Common Desktop Environment

This document serves as a comprehensive guide for developers designing applications for the DIGITAL UNIX Common Desktop Environment (CDE), ensuring consistency in user interface design and behavior. It extends the X/Open Motif Style Guide, providing CDE-specific additions and requirements for application-level compliance, categorized as Required, Recommended, or Optional.

The document is structured into two main parts:

1. Style Guide: This section details design principles for various aspects of application development. It covers user interaction, including mouse and keyboard navigation, selection models (single, multiple, range, discontiguous), and component activation (e.g., double-click timing, mnemonics for buttons). Visual design guidelines emphasize iconography, color philosophy (a limited 22-color palette, predominantly grays), and the appearance of interface elements across File Manager, Application Manager, Front Panel, and minimized windows. It also provides rules for window and session control, defining primary and secondary window behaviors, decorations, menus, and placement. Further application design principles outline menu structures, toolbar usage, window titles, and work-in-progress feedback. Detailed instructions are given for common dialog boxes such as File Selection, Print, Properties, and About dialogs, along with guidelines for effective application messaging, distinguishing between error, informational, question, warning, and working messages. A significant portion addresses "Designing for Accessibility," offering guidelines for users with physical, visual, hearing, language, and cognitive disabilities, focusing on keyboard access and configurable cues.

2. Certification Checklist: This part provides an itemized list of requirements for self-certifying CDE compliance, mirroring the topics of the Style Guide with explicit pass/fail criteria. It includes detailed specifications for input models, navigation, selection, component activation, window management, application design, and controls, alongside appendices detailing keyboard and mouse function bindings.

The document's overall objective is to enable developers to create applications that integrate seamlessly with the CDE, providing a familiar, efficient, and accessible user experience across diverse UNIX environments.