4.5. Interface Styles   

When we write our applications, it is up to us, the programmer to choose the look and feel of the program for ourselves. This was a deliberate design choice made by MIT and is one reason why X Window System has become a standard (vendors would refuse to use a standard if it forced you to use the enemies interface).

In a commercial setting you will probably choose either to follow the 


  Open Look style - on Sun workstations or


  Motif - on most other vendors workstations


  CDE - Common Desktop Environment.

In each case you will then be able to use a tool kit which will provide you with facilities to create windows, menus, buttons, etc. We will look at 

  Xlib - the low level X routines


  Xt   - the Intrinsics Toolkit


  Xaw  - the Athena Widgets and


  Xm   - the Motif widgets