Window decorations include a border, a maximize
button, a minimize button, a Window Menu button, a title bar, and resize
handles. Table 5-9 shows the values that may be used to set the window
decorations for a window.
Table 17. Valid Window Frame Elements
| Frame Element | Description |
|---|---|
| all | Includes all decoration elements (default) |
| border | Window border |
| maximize | Maximize button (includes title bar) |
| minimize | Minimize button (includes title bar) |
| none | No decorations |
| resizeh | Resize handles (includes border) |
| menu | Window Menu button (includes title bar) |
| title | Title bar (includes border) |
For some applications, the full complement of window decorations may not be desirable. For example, a clock may not need resize handles. The Motif Window Manager has two resources for such situations: clientDecoration and transientDecoration.
The clientDecoration resource allows the user to choose how much decoration to put around each client. The default value is all, meaning that windows include all decorations unless the application removes one or more of them.
The transientDecoration resource allows you to choose the decorations around each transient window. A transient window is a relatively short-lived window, such as a DialogBox. The default value for this resource is menu title resizeh, meaning that transient windows have a title bar with a Window Menu button and resize borders. Even if a decoration is specified by the transientDecoration resource, mwm does not put it around a transient window unless that decoration is also specified by the clientDecoration resource.
The clientDecoration and transientDecoration resources can have more than one value specified at a time:
+(plus sign), the window manager starts with no frame and assumes that the list contains those elements to be added.
The clientDecoration resource can have any of the following formats.
To add or remove elements from all classes of clients, the syntax is
Mwm*clientDecoration: value
For example, remove the maximize button from all windows with the following specification in a resource file:
Mwm*clientDecoration: -maximize
To add or remove elements from specific classes of clients, the syntax is
Mwm* Clientclass.clientDecoration: value
For example, to remove the resize handles and the maximize button from all clocks displayed on the screen, use the following specification:
Mwm*XClock.clientDecoration: -resizeh -maximize
To add or remove elements from any client with an unknown class, the syntax is
Mwm*defaults*clientDecoration: value
The transientDecoration resource has the following syntax:
Mwm*transientDecoration: value
For example, to remove the menu button from all transient windows, use the following specification in a resource file:
Mwm*transientDecoration: title resizeh
The iconDecoration resource indicates the parts of an icon that
are displayed (see Table 5-10).
| Icon Element | Description |
|---|---|
| label | The icon's label, which may be truncated |
| image | The icon's image |
| activelabel | The label of an active is not truncated |
When you are using an icon box, the default value for iconDecoration is label image. Without an icon box, the default value of the resource is activelabel label image. For example, use the following specification to eliminate the label part of icons:
Mwm*iconDecoration: image
For window decoration, the Motif Window Manager also has the frameStyle resource, which lets you control the look of the window and its border. Assigning a value of WmRECESSED to this resource makes the window appear to be recessed from its border. Assigning a value of WmSLAB shows a flat window and border.