In addition to starting applications, actions are used throughout the desktop to create functionality in:
The Front Panel
The definition for a Front Panel control includes fields that specify the action that runs when the user clicks the control or drops a file on it. For more information, see Defining Front Panel Controls.
Menus
The syntax for the Window and Workspace menu definitions allows you to specify the action to be run by a menu item. For more information, see Workspace Manager Menus and the dtwmrc(4) man page.
Communication between applications
An application can be designed to send and receive information using a special type of action called ToolTalk message (TT_MSG). TT_MSG actions are described in the developer environment documentation for the desktop.