The X11 implementation available in The Ports Collection is X.Org. If your application depends on X components, set USE_XORG to the list of required components. Available components, at the time of writing, are:

bigreqsproto compositeproto damageproto dmx dmxproto dri2proto evieproto fixesproto fontcacheproto fontenc fontsproto fontutil glproto ice inputproto kbproto libfs oldx pciaccess pixman printproto randrproto recordproto renderproto resourceproto scrnsaverproto sm trapproto videoproto x11 xau xaw xaw6 xaw7 xbitmaps xcmiscproto xcomposite xcursor xdamage xdmcp xevie xext xextproto xf86bigfontproto xf86dgaproto xf86driproto xf86miscproto xf86rushproto xf86vidmodeproto xfixes xfont xfontcache xft xi xinerama xineramaproto xkbfile xkbui xmu xmuu xorg-server xp xpm xprintapputil xprintutil xproto xproxymngproto xrandr xrender xres xscrnsaver xt xtrans xtrap xtst xv xvmc xxf86dga xxf86misc xxf86vm.

Always up-to-date list can be found in /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.xorg.mk.

The Mesa Project is an effort to provide free OpenGL implementation. You can specify a dependency on various components of this project with USE_GL variable. Valid options are: glut, glu, glw, glew, gl and linux. For backwards compatibility, the value of yes maps to glu.

If your port requires a Motif library, define USES= motif in the Makefile. Default Motif implementation is x11-toolkits/open-motif. Users can choose x11-toolkits/lesstif instead by setting WANT_LESSTIF variable.

The MOTIFLIB variable will be set by bsd.port.mk to reference the appropriate Motif library. Please patch the source of your port to use ${MOTIFLIB} wherever the Motif library is referenced in the original Makefile or Imakefile.

There are two common cases:

Note that MOTIFLIB (usually) expands to -L/usr/local/lib -lXm or /usr/local/lib/libXm.a, so there is no need to add -L or -l in front.

If your port installs fonts for the X Window System, put them in LOCALBASE/lib/X11/fonts/local.

Some applications require a working X11 display for compilation to succeed. This pose a problem for machines that operate headless. When the following variable is used, the build infrastructure will start the virtual framebuffer X server. The working DISPLAY is then passed to the build.

Desktop entries (a Freedesktop standard) provide a way to automatically adjust desktop features when a new program is installed, without requiring user intervention. For example, newly-installed programs automatically appear in the application menus of compatible desktop environments. Desktop entries originated in the GNOME desktop environment, but are now a standard and also work with KDE and Xfce. This bit of automation provides a real benefit to the user, and desktop entries are encouraged for applications which can be used in a desktop environment.