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Icons


Description

An icon is a stylized representation of an object. A window icon is a minimized representation of a window or window family that can help organize windows and tasks in the display. Iconifying a window is also known as minimizing a window. The window manager must iconify all windows of window family together. It must not iconify any single window, primary or secondary, from a window family without also iconifying all the other windows in the window family. The iconic representation of a window family should not change any state in the windows, except the visual representation of the window. The application running inside of a window must continue running even when the application is iconified. The application can adjust its own state when it is iconified.

An icon is made up of an image and a label. The illustration on this reference page shows a typical Motif icon.

The image should be surrounded by a border that indicates when the icon has the keyboard focus. The image area can contain text or a bitmap. The label should be located just below the image and its border. The label can also indicate when the icon has the keyboard focus by highlighting with the image area.

The label should contain the same text as the title area of the corresponding primary window, or an abbreviated form of it. When the icon does not have the keyboard focus, the width of the label must be the same as the width of the image area and its border, truncating text if necessary. When the icon has the keyboard focus, the width of the label can expand to display the entire text.

Clicking BSelect in an icon must give the icon keyboard focus and should post the icon Menu. Navigating to the icon must also give the icon the keyboard focus and should post the icon Menu.

Double-clicking BSelect anywhere in the icon must restore the window family, just as the icon Menu item Restore does. If the window is currently minimized, but its previous state was maximized, double-clicking BSelect returns it to the maximized state. Selecting Maximize from the icon Menu always maximizes the corresponding window. If the window is minimized, Minimize must not be available in the icon Menu; otherwise, selecting it minimizes the window family. Pressing BSelect or BTransfer anywhere in the icon and dragging the mouse pointer must move the icon to track the pointer, just as the icon Menu item Move does.

If the window manager has been customized by the user so that the icon Menu does not pop up when the icon gets the focus, [Escape], , , and BMenu must pop up the icon Menu.

Illustration

Related Information

See Window Manager Design Principles for more information about icons and the window manager.