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From: kit@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Chris D. Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: App Defaults shouldn't look for program name
Message-ID: <8907181551.AA10891@expo.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 18 Jul 89 15:51:08 GMT
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> Well, between a debugger and the source listings it turns out that one place
> Xt looks for application defaults is in the user's home directory under the
> same name as the program (actually, whatever class was given on the initial
> shell creation).

There is an important difference between the application name and the class.
The name is a specific instance of an application, while the class refers to
all possible invocations of the application (The distinction is important for
resource loading).  Thus it is important that the name a class of the
application be different.  Here is the convention that we use on most of
our applications. In general we use a class name for the application that is the
same as the application name, BUT the first letter is capitalized.

Thus:

	Name		Class
--------------------------------
	xman		Xman
  	xedit		Xedit

Using this convention should keep this from biting you.  Of course, if you have
a system that ignores case then you can still lose with this system.

> Before you say RTFM, though, I'd like to request that the X powers-that-be
> make this stand out *much* better than it does now in the manual.

Our "manual" is really the Xt intrinsics specification.  I agree that this is
pretty dense stuff and it is easy to overlook minor points that may bite you.
My hope is that as more people write books on learning Xt this type of thing
will become less of a problem.

						Chris D. Peterson     
						MIT X Consortium 

Net:	 kit@expo.lcs.mit.edu
Phone:   (617) 253 - 9608	
Address: MIT - Room NE43-213