Direct manipulation is likely to become considerably more important to application designers than it has been in previous releases of OS/2, because of its central role in the object-oriented user interface provided by the Workplace Shell. Even applications that are not implemented as Workplace Shell objects should provide, so far as is practical, a similar style of interface. Direct manipulation forms an essential part of such an interface.
The programming facilities for direct manipulation in OS/2 V2.0 are essentially the same as those introduced in OS/2 Version 1.3, and consist of a set of message classes, functions and data structures, along with defined protocols known as rendering mechanisms, which define standard techniques for using these facilities to pass different types of information between diverse applications, and between user-developed applications and Workplace Shell objects such as printers and the shredder.
User-defined rendering mechanisms may also be defined for specific purposes that are not covered by the standard ones. The OS/2 2.0 Programming Guide Volume II gives guidance on this and on how such rendering mechanisms should be documented.