Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual

X Consortium Standard

David Rosenthal

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Edited by

Stuart W. Marks

SunSoft, Inc.

X Version 11, Release 7.7

Version 2.0

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Except as contained in this notice, the name of the X Consortium shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from the X Consortium.

X Window System is a trademark of The Open Group.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. Sun Microsystems makes no representations about the suitability for any purpose of the information in this document. This documentation is provided as is without express or implied warranty.

Table of Contents

Preface to Version 2.0

Preface to Version 1.1

1. Introduction

Evolution of the Conventions

Atoms

What Are Atoms?
Predefined Atoms
Naming Conventions
Semantics
Name Spaces
Discriminated Names

2. Peer-to-Peer Communication by Means of Selections

Acquiring Selection Ownership

Responsibilities of the Selection Owner

Giving Up Selection Ownership

Voluntarily Giving Up Selection Ownership
Forcibly Giving Up Selection Ownership

Requesting a Selection

Large Data Transfers

Use of Selection Atoms

Selection Atoms
Target Atoms
Selection Targets with Side Effects

Use of Selection Properties

TEXT Properties
INCR Properties
DRAWABLE Properties
SPAN Properties

Manager Selections

3. Peer-to-Peer Communication by Means of Cut Buffers

4. Client-to-Window-Manager Communication

Client's Actions

Creating a Top-Level Window
Client Properties
Window Manager Properties
Changing Window State
Configuring the Window
Changing Window Attributes
Input Focus
Colormaps
Icons
Pop-up Windows
Window Groups

Client Responses to Window Manager Actions

Reparenting
Redirection of Operations
Window Move
Window Resize
Iconify and Deiconify
Colormap Change
Input Focus
ClientMessage Events
Redirecting Requests

Communication with the Window Manager by Means of Selections

Summary of Window Manager Property Types

5. Session Management and Additional Inter-Client Exchanges

Client Support for Session Management
Window Manager Support for Session Management
Support for ICE Client Rendezvous

6. Manipulation of Shared Resources

The Input Focus
The Pointer
Grabs
Colormaps
The Keyboard Mapping
The Modifier Mapping

7. Device Color Characterization

XYZ <-> RGB Conversion Matrices
Intensity (dA RGB Value Conversion

8. Conclusion

The X Registry

A. Revision History

The X11R2 Draft
The July 27, 1988, Draft
The Public Review Drafts
Version 1.0, July 1989
Version 1.1
Public Review Draft, December 1993
Version 2.0, April 1994

B. Suggested Protocol Revisions

C. Obsolete Session Manager Conventions

Properties

WM_COMMAND Property
WM_CLIENT_MACHINE Property

Termination

Client Responses to Session Manager Actions

Saving Client State
Window Deletion

Summary of Session Manager Property Types