Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!WSL.DEC.COM!price
From: price@WSL.DEC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Novice question about X toolkits
Message-ID: <8807011738.AA08056@eros.dec.com>
Date: 1 Jul 88 17:38:32 GMT
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regarding Barry Shein's response to your query: I *do* hope you realize
that his smiley faces applied to the entire response!

Menus:
The xtoolkit Intrinsics and associated widget sets will help you solve
your problem. The Intrinsics provide support for "popup shells", which
are a generalized mechanism for creating "detached" widgets such as
menus within an application. Layered widget sets, such as the Xaw widget
set and the HP widget set capitalize on this support to some degree.
Digital's widget set will also provide support for a wide varieties of
menus.

Positioning a window with the mouse:
"Window Manager" applications perform these services on behalf of users.
User positioning of top level windows should never be built into applications
themselves. Some window managers currently available include uwm, twm,
awm, and now even the infamous rtl window manager :-). Positioning of
subwindows is handled to some degree by widgets within toolkits. The
Xtoolkit architecture describes the mechanisms and conventions for supporting
"geometry management", ie, the position and size of widgets within an
application.

Display a binary image inside a window:
Static images (Pixmaps) can be handled by some widget sets. The Xaw widget set
does not currently support Pixmaps, but I suspect it will at the next
release. I believe the HP widget set does now, and the Digital set
will also. If you need a dynamic image, you can create an instance of
the Core widget, or use "Window" widgets provided by other widget sets.

Display an image of straight lines in a window.
Use an instance of Core or a "Window" widget from a widget set. (I don't
believe the Xaw widget set currently has a Window widget, though).
Another alternative is to write a widget which handles display lists.

References of interest to you are:

Xlib Reference Manual (Gettys, et al).
Xtoolkit Intrinsics - C Language X Interface (McCormack, et al) 
* Using the X Toolkit - or - How to Write a Widget (McCormack, et al).
X Toolkit Widgets - C Language Interface (Swick, et al).

* you might consider starting with this one.

All can be found in the doc directory on the R2 release, I believe.

-chuck