Overview of the Graphical Environment

Customizing the Graphical Environment

Customizing the Graphical Environment requires that you modify the behavior of one or more of the X clients that work together to create the environment you see when you run the system. As a user, you probably think of the Graphical Environment as a single program, but to customize the environment you must remember that the Graphical Environment is comprised of several different programs, each of which control different aspects of the Graphical Environment's functionality.

The following three major components of the Graphical Environment can be customized:

X resources:
These resources are data that define appearance and behavior of X clients. These data include definitions for window size, window color, fonts, and so forth. X resources are specified on a client basis, although they can be defined to apply to all clients.
Because the window manager client manages every client window that runs under the graphical environment, it has an especially large number of resources that you can specify. The Desktop client also has a large number of resources that you can configure.
SCO Panner window manager characteristics:
In addition to the window manager resources mentioned above, you can customize characteristics such as menus and button actions on windows.
Desktop characteristics:
In addition to the Desktop resources mentioned above, you can configure Desktop-specific features such as icon behavior, menu content, and mouse actions used on the Desktop. These characteristics are defined in ``rule files'' that may apply to one directory, one user, or the entire system.