A Shell widget forms the interface between a widget hierarchy and the Motif Window Manager.
Motif has various kinds of Shell widget. In X-Designer, these are represented by four items grouped together at the top of the widget palette.
All X-Designer design hierarchies must have a Shell widget as the root.
The Shell widget can be configured as a Session, Application, TopLevel or Dialog shell through use of the Shell resource panel. From X11R6 onwards, Session Shells are used as main application windows; earlier versions of X11 use the Application Shell. In X11R6, the Application Shell is considered deprecated. Dialog Shells are usually dialog boxes which are invoked as a result of actions taking place in an Application or Session Shell: they are considered to be more transitory in nature than application shells and hence if an Application or Session Shell is closed all associated Dialog Shells also disappear. TopLevel Shells are similar to Application and Session Shells in that they can be iconized separately; Dialog Shells may not.
The Shell widget can have only one child, which may be of any type.
For more information on Shell widgets, you are referred to XmDialogShell(3X), TopLevelShell(3X), SessionShell (3X) and ApplicationShell(3X) in the OSF/Motif Programmer's Reference.
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A Shell widget will not become visible as a X-Designer Design Window until a child is added; they will all appear as dialog Shells but generated code will produce the correct type of Shell.
Although a shell widget can have any widget as a child, much of the behavior of the Shell widget is based on the assumption that the child will be a Bulletin Board or related widget.
See also: