[comp.newprod] "The X Window System" - new book

dayoung@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Doug A. Young) (07/14/89)

Prentice-Hall, Inc. announces the publication of a book on the X Window
System focusing on the X Toolkit:

   The X Window System: Applications and Programming with Xt 

   by Douglas Young.

The X Window System was developed by Robert W. Scheifler of M.I.T.'s
Laboratory for Computer Science and a host of other contributors.  Current
X development activities are being carried out under the auspices of the
MIT X Consortium.

X is a network-transparent portable windowing system for engineering
workstations.  Because interactive applications written for X can run on a
wide variety of hardware, X is gaining wide acceptance as a base window
system.

Description and Contents of the Book:
-------------------------------------

This book is written for the professional application developer or student
who wishes to use X and the X Toolkit. It describes how to use the X
Toolkit, a high level toolkit for writing X-based applications. The X
Toolkit consists of two levels, the Xt Intrinsics and a set of user
interface components known as widgets. The book describes both the Xt
Intrinsics layer and a typical widget set. The book presents a unified view
of the X Window System, describing and demonstrating how to write
applications using both the X Toolkit layer (Xt Intrinsics + widgets) and
the lower-level Xlib C interface.  The book also discusses how to extend
the X Toolkit by writing new widgets.

The book relies heavily on examples, presenting and dissecting over 40
complete working programs. The book is 477 pages long, including an
extensive index and several appendixes containing reference material.

Table of Contents:
------------------

1. An Introduction To The X Window System

  The Client-Server Model -- Displays And Screens -- Resources -- Requests --
  Basic Window Concepts -- The Event Model -- Input Devices -- Window
  Management -- The Application Programmer's Interface To X

2. Programming With The Xt Intrinsics

  Naming Conventions -- Basic Xt Intrinsics Functions -- The X Toolkit
  Programming Model -- An Example : Memo -- Application Contexts

3. The X Resource Manager

  What Is A Resource? -- Specifying Resources -- Managing Application
  Resources

4. Programming With Widgets

  Widget Classes -- Widget Resource Conventions -- Intrinsic Widget Classes --
  The X Widget Classes -- Using Popup Widgets

5. Handling Events

  What Is An Event? -- Event Masks -- Event Types -- Handling Events With
  The Xt Intrinsics -- Managing The Event Queue -- Handling Timeouts -- Using
  Workprocs -- Handling Other Input Sources

6. Using Color

  The X Color Model -- Example : A Colormap Editor

7. Manipulating Raster Images

  Pixmaps -- Bitmaps -- Copying Between Drawables -- Tiles -- Images

8. Graphics Contexts

  Creating Graphics Contexts -- Manipulating Graphics Contexts -- Graphics
  Exposures -- Regions

9. Text And Fonts

  Fonts -- Text Operations -- Example : A File Viewer

10. Using The X Graphics Primitives

  Drawing With Points -- Drawing With Lines -- Drawing Polygons And Arcs --
  Example : A Simple Drawing Program

11. Interclient Communication

  Atoms -- Using Properties -- Communicating With Events -- The X Selection
  Mechanism

12. Creating New Widgets

  The Architecture of a Widget -- A Basic Widget : The Dial Widget -- Using
  Inheritance : The Squaredial Widget -- Meta-Classes

13. Creating Composite Widgets

  Architecture of a Composite Widget -- A Composite Widget : The Row Widget

14. Creating Constraint Widgets

  Architecture of Constraint Widgets -- A Constraint Widget : The Tree Widget

Appendix A. The X Widget Class Tree 
Appendix B. Quick Widget Reference 
Appendix C. Selected Xt Intrinsics Functions 
Appendix D. Where To Get X
Appendix E. X Events And Event Masks 
Appendix F. Complete LibXs Source Listing 
Appendix G. Using This Book With X11R2 
Bibliography 
Index 

    
Availability :
-------------

The book was published on May 22 with a 1989 copyright date, and should be
available in "better bookstores," within two weeks of that date. The
suggested retail price is $25.95.

ISBN  013-972167-3

If you prefer, you may order directly from the publisher.  To order fewer
than twenty copies, please call 201-767-5937.  Order for multiple copies
are, of course, welcome.  For corporate orders of twenty or more copies,
please call 201 592-2498.


Author : 
------- 

Doug Young is a Member of the Technical Staff at Hewlett-Packard
Laboratories. He has been working with X from an application-programmer's
perspective for several years.  His interests include computer graphics,
user interfaces, and object-oriented programming.

"X Window System " is a trademark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
-------