1 Introduction
This manual explains the application
programming interface (API) for the EZ Widget and Graphics
Library (henceforth, EZwgl).
It serves as both a specification and
a users guide. This document referes to
EZwgl release 1.50.
EZwgl is a library of C functions based on Xlib.
Its purpose is to provide a tool that
simplifies the task of graphical user interface (GUI) programming
under the X window system environment. If you are a C
programmer and want to build a nice graphical user
interface for your applications, or you want to do some
graphics programming under the X window
system programming environment, then EZwgl
is for you.
EZwgl implements about thirty or so commonly used widgets.
Currently implemented widgets are:
- buttons, push button, check button, radio
button, arrow button and menu button.
- dial, a numerical value editor.
- entry, a one line text editor.
- fancy listbox, a multi-column listbox.
- file selector, a
style file selection
dialogue.
- frame/labled-frame, a simple container widget.
- gradient bar
- histogram
- icon, a toplevel label/frame that is invisible by your
window manager.
- label, textual or bitmap/pixmap/image label.
- listbox, a simple textual item selector.
- list tree, a widget for displaying a tree of items.
- menus, popup menu and pull-down menu.
- menubar
- notebook, a container widget for grouping
widgets into pages.
- optional entry, a comboBox.
- pane-handle, a special widget for dividing its parent
into panes.
- ruler
- sliders, horizontal and vertical sliders.
- spread sheet, a simple spread sheet.
- thumb wheel,
- text, an editable text browser. Text widget supports a
few hardcoded text properties: fonts, foreground/background color
and bitmaps/pixmaps.
- raw X window, a widget that gives you a native X window.
- work area, a special container widget capable of
managing items and other widgets.
- lcd, a widget mimics the liquid crystal display.
- led, a widget simulates the light emitting diode
display.
- statusMeter , a widget implements the progress meter.
- term , a vt100 terminal emulator.
- 3D canvas, a widget specifically for the EZ
graphics library.
- free label/frame. A freely movable label/frame
whose geometry is not managed by the geometry manager.
EZwgl also implements a set of about 100
like graphics commands that provide high-level support for 3D graphics.
It currently supports
- zbuffer
- doublle buffer, supports pixmap or XImage back buffer.
- RGB or Colormap mode, supports a simulated RGB mode (dithering) for 8bit visuals.
- flat or smooth shading
- lighting
- fog
- polygon, line and points primitives
- bitmap fonts and a vector font
- mouse and keyboard input devices
EZwgl is designed to work on displays with an at least 8 bit deep
PseudoColor, DirectColor, TrueColor, StaticColor, GrayScale,
or StaticGray visual.
EZwgl has been tested on the following platforms,
SunSparc/X11R5, SGI-Indigo/X11R5,
Pentium-Linux/X11R6 and Alpha OSF/X11R5/X11R6.
It should work on any Unix systems with X11R5/X11R6.
The current release is 1.50