hs@hal.nta.no (H}kon Solbakken FDI) (05/02/91)
Can someone help us to find a graphics toolkit for X-Windows that we can use in our project? We intend to port a graphics DOS-application to UNIX/X/Motif and possibly MS-Windows, but we have problems finding the right toolkits to use. The application is a graphical user interface to IBM mainframes and includes a graphical editor for 2-dimensional object-oriented graphics. In the DOS-version we have used GSS Graphics Development Toolkit (GSS*- GDT), which is an implementation of the graphics standard CGI. In the new version we want to use toolkits as high-level as possible. The toolkits must handle both user interface components, like menus, dialog boxes, icons and buttons, and graphics. We have considered using plain Motif or multi-platform toolkits like Common-View and C++/Views (when Motif-versions are released!) for the user interface components, but we are not sure what will be the best solution. However, the most difficult problem is to find a graphics toolkit. Our demands for the graphics toolkit are as follows: 1. The application should be portable between different UNIX machines, including SUN SPARCstation, Digital DecStation and IBM RS/6000. If possible, it should also be portable to MS-Windows. 2. The graphics toolkit should be device independent and should support a wide range of devices, including Postscript printers and HPGL plotters, in the same way as GSS*GDT. 3. The graphics toolkit should have both raster and vector fonts. 4. We would like to program in C++ and use C++ class libraries if possible. 5. It would be nice if the toolkit could have high-level functions for creating the graphical editor. For example hit detection and incremental screen update. 6. The graphics toolkit should be supported. 7. The graphics toolkit should not require heavy investments by the end-users. There is perhaps no graphics toolkit which satisfies all our demands. We may have to use a low-level toolkit, but we think it should be device independent and support different hardcopy devices. We would therefore like to know if there are any X-Windows implementations of CGI for one of the specified UNIX platforms. We would highly appreciate any advice in this matter. Please reply by direct mail to: hs@hal.nta.no (128.39.1.38). H[kon Solbakken