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Understanding the Resource Description File
The supplementary mwm resource description file contains
specifications for menus, key bindings, and mouse bindings that are
referred to by entries in the .Xdefaults file and other
files that the window manager uses to create the resource database.
If you do not have a .mwmrc file in your home directory,
copy the system resource description file into your home directory
with the following command:
cp /usr/lib/X11/system.mwmrc ~/.mwmrc 
You can freely modify the local copy of the resource description
file to customize your Motif environment.
The configFile resource specifies the pathname for the
mwm resource description file. If the pathname begins with
~/ (a tilde followed by a slash), mwm considers it to be
relative to your home directory (as specified by the HOME
environment variable). If the LANG environment variable
is set, mwm looks for $HOME/$LANG/configFile. If that
file does not exist or if LANG is not set, mwm looks for
$HOME/configFile.
If the configFile pathname does not begin with
~/ (a tilde followed by a slash), mwm considers it to be
relative to the current working directory.
User actions, such as keystrokes, are associated with predefined
window manager functions. Each function has a name that begins with an
f. (f dot) character sequence. In general, the
meaning of the function is evident from its name. (See the mwm reference page in the OSF/Motif Programmer's
Reference for more information on these functions.)
- beep
- Causes a beep.
- circle_down
- Moves the top window to the bottom of the window stack.
- circle_up
- Moves the bottom window to the top of the window stack.
- exec or !
- Executes the following shell command.
- focus_color
- Sets the colormap focus to a window.
- focus_key
- Sets the keyboard input focus to a window.
- kill
- Kills an application and its window.
- lower
- Moves a window to the bottom of the window stack.
- maximize
- Maximizes a window.
- menu
- Activates the named menu. This function can be
used to create cascading and Popup Menus.
- minimize
- Iconifies a window.
- move
- Starts an interactive move for a window. Moves the keyboard
input focus to the next window in the window stack.
- nop
- Does nothing.
- normalize
- Causes an icon or a maximized window to be displayed at its normal size.
- normalize_and_raise
- Causes an icon or a maximized window to be displayed at its
normal size and raised to the top of the window stack.
- pack_icons
- Reorganizes the icons according to the current icon placement policy.
- pass_keys
- Toggles the use of special key bindings.
- post_wmenu
- Posts the Window menu.
- prev_key
- Moves the keyboard input focus to the previous window in the
window stack.
- quit_mwm
- Exits the window manager without exiting the X Window System.
- raise
- Raises a window to the top of the window stack.
- raise_lower
- If obscured, raises a window to the top of the window stack;
otherwise, lowers it to the bottom of the window stack.
- refresh
- Redraws all the windows on the screen.
- refresh_win
- Redraws a single window.
- resize
- Starts an interactive resize for a window.
- restart
- Stops and restarts the window manager.
- restore
- Restores an iconified window to its previous state.
- restore_and_raise
- Restores an iconified window to its previous state and raises
it to the top of its stack.
- screen
- Moves a pointer to a specific screen.
- send_msg
- Sends a client message to the application.
- separator
- Draws a separator in a menu pane.
- set_behavior
- Restarts the window manager with the default behavior or reverts
to any custom behavior.
- title
- Inserts a title in a menu pane.
The .mwmrc file defines named groups of key bindings,
button bindings, and menu definitions. These groups are referenced by
name as values for mwm resources, such as keyBindings and
buttonBindings.
For example, if you wanted to define alternative responses for
mouse button actions, you would create the named set of bindings (for
instance, MyButtonBindings) in the .mwmrc
file and reference those bindings in your .Xdefaults file
as follows:
Mwm*buttonBindings: MyButtonBindings
The following sections describe the syntax for defining menus, key
bindings and button bindings.