It consists of a source bitmap, a shape bitmap, a hotspot or location representing the actual pointer position, and two colors. A graphics context or GC is a collection of attributes that determine how any given graphics operation affects a drawable. Each graphics operation on a drawable is executed using a given GC specified by the client. Some attributes of a GC are the foreground pixel, background pixel, line width, and clipping region. A property is a named data structure associated with a window.
Clients often use properties to communicate with each other.
Each client opens a connection to one or more servers. Clients and servers interact by means of requests, replies, errors, and events. A client sends a request to the server asking it to take some action, such as creating a window or drawing a line into a pixmap. Some requests, such as requests for information, cause the server to generate replies to the client. A request that results in an error condition may cause the server to generate an error report to the client.