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Motif Window Manager

 
Motif Window Manager

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Motif Window Manager



 
 
In computing
Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and computer software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology....
, the Motif Window Manager (MWM) is an X window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 based on the Motif
Motif (widget toolkit)

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems....
 toolkit.

MWM is a lightweight and, by today's standards, minimalist window manager. MWM lacks support for desktop icons or virtual desktops. A plain text file is used to generate a root menu that the user can customize. Another plain text file controls the colors of MWM's GUI
Gui

Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grillinged dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients....
 but little else.

Motif and MWM were created by the Open Software Foundation
Open Software Foundation

The Open Software Foundation was an organization founded in 1988 to create an open standard for an implementation of the Unix operating system....
 (Motif was sometimes even called OSF/Motif) but is nowadays owned by The Open Group
The Open Group

The Open Group is an industry consortium to set vendor- and technology-neutral open standards for computing infrastructure. It was formed when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation in 1996....
.

Originally, MWM and Motif could only be purchased but now there is also Open Motif
Open Motif

Open Motif is a source code release of the Motif computer programming toolkit by The Open Group, the current owners of Motif.Open Motif has the same functionality and source code as Motif, but is offered under a more permissive license....
 which is a release of the "original" Motif under more liberal licensing terms (though still not quite open source
Open source

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source . Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical Strategy element of their business operations....
/free software
Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
).






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Encyclopedia


In computing
Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and computer software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology....
, the Motif Window Manager (MWM) is an X window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 based on the Motif
Motif (widget toolkit)

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems....
 toolkit.

MWM is a lightweight and, by today's standards, minimalist window manager. MWM lacks support for desktop icons or virtual desktops. A plain text file is used to generate a root menu that the user can customize. Another plain text file controls the colors of MWM's GUI
Gui

Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grillinged dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients....
 but little else.

Motif and MWM were created by the Open Software Foundation
Open Software Foundation

The Open Software Foundation was an organization founded in 1988 to create an open standard for an implementation of the Unix operating system....
 (Motif was sometimes even called OSF/Motif) but is nowadays owned by The Open Group
The Open Group

The Open Group is an industry consortium to set vendor- and technology-neutral open standards for computing infrastructure. It was formed when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation in 1996....
.

Originally, MWM and Motif could only be purchased but now there is also Open Motif
Open Motif

Open Motif is a source code release of the Motif computer programming toolkit by The Open Group, the current owners of Motif.Open Motif has the same functionality and source code as Motif, but is offered under a more permissive license....
 which is a release of the "original" Motif under more liberal licensing terms (though still not quite open source
Open source

Open source is an approach to design, development, and distribution offering practical accessibility to a product's source . Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical Strategy element of their business operations....
/free software
Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
). Also, the LessTif
LessTif

LessTif is a free software reimplementation or Clone of the Motif computer programming toolkit.LessTif is developed by the Hungry Programmers....
 project has been working hard to implement the Motif API under the LGPL license. The project includes a clone of MWM with support for virtual desktops.

External links

  • (Kenton Lee)
  • (O'Reilly and Associates, free PDF
    Portable Document Format

    Portable Document Format is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system....
     downloads)
  • Motif User's Guide