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comp.windows.x Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 1/7

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See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge
This article and several following contain the answers to some Frequently Asked 
Questions (FAQ) often seen in comp.windows.x. It is posted to help reduce 
volume in this newsgroup and to provide hard-to-find information of general 
interest.

		Please redistribute this article!

This article includes answers to the following questions, which are loosely
grouped into categories. Questions marked with a + indicate questions new to 
this issue; those with significant changes of content since the last issue are 
marked by !:

  0)  TOPIC: BASIC INFORMATION SOURCES AND DEFINITIONS
  1)  What books and articles on X are good for beginners?
  2)  What courses on X and various X toolkits are available?
  3)  What conferences on X are coming up?
  4)! What X-related public mailing lists are available?
  5)  How can I meet other X developers? (What X user groups are there?)
  6)  What related FAQs are available?
  7)  How do I ask a net-question so as to maximize helpful responses?
  8)! What publications discussing X are available?
  9)  What are these common abbreviations/acronyms?
 10)  What is the ICCCM? (How do I write X-friendly applications?)
 11)  What is the X Consortium, and how do I join?
 12)  Just what are OPEN LOOK and Motif?
 13)! What is "low-bandwidth X" (X.fast/LBX)? XRemote? PPP? SLIP? CSLIP?
 14)+ TOPIC: X CONSORTIUM FUTURES
 15)+ What's the official word from the X Consortium?
 16)+ What happens to X? to Broadway? still free?
 17)+ Why is this happening?
 18)+ Can X11R6.1 be a freeware base? Will future X versions be free?
 19)  TOPIC: USING X IN DAY-TO-DAY LIFE
 20)  What are all these window managers? (Where can I get a "virtual" wm?)
 21)  Why does my X session exit when I kill my window manager (sic)?
 22)  Can I save the state of my X session, like toolplaces does?
 23)  How do I use another window manager with DEC's session manager?
 24)  How do I change the keyboard auto-repeat rate?
 25)  How do I remap the keys on my keyboard to produce a string?
 26)  How do I make a screendump or print my application (including menus)?
 27)  How do I make a color PostScript screendump of the X display?
 28)  How do I make a screendump without having an X display?
 29)  How do I make a screendump including the X cursor?
 30)! How do I convert or view Mac/TIFF/GIF/Sun/PICT/img/FAX images in X?
 31)  Where can I get an X-based 3-D object viewer?
 32)  How can I change the titlebar of my terminal window?
 33)  Where can I find the xterm control sequences?
 34)  How can I use characters above ASCII 127 in xterm ?
 35)  Why are my xterm menus so small (sic) ?
 36)! How can I control the mouse with the keyboard?
 37)  How can I print the current X selection?
 38)  Where are the resources loaded from?
 39)  How does Xt use environment variables in loading resources?
 40)  How to I have xdm put a picture behind the log-in window?
 41)  Why isn't my PATH set when xdm runs my .xsession file?
 42)  How do I keep my $DISPLAY when I rlogin to another machine?
 43)  How can I design my own font?
 44)  Why does adding a font to the server not work (sic)?
 45)  How do I convert a ".snf" font back to ".bdf" font?
 46)  What is a general method of getting a font in usable format?
 47)  How do I use DECwindows fonts on my non-DECwindows server?
 48)  How do I get a font name from the structure?
 49)  How can I set backgroundPixmap in a defaults file? 
 50)  How can I make small multi-color pixmap images? (What is XPM?)
 51)  Why can't I override translations? Only the first item works. (sic)
 52)  How can I have a clock show different timezones?
 53)  I have xmh, but it doesn't work. Where can I get MH?
 54)  Why am I suddenly unable to connect to my Sun X server?  
 55)  Why don't the R5 PEX demos work on my mono screen?
 56)  How do I get my Sun Type-[45] keyboard fully supported by Xsun?
 57)  How do I report bugs in X?
 58)  Why do I get "Warning: Widget class version mismatch"?
 59)! Why does my SPARC 4 with the TCX fail? 
 60)  Why does my SPARC say "Mapping cg3c: No such device or address"?
 61)  Where can I find a dictionary server for xwebster?
 62)! What desktop managers are available?
 63)  How can I use a Web browser as a help system?
 64)+ How can I retrieve resource values from an application?
 65)  TOPIC: OBTAINING X AND RELATED SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE
 66)  Is X public-domain software?
 67)  How compatible are X11R3, R4, R5, R6? What changes are there?
 68)! What is Fresco? When is Fresco rumored to be available?
 69)  Does Fresco work with g++ 2.5.8?
 70)  What is Broadway? 
 71)  Where can I get X11R6.1 (source and/or binaries)?
 72)  Where can I get X11R6 (source and/or binaries)?
 73)  Where can I get X11R5 (source and/or binaries)?
 74)  Where can I get XDM's Wraphelp.c ?
 75)  Where can I get patches to X11? 
 76)  What is the xstuff mail-archive?
 77)  Where can I get OSF/Motif?
 78)  Does Motif work with X11R4? X11R5? X11R6?
 79)  Where can I get toolkits implementing OPEN LOOK?
 80)  Where can I get other X sources? (including R5 modifications)
 81)! Where can I get interesting widgets?
 82)  Where can I get a good file-selector widget?
 83)  Where can I find a hypertext widget in source code?
 84)  What widget is appropriate to use as a drawing canvas?
 85)  What is the current state of the world in X terminals?
 86)  Where can I get an X server with a touchscreen or lightpen?
 87)  Where can I get an X server on a PC (DOS or Unix)?
 88)  Where can I get an X server on a Macintosh running MacOS?
 89)  Where can I get X for the Amiga?
 90)  Where can I get a serial-based X server for connecting from home?
 91)  Where can I get a fast X server for a workstation?
 92)  Where can I get a server for my high-end Sun graphics board?
 93)  Where can I get an "X terminal" server for my low-end Sun 3/50?
 94)  What terminal emulators other than xterm are available?
 95)  Does xterm offer colored text or a blinking cursor?
 96)! Where can I get an X-based editor or word-processor?
 97)! Where can I get an X-based mailer?
 98)! Where can I get an X-based paint/draw program?
 99)  Where can I get an X-based plotting program?
100)! Where can I get an X-based graph-drawing program?
101)! Where can I get an X-based spreadsheet?
102)  Where can I get X-based project-management software?
103)! Where can I get an X-based PostScript previewer?
104)  Where can I get an X-based GKS package?
105)  Where can I get an X-based IRIS GL package?
106)  Where can I get an X-based OpenGL package?
107)  Where can I get an X-based PEX package?
108)  Where can I get an X-based TeX or DVI previewer?
109)  Where can I get an X-based troff previewer?
110)! Where can I get a WYSIWYG interface builder (or other shortcuts)?
111)  Where can I find X tools callable from shell scripts?
112)! Where can I get an X-based debugger?
113)  Is there a "pseudo-tty" or fake X display I can use?
114)! How can I "tee" an X program identically to several displays? 
115)! Can I use C++ with X11? Motif? XView?
116)  Where can I obtain alternate language bindings to X/Xt/Motif?
117)! Where can I obtain alternate X toolkits?
118)  TOPIC: BUILDING THE X DISTRIBUTION [topic needs updating to R6]
119)  What's a good source of information on configuring the X build?
120)  Why doesn't X11R6 work on Solaris with GCC 2.7.0?
121)  Why doesn't my Sun with a cg6 work with R5?
122)  What are these build problems with Solaris 2.5?
123)  Why doesn't my Sun with SunOS 4.1 know about _dlsym, etc.?
124)  What is this "_get_wmShellWidgetClass undefined" error?
125)  Why don't xterm or xinit work on Solaris 2.4?
126)  What's this problem with undefined _X symbols on SunOS 4.1.3?
127)  Why does cc get used when I build X11R5 with gcc?
128)  What are these I/O errors running X built with gcc?
129)  What are these problems compiling the X11R5 server on SunOS 4.1.1?
130)  Can OW 3.0 OLIT programs run with R5 Xt? (_XtQString undefined)
131)  How do I get around the SunOS 4.1 security hole?
132)  How do I get around the frame-buffer security hole?
133)  TOPIC: BUILDING X PROGRAMS 
134)  What is Imake?
135)  Where can I get imake?
136)  I have a program with an Imakefile but no Makefile. What to do?
137)  Why can't I link to the Xlib shape routines?
138)  What are these problems with "_XtInherit not found" on the Sun?
139)  TOPIC: PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS AND PUZZLES
140)  Why doesn't my program get the keystrokes I select for (sic)?
141)  How do I deiconify a window?
142)  How do I figure out what window manager is running?
143)  Is there a skeleton X program available?
144)  How can I incorporate an Xlib program in my Xt program?
145)  Why does XtGetValues not work for me (sic)?
146)  Why don't XtConfigureWidget/XtResizeWidget/XtMoveWidget work?
147)+ How do I check whether an Xt widget is still valid?
148)  Why can't I get data back in my callback procedure?
149)  Why isn't there an XtReparentWidget call like XReparentWindow?
150)  I'm writing a widget and can't use a float as a resource value.
151)  Is this a memory leak in the X11R4 XtDestroyWidget()?!
152)  Is this a memory leak in the X11R4 deletion of work procs?!
153)  Why does the process size of my X programs go up,up,up?
154)  Are callbacks guaranteed to be called in the order registered?
155)  Why doesn't XtDestroyWidget() actually destroy the widget?
156)  How can I open multiple displays with Xt? 
157)  How do I query the user synchronously using Xt?
158)  How do I determine the name of an existing widget?
159)  Why do I get a BadDrawable error drawing to XtWindow(widget)?
160)  Where can I get documentation on Xaw, the Athena widget set?
161)  What's the difference between actions and callbacks?
162)  How do I simulate a button press/release event for a widget?
163)  Can I make Xt or Xlib calls from a signal handler?
164)! What are these "Xlib: unexpected async reply" errors?
165)  What are these "Xlib sequence lost" errors?
166)  How can my Xt program handle socket, pipe, or file input?
167)  Why doesn't my Xt timer go off when it is supposed to (sic) ?
168)  What's this R6 error: X Toolkit Error: NULL ArgVal in XtGetValues?
169)  Why do I get a BadMatch error when calling XGetImage?
170)  How can my application tell if it is being run under X?
171)  How do I make a "busy cursor" while my application is computing?
172)  How do I fork without hanging my parent X program?
173)  Why doesn't anything appear when I run this simple program?
174)  What is the difference between a Screen and a screen?
175)  Can XGetWindowAttributes get a window's background pixel/pixmap?
176)  How do I create a transparent window?
177)  Why doesn't GXxor produce mathematically-correct color values?
178)  Why does every color I allocate show up as black?
179)  Why do I get a protocol error when creating a cursor (sic)?
180)  Why can't my program get a standard colormap?
181)  Why doesn't the shared-memory extension appear to work?
182)  Why does the pixmap I copy to the screen show up as garbage? 
183)  How do I get the width/height of an existing pixmap?
184)  How can I most quickly send an image to the X server? 
185)  How do I check whether a window ID is valid?
186)  Can I have two applications draw to the same window?
187)  Why can't my program work with tvtwm or swm?
188)  Can I rely on a server which offers backing store?  
189)  How do I catch the "close window" event to avoid "fatal IO error"?
190)  How do I keep a window from being resized by the user?
191)  How do I keep a window in the foreground at all times?
192)  How do I make text and bitmaps blink in X?
193)  How do I get a double-click in Xlib?
194)  How do I render rotated text?
195)  Why doesn't my multi-threaded X program work (sic) ? 
196)  How can I ensure that only one instance of my application is running?
197)  How can I have two applications communicate via the X server?
198)  Where can I get information on internationalizing applications?
199)  What is the X Registry? (How do I reserve names?)

If you have suggestions or corrections for any of these answers or any 
additional information, please send them directly to uunet!craft!faq;
the information will be included in the next revision (or possibly the one 
after that; thanks for the many suggestions which haven't been incorporated 
yet). 

This version of the FAQ is in the process of having outdated information 
replaced by R6 information.

This posting is intended to be distributed monthly.  New versions are
archived on ftp.x.org (in contrib/faqs) and rtfm.mit.edu and are also
available from mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu and archive-server@nic.switch.ch
(send "help"). HTML versions seem to be at
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/x-faq/top.html.

ftp.x.org was previously known as export.lcs.mit.edu; x.org was previously 
known as expo.lcs.mit.edu. The general WWW server for the X Consortium is
http://www.x.org/.

The information contained herein has been gathered from a variety of sources. 
In many cases attribution has been lost; if you would like to claim 
responsibility for a particular item, please let me know. 

Conventions used below: telephone numbers tend to be Bell-system unless 
otherwise noted; prices on items are not included; email addresses are those
that work from the US.

X Window System and Fresco are trademarks of X Consortium, Inc.  Other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This posting is copyright (c) 1996 by David B. Lewis, USA. All rights
reserved. Permission is hereby granted to read and distribute this posting
for non-commercial purposes.  Permission to use this material for any other
purpose must first be obtained in writing from the author.

User Contributions:

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Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM