crawford@mprvaxa.UUCP (01/19/87)
An application under development here requires a sophisticated graphics-based user interface. One portion of the system is a moderately complex interactive graphics editor which we are developing in-house due to requirements for a number of application-specific features. The target hardware (initially) includes DEC VAXstation/GPX workstations and Tektronix 4207 terminals connected to VAX 8200's. Where possible, we wish to provide similar capabilities on the terminals as on the workstations. I am very interested in hearing from others with recommendations or tales of triumph/horror regarding construction of sophisticated user interfaces with commercially-available graphics packages in a similar hardware environment. Although performance and ease of operation for the users are more important to us than device-independence, we will be porting the application to other graphics hardware over its 15-year life cycle, and do not wish to become *too* device-specific. By "sophisticated user interface" I mean one which includes some or all of the following: direct manipulation techniques, icons, pop-up menus, scrolling windows, dialogue boxes, configurable to the needs of different users. The application is being developed under VMS, probably using VAX Pascal. We are currently evaluating the following UIMS (User Interface Management Systems) and graphics packages. Any comments on these packages or other suitable commercially-available products we may have missed would be especially welcome. 1. BLOX and TEMPLATE, from Megatek 2. Enter/Act and DI-3000, from Precision Visuals 3. Data Views, from Visual Intelligence 4. M/P/E, from Unicad My impression of packages such as TEMPLATE and DI-3000 is that although they are slightly "out of date" in relation to emerging standards such as GKS and PHIGS, the implementors of TEMPLATE and DI-3000 place a stronger emphasis on optomizing their device drivers to utilize specific hardware capabilities. This results in significant gains in "real world" performance and flexibility, both crucial factors in user interface development. The GKS implementations I have used do *not* adequately address this issue. -- John Crawford Microtel Pacific Research Burnaby, B.C., Canada UUCP: ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!mprvaxa!crawford PHONE: (604) 294-1471 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=