Motif 2.1 Programmer's Guide

Chapter 12. Color and Pixmaps

Motif uses colors and pixmaps for several general purposes:

To fill window backgrounds and borders

To draw text and graphics in window foregrounds

To generate shadows with a three-dimensional appearance

To highlight the widget that has keyboard focus

To indicate that a button is armed or selected

Motif uses other pixmaps for specific purposes:

As the application's icon for use by the window manager

For drag icons and drop site animation

As a CascadeButton symbol indicating that a menu is attached to the CascadeButton

As a MessageBox symbol indicating the type of message displayed

As the face of a button when the button is insensitive

All of these colors and pixmaps are represented as resources. The user or application can set the resource values using resource files, and the application can set them using XtSetValues.

Motif also uses a number of pixmaps that are not represented as resources. The user and application cannot change these. Among these fixed pixmaps are the pixmaps used to draw arrows in ScrollBars.