motif

(mō-tēf')

1. 1. A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work.
   2. A dominant theme or central idea.
2. Music. A short rhythmic or melodic passage that is repeated or evoked in various parts of a composition.
3. A repeated figure or design in architecture or decoration. See synonyms at figure.

[French, from Old French, motive. See motive.]

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noun

An element or a component in a decorative composition: design, device, figure, motive, pattern. See part/whole.

. A short musical idea, melodic, harmonic or rhythmic, or all three. It may be of any size but is generally regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that maintains its identity. See also Leitmotif.

motif [moh‐teef], a situation, incident, idea, image, or character‐type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or myths; or any element of a work that is elaborated into a more general theme. The fever that purges away a character's false identity is a recurrent motif in Victorian fiction; and in European lyric poetry the ubi sunt motif and the carpe diem motif are commonly found. Where an image, incident, or other element is repeated significantly within a single work, it is more commonly referred to as a leitmotif. See also archetype, stock character, topos.

A principal repeated element in an ornamental design.

In literature, art, or music, a recurring set of words, shapes, colors, or notes. In the poem “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe, for example, the word nevermore is a motif appearing at the end of each stanza. Likewise, the first four notes of the Fifth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven are a motif that is developed and reshaped throughout the work.

Tutor's tip: The red and purple flower "motif" (a figure in a design) of the wallpaper was his "motive" (the inner drive that causes one to act) for moving out of the house.

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1. (in relation to protein structure) a locally ordered region within the core of a protein molecule, formed by 3-D interaction between two or three segments of the secondary structure (α-helix and/or β-strand) that are near one another along the polypeptide chain. The most important types are: (αα), (αβ), (βββ), and (βαβ). See also domain.
2. (in relation to protein sequences or sequence alignments) a contiguous, conserved region, typically 10 — 20 amino acids in length, usually denoting a key structural or functional unit within a protein, or group of proteins, and often used to diagnose related sequences using pattern-recognition methods (such as fingerprinting). Alternative name block.

For proteins a three-dimensional structural unit formed by a particular sequence of amino acids, found in proteins and which is often linked with a particular function. For nucleic acids a particular, usually short, nucleotide sequence that forms a recognition site usually to which other proteins bind.

• structural m's — in proteins, certain specific orderings of secondary structure that may have a functional role and include β-α-β helix-turn-helix, leucine zippers, calcium binding EF hands, zinc fingers and longer orderings that take on a structural domain such as the β-barrel and the immunoglobulin fold.

• Devices, Techniques, and Elements - motif: recurring thematic element, esp. one dominant idea
• Harmony, Melody, and Structure - motif: recurring subject, theme, or idea; motive
• Myths, Legends, and Fables - motif: recurrent theme in myth or legend

This section requires expansion with: initial release date, more history, changes, etc..

Motif

Stable release	2.3.3 / March 19, 2010; 21 months ago (2010-03-19)
Type	Widget toolkit
Website	www.openmotif.org

Xt and related libraries

In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface (GUI) specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. It emerged in the 1980s as Unix workstations were on the rise, as a competitor to the OPEN LOOK GUI. It is now the basic building block of the Common Desktop Environment.

The IEEE 1295 standard (now withdrawn^[1]) defines the Motif API.^[2] As of version 2.1 Motif supports Unicode, which has made it widely used in several multilingual environments.

The Motif look and feel is distinguished by its use of square, chiseled, three-dimensional effects for its various user interface elements — menus, buttons, sliders, text boxes, and the like. Motif's operation was designed to correspond closely with the then-familiar Microsoft Windows and OS/2's Presentation Manager interfaces, and Microsoft played a key role in designing the original style guide.

Motif was created by the Open Software Foundation (and was sometimes even called OSF/Motif), which has now been subsumed by The Open Group.

There are a few implementations of the Motif API. Motif the toolkit is the first. There is also Open Motif which is a release of the "original" Motif under more liberal licensing terms. Finally, the LessTif project aims to implement the API under the LGPL license.

See also

• Motif Window Manager
• MoOLIT
• FLTK and EDE
• GTK+ and GNOME
• Qt and KDE
• 4Dwm
• IBM Common User Access

References

1. ^ "1295-1993 - IEEE Standard for Information Technology--X Window System--Modular Toolkit Environment (MTE)". IEEE Computer Society. http://standards.ieee.org/findstds/standard/1295-1993.html. Retrieved 2012-01-23. 
2. ^ http://www.opengroup.org/motif/

External links

• Motif homepage at Open Group
• Open Motif project page
• The Motif FAQ (Kenton Lee)
• Motif: Volumes 6A and 6B (O'Reilly and Associates, free PDF downloads)]
• Motif for OpenVMS

v d e Standards of The Open Group ARM CDE CLI CMPI DCE DRDA LDAP Motif SUS (POSIX) X11

v d e List of widget toolkits Low-level Macintosh Toolbox/Carbon Windows API Intrinsics Intuition Xlib High-level On Amiga OS BOOPSI Magic User Interface Zune ReAction GUI On Mac OS and Mac OS X Cocoa MacApp MacZoop PowerPlant On Windows Microsoft Foundation Class Library Windows Template Library SmartWin++ Object Windows Library Visual Component Library Windows Forms Windows Presentation Foundation Silverlight On Unix, under X11 Athena/Xaw Motif LessTif InterViews Cross-platform, by language Flash Adobe Flex XML Ample SDK CougarXML GladeXML Lively Kernel Pyjamas Rialto Toolkit XAML XML User Interface XUL Wt Java desktop Abstract Window Toolkit Swing Standard Widget Toolkit Qt Jambi web Google Web Toolkit CLI Gtk# Moonlight Tao C or C++ CEGUI Component Library for Cross Platform FLTK FOX toolkit OpenGL User Interface Library GTK+ Juce Qt Wt Tk TnFOX Visual Component Framework wxWidgets YAAF XForms XVT Ultimate++ Common Lisp CAPI Common Graphics CLIM McCLIM Ltk Object Pascal Component Library for Cross Platform IP Pascal Lazarus fpGUI Perl WxPerl Python Pyjamas PyQt PyGTK wxPython PySide Tkinter Ruby QtRuby Objective-C GNUstep PHP PHP-GTK PHP-Qt JavaScript Dojo Toolkit Echo jQuery UI ExtJS YUI Google Closure

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - motiv (kunst/litt.)

Nederlands (Dutch)
motief, grondthema, kantgarnering

Français (French)
n. - motif, thème

Deutsch (German)
n. - Motiv, Applikation

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (μουσ., μτφ.) μοτίβο, θέμα, μοτίφ

Italiano (Italian)
motivo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - motivo (m)

Русский (Russian)
лейтмотив

Español (Spanish)
n. - motivo, adorno, tema

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - motiv, garnering

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
主题, 动机, 意念

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 主題, 動機, 意念

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 동기, 주제, 원인

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 主題, 動機, 刺激, 基調

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) فكرة عامه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮נושא, רעיון, תנע, מוטיב‬

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