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Documentation of the CMU CL Motif library.

Based on toolkit.doc 1.1, with LaTeX formatting by Marco Antoniotti.
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%% -*- Mode: LaTeX -*-
%% toolkit.tex
%% LaTeX formatting by Marco Antoniotti based on internals.doc.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{a4wide}
\newcommand{\functdescr}[1]{\paragraph{\texttt{#1}}}
\title{CMUCL Motif Toolkit}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Naming conventions}
In general, names in the Lisp Motif interface are derived directly from
the C original. The following rules apply:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Drop \texttt{Xt}" and \texttt{Xm} (also \texttt{XmN},
\texttt{XmC}, etc.) prefixes
\item Separate words by dashes (\texttt{-}) rather than capitalization
\item Resource names and enumeration values are given as keywords
\item Replace underscores (\texttt{\_}) with dashes (\texttt{-})
\end{enumerate}
\vspace{2mm}
\noindent
Examples:\\[2mm]
\begin{tabular}{lcl}
\texttt{XtCreateWidget} & $\Longrightarrow$ & \texttt{create-widget}\\
\texttt{XmNlabelString} & $\Longrightarrow$ & \texttt{:label-string}\\
\texttt{XmVERTICAL} & $\Longrightarrow$ & \texttt{:vertical}\\
\end{tabular}
\vspace{2mm}
\noindent
Some exceptions:\\
Compound string functions (\texttt{XmString}\ldots) are prefixed by
\texttt{compound-string-} rather than \texttt{string-} in Lisp.
Functions or resources, with the exception of the \texttt{compound-string-xxx}
functions, which require compound string arguments, may be given Lisp
\texttt{SIMPLE-STRING}s instead.
The arguments to functions are typically the same as the C Motif
equivalents. Some exceptions are:
\begin{itemize}
\item Widget creation functions have a \texttt{\&rest} arg for
resource values.
\item Functions which take a string table/length pair in C only take a
list of strings in Lisp.
\item Registering functions such as \texttt{ADD-CALLBACK} use a
\texttt{\&rest} arg for registering an arbitrary number of
\texttt{client-data} items.
\end{itemize}
\section{Starting things up}
The Motif toolkit interface is divided into two parts. First, there is
a server process written in C which provides an RPC interface to Motif
functions. The other half is a Lisp package which connects to the server
and makes requests on the user's behalf. The Motif interface is exported
from the \texttt{TOOLKIT} (nickname \texttt{XT}) package.
\subsection{Variables controlling connections}
\paragraph{\texttt{*DEFAULT-SERVER-HOST*}} A string naming the machine
where the Motif server is to be found. The default is NIL, which
causes a connection to be made using a Unix domain socket on the local
machine. Any other name must be a valid machine name, and the client
will connect using Internet domain sockets.
\paragraph{\texttt{*DEFAULT-DISPLAY*}} Determines the display on which
to open windows. The default value of NIL instructs the system to
consult the \texttt{DISPLAY} environment variable. Any other value
must be a string naming a valid X display.
\paragraph{\texttt{*DEFAULT-TIMEOUT-INTERVAL*}} An integer specifying
how many seconds the Lisp process will wait for input before assuming
that the connection to the server has timed out.
\subsection{Handling Connections}
\paragraph{\texttt{OPEN-MOTIF-CONNECTION (hostname xdisplay-name
app-name app-class)}} Opens a connection to a server on the named host
and opens a display connection to the named X display. The
\texttt{app-name} and \texttt{app-class} are for defining the
application name and class for use in resource specifications. An
optional process-id argument can be passed if a local server process
has already been created. This returns a MOTIF-CONNECTION object.
\paragraph{\texttt{CLOSE-MOTIF-CONNECTION (connection)}} This closes a toolkit
connection which was created by OPEN-MOTIF-CONNECTION.
\paragraph{\texttt{*MOTIF-CONNECTION*}} Bound in contexts such as
callback handlers to the currently active toolkit connection.
\paragraph{\texttt{*X-DISPLAY*}} Bound in contexts such as callback
handlers to the currently active CLX display.
\paragraph{\texttt{WITH-MOTIF-CONNECTION ((connection) \&body forms)}}
This macro establishes the necessary context for invoking toolkit
functions outside of callback/event handlers.
\paragraph{\texttt{WITH-CLX-REQUESTS (\&body forms)}} Macro that ensures
that all CLX requests made within its body will be flushed to the X
server before proceeding so that Motif functions may use the results.
\paragraph{\texttt{RUN-MOTIF-APPLICATION (init-function)}} This is the
standard CLM entry point for creating a Motif application. The
init-function argument will be called to create and realize the
interface. It returns the created MOTIF-CONNECTION object. Available
keyword arguments are:\\[2mm]
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\texttt{:init-args} & list of arguments to pass to init-function\\
\texttt{:application-class} & application class (default \texttt{"Lisp"})\\
\texttt{:application-name} & application name (default \texttt{"lisp"})\\
\texttt{:server-host} & name of Motif server to connect to\\
\texttt{:display} & name of X display to connect to
\end{tabular}
\paragraph{\texttt{QUIT-APPLICATION ()}} This is the standard function
for closing down a Motif application. You can call it within your
callbacks to terminate the application.
\section{The Server}
The C server is run by the \texttt{motifd} program. This will create
both Inet and Unix sockets for the Lisp client to connect to. By
default, the Inet and Unix sockets will be specific to the user.
When a Lisp client connects to the server, it forks a copy of itself.
Thus each Lisp application has an exclusive connection to a single C
server process. To terminate the server, just \texttt{\^C} it.
\noindent
Switches to change behavior:\\[2mm]
\begin{tabular}{lp{.8\textwidth}}
\texttt{-global} & Sockets created for use by everyone rather than
being user-specific.\\
\texttt{-local } & No Inet socket is created and the Unix socket is
process-specific\\
\texttt{-noinet} & Instructs the server not to create an Inet socket.\\
\texttt{-nounix} & Instructs the server not to create a Unix socket.\\
\texttt{-nofork} & Will keep the server from forking when connections are
made. This is useful when debugging the server or when
you want the server to die when the application
terminates.\\
\texttt{-trace} & Will spit out lots of stuff about what the server is
doing. This is only for debugging purposes.
\end{tabular}
\vspace{2mm}
Typically, users do not need to be concerned with server switches
since, by default, servers are created automatically by your Lisp
process. However, if you wish to share servers, or use servers across
the network, you will need to run the server manually.
\section{Widget creation}
\functdescr{CREATE-APPLICATION-SHELL (\&rest resources)} Creates the
\texttt{applicationShell} widget for a new Motif application.
\functdescr{CREATE-WIDGET, CREATE-MANAGED-WIDGET (name class parent
\&rest resources)} These create new widgets. \texttt{CREATE-WIDGET}
does not automatically manage the created widget, while
\texttt{CREATE-MANAGED-WIDGET} does.
\functdescr{CREATE-<widget\_class> (parent name \&rest resources)}
Convenience function which creates a new widget of class
\texttt{<widget\_class>}. For instance, \texttt{CREATE-FORM} will
create a new \texttt{XmForm} widget.
\functdescr{*CONVENIENCE-AUTO-MANAGE*} Controls whether convenience
functions automatically manage the widgets they create. The default
is NIL.
\section{Callbacks}
Callbacks are registered with the \texttt{ADD-CALLBACK} function. Unlike Motif
in C, an arbitrary number of client-data items can be registered with
the callback. Callback functions should be defined as:
\begin{verbatim}
(defun callback-handler (widget call-data \&rest client-data) ... )
\end{verbatim}
The passed widget is that in which the callback has occurred, and the
call-data is a structure which provides more detailed information on the
callback. Client-data is some number of arguments which have been
registered with the callback handler. The slots of the call-data structure
can be derived from the C structure name using the standard name conversion
rules. For example, the call-data structure for button presses has the
following slot (aside from the standard ones): click-count.
To access the X event which generated the callback, use the following:
\begin{verbatim}
(defun handler (widget call-data \&rest client-data)
(with-callback-event (event call-data)
;; Use event structure here
))
\end{verbatim}
Since callback procedures are processed synchronously, the Motif
server will remain blocked to event handling until the callback
finishes. This can be potentially troublesome, but there are two ways
of dealing with this problem. The first alternative is the function
\texttt{UPDATE-DISPLAY}. Invoking this function during your callback
function will force the server to process any pending redraw events
before continuing. The other (slightly more general) method is to
register deferred actions with the callback handling mechanism.
Deferred actions will be invoked after the server is released to
process other events and the callback is officially terminated.
Deferred actions are not invoked if the current application was
destroyed as a result of the callback, since any requests to the
server would refer to an application context which was no longer
valid. The syntax for their usage is:
\begin{verbatim}
(with-callback-deferred-actions <forms>)
\end{verbatim}
You may register only one set of deferred actions within the body of
any particular callback procedure, as well as within event handlers
and action procedures. Registering a second (or more) set of deferred
actions will overwrite all previous ones.
When using deferred action procedures, care must be taken to avoid
referencing invalid data. Some information available within callbacks
is only valid within the body of that callback and is discarded after
the callback terminates. For instance, events can only be retrieved
from the call-data structure within the callback procedure. Thus the
code
\begin{verbatim}
(with-callback-deferred-actions
(with-callback-event (event call-data)
(event-type event)))
\end{verbatim}
is incorrect since the event will be fetched after the callback is
terminated, at which point the event information will be unavailable.
However, the code
\begin{verbatim}
(with-callback-event (event call-data)
(with-callback-deferred-actions
(event-type event)))
\end{verbatim}
is perfectly legitimate. The event will be fetched during the callback and
will be closed over in the deferred action procedure.
\section{Action procedures}
Action procedures can be registered in translation tables as in the
following example:
\begin{verbatim}
<Key> q: Lisp(SOME-PACKAGE:MY-FUNCTION)\n
\end{verbatim}
\noindent
The generating X event can be accessed within the action handler
using:
\begin{verbatim}
(with-action-event (event call-data)
... use event here ...
)
\end{verbatim}
\section{Event handlers}
X events are also represented as structured objects with slot names
which are directly translated from the C equivalent. The accessor
functions are named by \texttt{<event name>-<slot name>}. Some
examples:\\[2mm]
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\texttt{(event-window event)} & This applies to all events\\
\texttt{(event-type event)} & So does this\\
& \\
\texttt{(button-event-x event)} & Some button event\\
\texttt{(button-event-button event)} & accessors\\
\end{tabular}
At the moment, \texttt{XClientMessage} and \texttt{XKeyMap} events are
not supported (they will be in the not too distant future).
\texttt{Provided conveniences}
Since Motif requires the use of font lists for building non-trivial
compound strings, there are some Lisp functions to ease the pain of
building them:
\functdescr{BUILD-SIMPLE-FONT-LIST (name font-spec)} Returns a font
list of with the given name associated with the given font. For
example,
\begin{verbatim}
(build-simple-font-list "MyFont" "8x13")
\end{verbatim}
\functdescr{BUILD-FONT-LIST (flist-spec)} This allows for the
construction of font lists with more than one font. An example:
\begin{verbatim}
(build-font-list `(("EntryFont" ,entry-font-name)
("HeaderFont" ,header-font-name)
("ItalicFont" ,italic-font-name)))
\end{verbatim}
There are certain callbacks which are of general use, and standard
ones are provided for the programmer's convenience. For all callbacks
except \texttt{QUIT-APPLICATION-CALLBACK}, you register some number of widgets
with \texttt{ADD-CALLBACK}. These will be the widgets acted upon by the
callback:
\functdescr{QUIT-APPLICATION-CALLBACK ()} Callback to terminate the
current application.
\functdescr{DESTROY-CALLBACK} Destroys all the widgets passed to it.
\functdescr{MANAGE-CALLABCK } Manages all the widgets passed to it.
\functdescr{UNMANAGE-CALLBACK} Unmanages all the widgets passed to it.
\functdescr{POPUP-CALLBACK } Calls popup on all widgets passed to it.
\functdescr{POPDOWN-CALLBACK} Calls popdown on all widgets passed to it.
\section{Some random notes}
\begin{itemize}
\item When using functions such as \texttt{REMOVE-CALLBACK}, the
client-data passed must be \texttt{EQUAL} to the client-data
passed to \texttt{ADD-CALLBACK}.
\item When using \texttt{REMOVE-CALLBACK}, etc., the function may be
supplied as either \texttt{'FUNCTION} or \texttt{\#'FUNCTION}.
However, they are considered different so use the same one
when adding and removing callbacks.
\item You cannot directly access the \texttt{XmNitems} resources for
List widgets and relatives. Instead, use \texttt{(SET-ITEMS
<widget> ....)} and \texttt{(GET-ITEMS <widget>)}.
\end{itemize}
\section{Things that are missing}
\begin{itemize}
\item Real documentation
\item Support for \texttt{XClientMessage} and \texttt{XKeyMap} events
\item Callback return values (e.g. \texttt{XmTextCallback}'s)
\item Ability to send strings longer than 4096 bytes.
\end{itemize}
All these things should start appearing in the next few
weeks\footnote{NOTE: This document was written at CMU many years ago.
The ``formatter'' does not make any guarantees about the validity of
this claim.}
\section{A brief example}
\begin{verbatim}
(defun my-callback (widget call-data quit)
(format t "Got callback on ~A~%" widget)
(format t "Callback reason was ~A~%" (any-callback-reason call-data))
(format t "Quit button is ~A~%" quit))
(defun test-init ()
(let* ((shell (create-application-shell))
(rc (create-row-column shell "rowColumn"))
(quit (create-push-button-gadget rc "quitButton"
:label-string "Quit"))
(button (create-push-button-gadget rc "button"
:highlight-on-enter t
:shadow-thickness 0
:label-string "This is a button")))
(add-callback quit :activate-callback #'quit-application-callback)
(add-callback button :activate-callback 'my-callback quit)
(manage-child rc)
(manage-children quit button)
(realize-widget shell)))
(defun test ()
(run-motif-application 'test-init))
\end{verbatim}
\end{document}
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