WHAT IS MOTIF?
Subject: 2) What is Motif and how does it relate to the X Toolkit and X Window System? [Last modified: Aug 97] Answer: Motif is a widely-accepted set of user interface guidelines developed by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) around 1989 which specifies how an X Window System application should “look and feel”. Motif includes the Motif Toolkit (also called “Xm” or the “Motif widgets”), which enforce a policy on top of the X Toolkit Intrinsics (“Xt”). Xt is really a “mechanism not policy” layer, and Xm provides the specific “look and feel”. For example, Xt does not insist that windows have titlebars or menus, but it provides hooks for developers of specific toolkits (Motif, OpenLook, Athena widgets) to take advantage of. In addition to widgets, Motif includes the Motif Style Guide document (as well as several others listed in my FAQ) which details how a Motif user interface should look and behave to be “Motif compliant”. The X Toolkit Intrinsics are built upon the lowest programming le
Motif is the industry standard graphical user interface, (as defined by the IEEE 1295 specification), used on more than 200 hardware and software platforms. It provides application developers, end users, and system vendors with the industry’s most widely used environment for standardizing application presentation on a wide range of platforms. Motif is the leading user interface for the UNIX system. The Motif graphical user interface (GUI) toolkit facilitates the development of applications for heterogeneous, networked computing environments. By providing application portability across a variety of platforms, the Motif environment helps protect valuable investments in software and user training. Motif is also the base graphical user interface toolkit for the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). Further information is available.
