X Programming

[Kevin Buettner]

On Mar 18, 11:28am, Julian M Catchen wrote:

> Does anyone know a good book that teaches basic X programming?  Not toolset
> programming (like GTK or QT) just basic X.  I am attempting to look at some
> code that deals with X for the first time and could use a good
> tutorial/resource.
> 
> I know that some of Oreilly's orginal books were on X, are these still
> relevant/in print?

O'Reilly still carries these books and they're probably still the
best reference.  For your purposes, you want the following:

    Volume 1: Xlib Programming Manual
    Volume 2: Xlib Reference Manual

You may also find it useful to obtain Volume 0: X Protocol Reference
Manual as it contains some information that isn't available anywhere
else.  If you want to play around with Xt or any of the widget sets
based on Xt, you'll also want to get Volume's 4 & 5.  The only one
that I find incredibly non-useful is Volume 3: X Window System User's
Guide.  (You should definitely thumb through it first in a bookstore
before shelling out any money for it.  The rest you can buy sight
unseen.)

I have several other books on X programming, but none of them are
anywhere near as useful as O'Reilly's books.

O'Reilly also used to publish a journal called "The X Resource".  I
don't think they're available any longer, but if you can find some
old copies somewhere, it would be useful to pick up Issue Ten.  There's
a *very* useful article in it by Chan Benson titled "Implementing Cut
and Paste in the X Environment."

Kevin