Resources

Resources are widget variables that you use to define attributes such as size, location, or color. Each widget usually has a combination of its own resources, plus resources it inherits from higher level widgets. Xt Intrinsics and Motif resource names consist of a prefix (XtN or XmN) followed by the base name. The first letter of the base name is always lowercase, and the first letter of subsequent words within the base name is always uppercase. The convention for resource names in dtksh scripts is to delete the prefix and use the base name. Thus, the resource XmNtopShadowColor becomes topShadowColor.

Some Xt and Motif commands allow the shell script to pass in a variable number of parameters, representing resource-value pairs. This is similar to the argument list passed to the corresponding Xt or Motif C function. Examples include any of the commands used to create a widget, plus the XtSetValues command. In dtksh, resources are specified by a string with the following syntax:

resource:value

where resource is the name of the resource and value is the value assigned to the resource. dtksh automatically converts the value string to an appropriate internal representation. For example:

XtSetValues $WIDGET height:100 width:200 resizePolicy:RESIZE_ANY
XmCreateLabel LABEL $PARENT myLabel labelString:"Close Dialog"

When you retrieve widget resource values using XtGetValues, the return value is placed in an environment variable. Thus, unlike the Xt Intrinsics, the dtksh version of XtGetValues uses a name:(environment) variable pair, rather than a name:value pair. For example:

XtGetValues $WIDGET height:HEIGHT resizePolicy:POLICY             
		sensitive:SENSITIVE  echo $HEIGHT  echo $POLICY  echo

$SENSITIVE

The preceding dtksh segment might produce this output:

100  RESIZE ANY 
TRUE

Certain types of resource values, including string tables and bit masks, have special representation. For example, the List widget allows a string table to be specified for both the items and selectedItems resources. In dtksh, a string table is represented as a comma-separated list of strings, which is similar to how Motif treats them. When a resource that returns a string table is queried using XtGetValues, the resulting value is a comma-separated set of strings.

A resource that expects a bit mask value to be passed to it expects the mask to be specified as a string composed of the various mask values separated by the |(bar) character. When a resource that returns a bit mask is queried, the return value is a string representing the enabled bits, separated by the | character. For example, you could use the following command to set the mwmFunctions resource for the VendorShell widget class:

XtSetValues mwmFunctions: MWM_FUNC_ALL|MWM_FUNC_RESIZE