next up previous contents index
Next: B.2 NExS Local Resources Up: B NExS Resources Previous: B NExS Resources

B.1 NExS Motif Resources

   

NExS uses the Motif widget set. Widgets are ``little windows'' that are ``children'' of your main window; buttons, menus, and text fields are examples of widgets.

Each widget can alter its behavior based on its resources. Almost the entire user interface for NExS is defined by assigning values to widget resources. Each type of widget has a certain list of resources that it examines to determine how to look and behave; the resources used to control Motif widgets are documented in full in the OSF/Motif Programmer's Reference Manual.

The names of all the Motif widgets used in NExS are in the NExS application defaults file, where the NExS defaults are assigned. Although it is possible to radically alter the NExS user interface by changing resources, we do not recommend doing this, as it is also possible to crash NExS or render the user interface useless by doing so, since the Motif widgets do not provide any internal protection against bad resource settings.

However, it is easily possible to change default widget attributes by setting a few resources. For example, to change the default Motif widget background color for all the NExS motif widgets, but not the widgets for any other programs, you can put the line:

NExS*Background: ghost white
in your .Xdefaults file, or the line:
*Background: ghost white
in your ~/NExS file.


Note that the resource definition must include the class name, NExS, if you choose to include the resource definitions in your .Xdefaults file.

Be careful: setting the Background and Foreground resource colors to the same value will make all the Motif widgets impossible to read. There are other ways to confuse widgets by assigning widget resources indescriminately, as well.


next up previous contents index
Next: B.2 NExS Local Resources Up: B NExS Resources Previous: B NExS Resources

NExS User's Guide, Version 1.4.5
Grey Trout Software
11 April 1999