources. The index and glossary are good, although not particularly extensive. The number of typos is reasonably small.
In conclusion, this book is a useful, detailed reference document for Motif programmers. Experienced programmers will find it a good source of solutions to most of the day-to-day programming questions that arise when programming with Motif. It could also be combined with a more introductory book on Motif to provide a solid foundation for people who want to create Motif applications.
