XFORMS(5)

📦 version 1.2.4, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💅 xforms(5) — bestie, we're doing GUI toolkits today

okay so this is the manual page for xforms, aka the Forms Library, section 5 of the manual. it's A GUI Toolkit for X Window Systems and honestly? iconic. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

xforms — bestie it's literally A GUI Toolkit for X Window Systems. that's the whole name. that's the vibe. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so the Forms Library for X (xforms) is a GUI toolkit and a builder for the X Window Systems, and it runs on all major UNIX platforms plus OpenVMS and OS2. no cap.

now, listen — Forms Library is way too complex to be described in the "man" page format. like, it simply cannot fit. so instead of me trying to squeeze it in here:

ask your system administrator for the location of the HTML, PDF or PostScript document. or follow the links on the Forms Library's home page for an online version of the documentation. that's the move. 💖

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Forms Library is a graphical user interface toolkit based on Xlib for X Window Systems. periodt.

it comes with a rich set of objects — buttons, browsers, sliders and menus — all integrated into an elegant event/object callback execution model that lets you build X applications fast and easy. slay. 🔥

on top of that, the library also supports:

  • image read and write
  • format conversion
  • simple image processing

the library is a flexible set of C-routines that can be used in C and C++ programs. (and as of this writing, perl, ada95, pascal, scheme and Fortran bindings to the Forms Library are in beta — so, watch this space 👀)

it's efficient and portable, and it runs on all major Unix platforms, including:

Sun, SGI, HP, DEC Alpha/OSF, IBM RS6000, Convex, Cray, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, SCO, Unixware, OpenBSD, BSDi, DecSystem(mips)/Ultrix and others. 🌈

non-unix platforms include: OpenVMS, OS/2, and Window/NT.

and bundled with the library?? a Form designer, fdesign, which you can use to build interaction forms in a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) way, and it'll generate the corresponding C code for you — or any of the binding languages, no biggie. also 50+ demos in source code are distributed with the library. we love a generous queen. 👑

✨ OPTIONS ✨

all programs written using the Forms Library recognize the following command line options:

  • -display host:dpy — specifies the server to connect to.
  • -bw borderwidth — specifies the border width to use for built-in objects.
  • -flversion — prints the xforms version information. (yes bestie, check ur version first 💅)
  • -visual visualName — requests a visual by name such as TrueColor etc. by default the Forms Library always selects the visual that has the most depth.
  • -depth depth — requests a specific depth.
  • -fldebug level — generates some info about the state of the XForms. here level is an integer between 1-5 and controls the amount of information to output.
heads up: depending on the options used when the Forms Library was built, a level more than 3 might not be available. 😭
  • -sync — runs the application in synchronous mode with debug level set to 4.
  • -private — requests a private colormap for the application.
  • -shared — requests a shared colormap even if the application needs more colors than available. for those colors that can't be allocated in the shared colormap, substitutions are made so the closest matching color is used.
  • -stdcmap — requests a standard colormap.
  • -name newname — specifies the application name under which resources are to be obtained, rather than the default executable file name.

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

go read these next, bestie, they're the whole friend group:

  • fdesign(1L)
  • fd2ps(1L)

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Copyright (c) 1996-2002 T.C. Zhao, Mark Overmars and Steve Lamont

Since 2002: GNU Lesser General Public License

Maintainers: Jean-Marc Lasgouttes, Angus Leeming, Jens Thoms Toerring <jt@toerring.de>

legends, all of them. 🫶

✨ HOME PAGE ✨

and that's the whole page, babe — this is Version 1.2.0, dated November 2013, brought to you from the XFORMS(5) section of the manual. go build something cute with it. 💖✨🦋🎀

📦 where this page comes from