THE "INSIDE LESSTIF" BOOK
 
 
Ever had that itch to look into the abyss of a graphical user interface? An odd special interest in unknown exported functions whose names start with an underscore? And did you ever want to know how Synthetic Resources, Virtual Bindings or Drag & Drop are working? And what the BaseClass stuff is good for? 

Now you can get first-hand knowledge directly from the Hungry Programmers -- the developers of LessTif

This is currently an ongoing project, as the developers are documenting various aspects of their work -- for example, the Synthetic Resources or the GeoUtils. Throw in a bunch of figures and neat type-setting, and you get "Inside LessTif", a book ready-to-print on any P*stScr*pt capable printer. 

The current edition is: BETA-IV, August 1997 (now with more than 120 pages!) 

"Inside LessTif" covers: 

  • Synthetic Resources and Resolution Independence,
  • Pandora's Box: the BaseClass Stuff,
  • Diverting User Input with Grabs,
  • Messy Geometry Management (new),
  • Fun and Pain with the GeoUtils,
  • Drag and Drop (new),
  • When the Keyboard Goes Wild,
  • Inside XmStrings,
  • Hash & Cache,
  • and a "fat" index.
Many thanks to Rob Blue, who has volunteered to iron out the spelling and grammatical errors. He is now responsible for all errors you still find in "Inside LessTif" ;-) Also my thanks to John David Duncan who corrected the worst things in this web page... 

A last note before we come to the download section: The hit rates on our WWW server for the four weeks, starting with the release of the second edition of "Inside LessTif", were (and still are) really impressive. I've counted downloads from around 700 different sites, that is an average of about 25 hits/day. My favourite download comes from a well-known .org domain -- no, I'm not going to tell you from which one. But the organisation associated with it is mentioned throughout the whole "Inside LessTif" book... 

Many thanks for your interest in this site, and especially the "Inside LessTif" book. If you have any suggestions, corrections, additions, don't hesitate to write me. If you have any unsolicited advertising, send it to this place. 

Enough small talk for now, here's what you might interested in... 
 
INFOWARE
 
Choose your download! single-sided 
P*stscr*pt
double-sided 
P*stscr*pt 1)
double-sided P*stscr*pt 2) 
(manual)
A4 paper size Download! (~426k) Download! (~429k) Odd Pages (~325k) 
Even Pages (~119k)
Letter paper size Download! (~426k) Download! (~429k) Odd Pages (~325k) 
Even Pages (~119k)
Download the LaTeX source 3) (~223k)
 
 
NOTES
Note 1 These P*stScr*pt files do not select double-sided printing on your printer. Rather the pages have been formatted appropriate for double-sided printing on printers that are capable of double-sided printing.
Note 2 Download these two files if you want to print double-sided but have only access to a printer suitable for single-sided printing. First print the odd pages. Then put back the paper into the tray (page 1 at the bottom position of the paper stack), and print the even pages. The even pages are printed in reverse order automatically, so you just have to make sure you put back the paper in the tray such that the printer will print on the unused side of the paper. This procedure assumes that your printer prints on the top face side of the paper in the paper tray. Most printers do this. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: after printing the odd pages, make sure that you put back even the last odd page (i.e. that with the highest page number) into the paper tray.

Note 3 If you want to work with the LaTeX sources, you'll need the following programs in order to be able to process the text files: 
  • LaTeX 2e (LaTeX 2.09 will not work) with a working P*stscr*pt environment (That is: working P*stscr*pt font metrics, P*stscr*pt font files, and especially a working gsftopk for converting the PS fonts to pk fonts for preview). I'm using the teTeX distribution on my Linux-box at home. This is an out-of-the-box LaTeX distribution for Un*x. Very good for people like me who don't understand what is going on when running latex...! Available from:

  • ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de:/pub/comp/tex/teTeX 
    ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX 
    ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/systems/unix/teTeX 
  • ghostscript - if you don't have a P*stscr*pt printer or want to preview either the .dvi or .ps files. There isn't anyway any good excuse not to have ghostscript on your disk.

  • If you should have ghostscript 4.01 or 4.02 make sure you upgrade to 4.03 first. Otherwise some graphics are not printed the way they should be. If you have still ghostscript 3.xx then upgrade, too. The new ghostscript 4.0x is now bundled with high quality P*stScr*pt fonts. Therefore you can skip the next point if you're using ghostscript 4.03. 
  • P*stScr*pt fonts for Times RomanTM, HelveticaTM, and CourierTM. They are necessary if you want to preview or print the .ps files in high quality and you don't have ghostscript 4.03 including the high quality fonts. If you have an old ATM disk (Ad*be Type Manager) lurking somewhere in your disk cabinet, you can use the fonts which accompany the ATM. Put the *.pfb font files in your /usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 directory and edit the fonts.scale and/or fonts.dir files accordingly. Don't forget to edit the Fontmap file in /usr/local/lib/ghostscript/3.53 (or something like that). Otherwise ghostscript will not make use of the new fonts. From the comments in the Fontmap file it should be quite clear what to do.
  • dvipsk (5.58f or later) - the dvi to P*stScr*pt converter. Simply good. Your (La)TeX distribution should already contain it. In case it is not already installed on your system (booh!), it is available from:

  • ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/dviware/dvipsk 
    ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/dviware/dvipsk 
  • xfig (3.1.4 or later) - a "Facility for Interactive Generation of Figures under X11". Or in simpler words: a nice vector orientated drawing application. I'm using it to draw the figures for the "Inside LessTif" book. The transfig package is need for exporting the fig figures to eps files. Available from:

  • ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools/xfig


Motif Corner Home Page 

Contents: Harald Albrecht (albrecht@igpm.rwth-aachen.de) 
Layout: Harald Albrecht 
Last Change: 97/08/02 (ab)