Ada Interfaces to the X Window System

Abstract : The user interface is the component of the application through which the user's actions are translated unto one or more requests for services of the the applications, and that provides feedback concerning the outcome of the requested actions. Because of the importance of this interaction, the design of efficient and easy to use user interfaces is receiving increased attention. Most people now realize that if an application has a user interface that is unfriendly or difficult to use, it is probably going to sit on the shelf unused. Also, user interfaces using some type of windowing system are fast becoming a common feature of most computer systems. As a result, user tend to expect all application programs to have a professional, polished user friendly interface. Unfortunately, the Ada language has only rudimentary input and output (I/O) capabilities. As such, user interface programmers using Ada had to develop some other methods for anything except simple line or character input/output. This is not the case, however, for some other programming languages. The introduction of the X Window System in the mid 1980's changed the way user interfaces were developed in the language C. The X Window System, or X, is a collection (library) of subroutines that allows for the creation and manipulation of graphical user interfaces using multiple windows. These subroutines provide the mechanism to achieve the goals previously discussed.