# CDE Interface (CDEインターフェース)

> The Common Desktop Environment unified UNIX workstations through Motif-derived bevels, a persistent Front Panel, workspace switching and low-color icons, making different hardware feel like one workplace.

- IndexStyle No.580 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/cde-interface
- Kind: Style · Family: Platform Screen Languages · Era: 1993–2000s
- Mood: Technique, Trust, Nostalgia
- What this family collects: Design languages written down for a platform and published, from the vendors that shipped an operating system to the governments that had no reason to hide rules paid for with public money, every one of them recognisable at a glance.

## Defining characteristics

- Box-like Front Panel along the lower edge
- Raised buttons and recessed fields made from paired light and dark borders
- Low-color pixel icons with dark outlines
- Persistent buttons for switching among workspaces

## Best used for

- Shipping one desktop and business application language across UNIX workstations
- Reconstructing a 1990s technical terminal with its operating structure intact

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Use brief system type and labels that remain distinct at small sizes.
- Layout & structure: Layer work windows centrally and keep the Front Panel and workspace switch along the lower edge.
- Material & texture: Place a light top-left edge and dark bottom-right edge on mid-tone surfaces, reversing the bevel only on press.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #B9B7A5
- The colour it is remembered by: #5B7B7A
- Text and outlines: #252422

## What to avoid

Gray bevels alone are not CDE. Front Panel, workspaces and Motif state rules must work as one environment.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Box-like Front Panel along the lower edge
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Raised buttons and recessed fields made from paired light and dark borders
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Low-color pixel icons with dark outlines
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Persistent buttons for switching among workspaces
- [ ] The layout follows: Layer work windows centrally and keep the Front Panel and workspace switch along the lower edge.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Use brief system type and labels that remain distinct at small sizes.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Place a light top-left edge and dark bottom-right edge on mid-tone surfaces, reversing the bevel only on press.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #B9B7A5 as ground, #5B7B7A carrying the style, #252422 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Motif (モチーフ)** — Motif is the interface language of UNIX workstations, maintained by The Open Group, standardized as IEEE 1295 and shipped on more than two hundred platforms. Its own data sheet calls the look a distinctive 3D beveled appearance, meaning every part sits on a gray face edged with one light line and one dark line. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/motif
- **OPEN LOOK (オープンルック)** — A screen language for Unix workstations, specified by Sun Microsystems in a functional specification published by Addison-Wesley in 1989. The book defines two parallel designs, one black and white for monochrome displays and one three dimensional for grayscale and colour, sets a single sans serif variable width face for every common element, and tells implementers that restraint is the key to colour. Each pop-up window carries a pushpin at the left of its header, and pinning it leaves the window on the workspace. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/open-look

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=cde-interface+motif

## Further study

- CDE Style Guide
- Front Panel and workspace switch
- Motif visual hierarchy

## Reference works

- Oracle — Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist — https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/816-0284/index.html

## AI interpretation

An AI-generated interpretation image exists for browsing convenience only — it is not a reference work: https://indexstyle.org/ai/cde-interface.jpg

## Source of record

- Oracle — Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist — https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/816-0284/index.html

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/cde-interface
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/cde-interface/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)