Before you can start to learn Motif, there are several prerequisites that must be met. You must know Unix and C first, and it doesn't hurt if you have a lot of experience with Unix system calls. In fact, it doesn't hurt if you are an expert in all three topics, because X uses it all. Obviously you will also need to know general Unix programming tools, like cc and make and dbx. So if you don't know any of these topics, go learn them and come back later.
The next thing you need to have is some books. You absolutely cannot program X and Motif without having two or three books by your side. And they are all incredibly expensive. Here are some suggestions, and you will have to go look and decide which ones you prefer. If you have the option to borrow them from someone before you buy, do that. Wait until the second or third tutorial before you invest.
The X Window System (OSF/MOTIF EDITION) $45
by D. A. Young
Make sure you get the right edition. This book contains
a ton of example code. If you can only afford one book,
then this is a good one.
From Prentice Hall.
Motif Programmer's Reference Manual $??
by the Open Software Foundation
An essential Motif reference book. Explains all widgets
and their resources. Young's book contains some of this
in the appendix, but this book explains it all.
From Prentice Hall
X Window System - C library and Protocol Reference $55
by Scheifler, Gettys and Newman
All X window calls are documented and explained. Good
if you are having to get down to the X level. A lot of
this stuff can be gotten from on-line man pages.
From Digital Press.
X and Motif Quick Reference Guide $??
by Randi J. Rost.
Contains summaries of all calls into X, Xt and Motif
libraries, plus other random info.
For X11 Release 4 and Motif 1.1
From Digital Press.
Man Pages, Section 3 Free
Start up Xman and look in section 3. All of the X
and Xt procedures we use have man pages. [system
dependent - you may or may not have them on your
system, or they may be in a different place.]
comp.windows.x.motif Free
This newsgroup deals in Motif questions and answers.
Get on the news reader and check it out.
Don't flood it with a lot of super-basic questions,
just watch and learn.
Another thing that is nice to have when starting to learn Motif is a guru. If you can find someone on your system who has already cut his/her teeth on Motif, you will be doing yourself a favor if you can strike up some kind of question-answering deal with that person. There are some things, most notably a fairly large number of bugs in the Motif libraries, that make no sense, no matter how hard you work with them. A knowledgable (and preferrably sympathetic and kind) person who can answer a few questions in these times of need is worth his/her weight in Unix manuals (which often cost more that their equivilent weight in gold, I have found!). I would like to take a moment here to publicly thank my two unfortunate friends, Dr. Jon Mauney, and Eric Scott, who have helped me in my critical times of need while learning Motif, and who have put up with hundreds of questions more trivial than you can imagine.
Finally, you need an account on a machine that supports Xwindows and Motif, and that has the libraries available. I'm going to assume that you are working on the Eos workstations in this tutorial (on any other machine, you will have to change the lines used for compilation to reach that system's libraries correctly, but everything else should be the same. Your guru can be very helpful finding libraries and include files if your system is not quite standard).
Armed with equipment, software, books and knowledge, you are now ready to enter the pit.