jea@merlin.cvs.rochester.edu (Joanne Albano) (09/14/89)
I second this idea of standardizing on MOTIF-type widget library.
I would just love to be able to speak the same graphics at home
and at work.
For those who dont know.. the OSF (Open Software Foundation)
has chosen MOTIF as the standard widget library. This means that
some time in the future SUNS will use MOTIF as well as many
other flavors of computers
( ...All that is except Macintosh of course).
Lets all say MOTIF loudly, maybe someone will hear.
Joanne Albano, Center for Visual Science (716) 275-3055
Room 256 Meliora Hall, Univ. of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627
UUCP: {rutgers,allegra,decvax}!rochester!ur-cvsvax!jea
INTERNET: jea@snipe.cvs.rochester.edupds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) (09/20/89)
In article <3014@ur-cc.UUCP> jea@cvs.rochester.edu (Joanne Albano) writes: >I second this idea of standardizing on MOTIF-type widget library. By this, do you a MOTIF-type user interface, or programmer interface? The 3-D look of Motif is nice. MandelVroom uses it, and looks really nice. Sure, I'd like a standard library of widgets that looked like this. But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. It'd be nice to write applications at home on my Amiga, and run them at work under X, but I don't think it's worth the price. The Amiga's libraries are lean, clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is built, is not. -- -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ...!sun!quintus!pds
ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (09/21/89)
Reguarding MOTIF -- the idea is *NOT* to create a MOTIF library (X Wnodws and all) to run on the AMiga. The idea is to create a MOTIF-CALL-COMPATIBLE library that acts as a shell to the NORMAL, i.e. intuition, interface. This would allow programmers to develop programs that run "lean and mean" on the Amiga. And then by simply re-compiling on a new target machine -- voila! Your Amiga program runs on a thousand other platforms. Of course, this would disallow nuanced and tighlty controlled interaction with the Amiga. But the idea that C= is pushing is to create a *standard* Amiga USER interface with a standard Amiga PROGRAMMERS' interface. So why not "coincidently" make that programmers interface compatible (or at least a subset of) the MOTIF programmers interface. This compatablility doesn't even necessarily specify what the USER interfae will look and feel like. A case in point is that the MOTIF programmers' interface originated with DEC Windows. But under MOTIF, the *same* programmers interface drives an HP-NewWave-Microsoft-Windows-Presentation-Manager USER interface. So the question is: can the MOTIF programmers' interface drive a native Amiga -- Intuition -- interface. I don't know how easy it would be, but a nice THIN motif.library layer that rested on top of intuition would be great! Chris Cobb
karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (09/22/89)
In article <1256@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. It'd be nice >to write applications at home on my Amiga, and run them at work under X, >but I don't think it's worth the price. The Amiga's libraries are lean, >clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is built, is not. Agreed. The Amiga programming environment for windows is superior. We probably need 3D icons, though. They're easy to do and, though useless other than as visual spam, have caught on pretty well.
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (09/22/89)
In article <4187@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >In article <1256@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >>But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. It'd be nice >>to write applications at home on my Amiga, and run them at work under X, >>but I don't think it's worth the price. The Amiga's libraries are lean, >>clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is built, is not. How do you know? Have you tried it? I use both the Amiga interface and Motif on IBM workstations and haven't found that much of a difference in speed or "cleanliness" of the libraries. I wish I had something like the X Toolkit and a "uniform" user interface on the Amiga so that I would not have to learn a new interface for every Amiga program I use. As I understand this "problem" has been recognized, an will be addressed (though probably not in 1.4). >Agreed. The Amiga programming environment for windows is superior. Oh, yea? Again, on the basis on what? >We probably need 3D icons, though. They're easy to do and, though useless >other than as visual spam, have caught on pretty well. Motif does not support only 3-D icons, but 3-D widgets and gadgets as well. NeXT's NextStep does this as well. Having used both, I can tell you that life (and not only appearance) can be nicer when 'things' look like they really are. Before you bash something, get the facts. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (09/23/89)
In article <20034@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >Oh, yea? Again, on the basis on what? >Before you bash something, get the facts. I've looked into it, you butt. It's based on X, right? So, fast on what, and with how much RAM? Are they faking some GIMMEZEROZERO equivalent with a library, or does everyone handle their own refresh, or did they actually fix it? -- -- uunet!sugar!karl "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that -- flags do not wave in a vacuum." -- Arthur C. Clarke -- Usenet access: (713) 438-5018
pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) (09/30/89)
In article <20034@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >>In article <1256@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >>>But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. The Amiga's >>>libraries are lean, clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is >>>built, is not. >How do you know? Have you tried it? Yes. I was careful to specify Xtk, and not Motif, in my criticism. I don't know much about Motif, but I worked closely with Xtk long enough to recognize a kludge. It is extremely complicated, and huge. For example, xclock, by no means a full-featured clock program, is 278528 bytes compiled for a sun3. Programming with Xtk is not particularly easy, and writing widgets is downright painful (I haven't done it, but I've looked at the code for a few "simple" widgets). As for performance, what hardware are you using? Xtk takes the rather bizzare step of making each widget its own window. This means when you create a dialog with 10 buttons in it, you are creating at least 11 windows. Yes, I know Motif has what it calls gadgets, which don't have associated windows, but I understand they are not "mouseable," so can't be used for buttons. >I wish I had something like the >X Toolkit and a "uniform" user interface on the Amiga so that I would not >have to learn a new interface for every Amiga program I use. It would be nice to have a "standard" interface sometimes, though it does tend to preclude innovation in interfaces. When did you last see a pie menu on a Mac? A more interesting question to me is portability. I'd like to be able to write applications that run on my Amiga at home and my Sun at work. But I don't think Motif is a good way to achieve that, for all the reasons I've mentioned, and some I haven't. -- -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ...!sun!quintus!pds
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (09/30/89)
In article <1261@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >In article <20034@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >>>In article <1256@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >>>>But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. The Amiga's ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>>>libraries are lean, clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is >>>>built, is not. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You seem to be confused. What yuo call the X Toolkit is actually the "Athena Widget Set". Motif is NOT built on top of the X Toolkit, but on the X Intrinsics, the lowest common interface to all toolkits (Motif, Andrew, HP, ATT OpenLook, etc...). >>How do you know? Have you tried it? >Yes. I was careful to specify Xtk, and not Motif, in my criticism. Ho yea, reread the first sentence above then for your enlightnment :-) >I don't know much about Motif, That shows ... :-) >but I worked closely with Xtk long enough ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >to recognize a kludge. It is extremely complicated, and huge. For >example, xclock, by no means a full-featured clock program, is 278528 >bytes compiled for a sun3. Ever heard of virtual memory? For UNIX that doesn't really matter. >Programming with Xtk is not particularly >easy, and writing widgets is downright painful (I haven't done it, but ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You've "worked closely with Xtk", but you "haven't done it [writing widgets]"? >I've looked at the code for a few "simple" widgets). Figures. You've never DONE it, but you go around telling people that it sure must be diffucult. Maybe you're just a bad programmer :-) >As for performance, what hardware are you using? Xtk takes the rather >bizzare step of making each widget its own window. This means when you >create a dialog with 10 buttons in it, you are creating at least 11 >windows. Yes, I know Motif has what it calls gadgets, which don't have >associated windows, but I understand they are not "mouseable," so can't >be used for buttons. I am using Suns. MicroVaxes and IBM workstations. BUT, I have seen first glance Dale Luck's implementation of X running on an Amiga. Toolkit programs run just fine as far as performance is concerned. In fact, Dale used to demo his system by running the programs on the Sun and displaying the output with the Amiga X server. He has since converted to "native X" development also on the Amiga. Also Dale is said to be working on an Amiga shared X library, which will solve the program size on a non-virtual memory machine like the Amiga. >It would be nice to have a "standard" interface sometimes, though it >does tend to preclude innovation in interfaces. When did you last see a >pie menu on a Mac? I haven't seen any "innovation" in interfaces as far as Amiga programs are concerned. I've only seen a miriad of different user interfaces: each program has its own. Fortunately, Mr. Copperman, the new Commodore President, seems to have understood my argument. >A more interesting question to me is portability. I'd like to be able >to write applications that run on my Amiga at home and my Sun at work. >But I don't think Motif is a good way to achieve that, for all the >reasons I've mentioned, and some I haven't. And there is where you show lack of imformation. You can forget about "portability" of AmigaDOS/Intuition programs to a Sun or such workstation. You can have X on the Amiga, Sun, IBM, Mac, etc... TODAY and run the same application on the Amiga at home and on your Sun at work. As far as Motif is concerned, binary licenses are only $40, and in most cases vendors will bundle it with their X software or hardware platform. Take a second look, buddy. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
riley@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Daniel S. Riley) (09/30/89)
In article <20214@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >In article <1261@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >>In article <20034@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >>>>In article <1256@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: Peter, Marco, if you want to continue this argument, *please* use email. You're not even talking about the amiga anymore, and I doubt comp.windows.x would be very amused by this discussion. I should just shut up here, but instead I'm going to add one small substantive comment: >>>>>But I don't think you want a Motif programmer interface. The Amiga's > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>>>>libraries are lean, clean, and fast. The X toolkit, on which Motif is >>>>>built, is not. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >You seem to be confused. What yuo call the X Toolkit is actually the "Athena >Widget Set". Motif is NOT built on top of the X Toolkit, but on the >X Intrinsics, the lowest common interface to all toolkits (Motif, Andrew, >HP, ATT OpenLook, etc...). Just to straighten out one point here--the X Toolkit and the Athena Widget set are *not* the same thing. The X Toolkit (Xt) is officially a required part of X11, and is used by many of the widget sets that are layered on top of X (well, many of the widget sets that have been written since Xt was formally adopted). Xt is not small, and excessive use of virtual memory is a big drain on system resources. xclock, the example that was used later in the article I'm quoting, uses the Athena Clock widget, managed by the Xt intrinsics. It's not clear to me whether Peter was actually complaining about the Athena widgets or the Xt intrinsics. -Dan Riley (riley@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu, cornell!batcomputer!riley) -Wilson Lab, Cornell U.
tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.edu (Tim Desjardins) (10/01/89)
In article <20214@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >You seem to be confused. What yuo call the X Toolkit is actually the "Athena >Widget Set". Motif is NOT built on top of the X Toolkit, but on the ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ >X Intrinsics, the lowest common interface to all toolkits (Motif, Andrew, ^^^^^^^^^^^^ >HP, ATT OpenLook, etc...). There seems to be a little confusion here, according to the HP widget manual and the Jan. 1989 MIT X Conference, Xt is referred to as the X Toolkit Intrinsics, which all widget sets are written on top of. So you're both right! If I may add my own .02, X can be a pig, but if you take the time to fine tune your stuff reasonable performance is not unheard of. I've used X, HP widgets and Athena Widgets on Sun 3/50's and Mac IIx's under AUX, and I would rather use X than nothing at all, mainly because of it's portability. Have a nice day. Tim Desjardins. tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.{edu|cdn} Have a nice day. Tim Desjardins. tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.{edu|cdn}
bader+@andrew.cmu.edu (Miles Bader) (10/01/89)
tdesjardins@spurge.waterloo.edu (Tim Desjardins) writes: > ... and I would rather use X than nothing at all, mainly because of it's > portability. X may be portable, but surely not more portable than nothing at all! -Miles
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (10/01/89)
BTW, at today's PAX meeting at Silent Software HQ I saw pictures of Motif running on Dale Luck's X Window System for the Amiga. They were in color and looked great. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) (10/04/89)
I'll keep this to Amiga-relevant stuff: In article <20214@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >In article <1261@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >>[The X toolkit] is extremely complicated, and huge. For >>example, xclock, by no means a full-featured clock program, is 278528 >>bytes compiled for a sun3. > >Ever heard of virtual memory? For UNIX that doesn't really matter. On the Amiga it does. The original poster was suggesting that Motif be the basis for a standard Amiga interface. If it only works on 2500s under Eunuchs, that doesn't make it much of a standard. >Dale is said to be working on an Amiga >shared X library, which will solve the program size on a non-virtual memory >machine like the Amiga. I wonder how big an Xlib.library + Xtk.library + Motif.library would be? Or would there be a separate library for each Motif widget class? At any rate, the link libraries compiled for a sun3 are quite large. libX11.a (the Xlib library) is 199K and libXt.a is 179K. And no, this doesn't have anything to do with the athena widgets (that's libXaw.a and libXmu.a, another 137K + 25K; Motif is likely to be bigger). My point is simply that X won't be a base-level home computer system anytime soon, due to memory considerations. >You can have X on the Amiga, Sun, IBM, Mac, etc... TODAY and run the same >application on the Amiga at home and on your Sun at work. So why do you need to make Motif a standard Amiga interface? There is an attempt to build a portable windowing interface called STDWIN. That's about all I know about it. Does anyone know if there are Amiga and X interfaces for it? If so, this might be a reasonable approach to writing applications that work under both X and Intuition. -- -Peter Schachte pds@quintus.uucp ...!sun!quintus!pds
karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (10/07/89)
In article <1266@quintus.UUCP> pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte) writes: >There is an attempt to build a portable windowing interface called >STDWIN. That's about all I know about it. Does anyone know if there >are Amiga and X interfaces for it? If so, this might be a reasonable >approach to writing applications that work under both X and Intuition. One crummy thing about stdwin, programs under it have to know how to redraw their windows. ...last time I had a look, several months ago, they didn't have Amiga support. It didn't look supremely difficult to port; I imagine somebody's done it by now. -- -- uunet!sugar!karl "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that -- flags do not wave in a vacuum." -- Arthur C. Clarke -- Usenet access: (713) 438-5018