Patrick O'Donnell wrote:
> >> Someone offered up www.x.org/docs, which may be fine for X Window
> >> System developers, but is not what most application programmers would
> >> call documentation.
> >
> >Oh? Would you care to elaborate? Like, what is *actually* missing?
>
> The first thing to come to mind is a guide to what's even in that
> directory. If you already know what all the abbreviations and
> initializms are, then you can probably find what you're looking for
> without too much trouble. If not, it's pretty much hit-and-miss.
Okay.
BDF Bitmap Distribution Format
Format of BDF bitmap font files
CTEXT Compound Text Encoding
ISO-2022-based encoding used for transferring multi-lingual
text between applications. Corresponds to COMPOUND_TEXT type
atom. Newer toolkits and applications often use UTF-8 instead.
FSProtocol Font Server Protocol
Communication between font servers and the X server.
ICCCM Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual
Properties and messages used for communication between
applications and the WM and other applications, including
selections and clipboard.
ICE Inter-Client Exchange Library
Framework to simplify building inter-client protocols.
RX Remote Execution
Embedding X applications in a web browser.
SM Session Management
Save and restore desktop sessions
X11 Xlib Reference Manual
XDMCP X Display Manager Control Protocol
Managing a network of X terminals using a single display
manager.
XIM X Input Method Protocol
Communication between input method servers and clients
XKB X Keyboard Extension
Library and protocol for querying and configuring keyboard
layout and behaviour.
XLFD X Logical Font Description Conventions
Structure of core font names and wildcards.
XPRINT X Print Service Extension
Library and protocol for printing
XProtocol X Protocol
The core X11 protocol
Xaw Athena Widget Set
Widget set for use with the X toolkit (Xt)
Xext Miscellaneous Extensions
Various extensions which are bundled into a single server
module (extmod). Includes DPMS, shaped windows, shared-memory
images, security.
Xi X Input Device Extension
Support for additional input devices beyond pointer and keyboard.
Xmu X Miscellaneous Utilities
Miscellaneous utility functions which don't fit anywhere else.
Xserver X Server Internals
X Server internals and implementation details
Xt X Toolkit Intriniscs
A GUI toolkit. Used in conjunction with the Athena (Xaw) and
Motif (Xm) widget sets.
Xv X Video Extension
Video capture and playback. Supports the use of hardware video
overlays using e.g. YUV-4:2:0 format.
i18n Internationalisation
Related to XIM (above)
man Manual
PostScript/PDF versions of X manual pages.
rstart A Flexible Remote Execution Protocol Based on rsh
Start X applications on a remote server for local display.
saver X Screen Saver Extension
For writing screen savers.
xfs Font Server Implementation Overview
xfs internals
xterm XTerm Control Sequences
Control and escape sequences supported by XTerm
xtrans X Transport Interface
Abstraction layer around various low-level transport layers (BSD
sockets, TLI, etc).
The most important ones are Xlib and ICCCM. Several of the above are
legacy interfaces which aren't relevant to modern toolkits.
In theory, most of the above aren't relevant if you're using such
toolkits; you should only need to read the toolkit's documentation
(e.g. GTK+ applications are supposed to use GDK for rendering rather
than using Xlib directly).
If you're using Xt+Xaw/Xm, those toolkits rely upon many of the above.
Some of it is hidden from the user, some of it is exposed.
Writing a GUI application using nothing but raw Xlib is a bad idea.
It's analogous to writing an application without any libraries (even
libc), using nothing but home-grown functions and direct system calls.
> Also, something to glue all the pieces together -- to tell the
> application programmer where each piece fits in the whole puzzle,
> where to use it, when to use it, and equally important, when not to.
> Something like the old Xlib Programmer's Guide. Reference information
> where you must infer the API from protocol specs is hard enough to
> grok. Trying to put together a coherent big picture from the
> scattered bits takes a lot of time that someone trying to get a
> product out the door doesn't have.
Application programming documentation normally focuses on a specific
toolkit. The toolkit will hide most of the details, particularly if it
is cross-platform. The low-level documentation is of interest mainly
to authors of toolkits and/or low-level utilities.
--
Glynn Clements <gl...@gclements.plus.com>
_______________________________________________
xorg mailing list
xorg@lists.freedesktop.org
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
