crom@cuuxb.ATT.COM (Jack Dixon) (06/10/89)
We're depressed. After spending much time deciding upon a user interface
for our project and finally deciding to use X with an OPENLOOK look and feel
we find much to our chagrin that there are two implementation's of OPENLOOK
toolkits -- Sun's and AT&T's. AT&T's is done using xt and widgets while
Sun's (I think) is set up so that the programming is similar to programming
in suntools. (I've seen AT&T's toolkit, but not Sun's so if I'm wrong please
correct me.) Anyway, we'd like for our product to be as portable as possible
so we'd appreciate any opinions on which toolkit to use. We'll be developing
on Suns and 6386s.
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Jack Dixon, AT&T
{ ...!att!dopsa!jcd, jcd@dopsa.att.com }fischer@arisia.Xerox.COM (Ronald A. Fischer) (06/11/89)
If your goal is portability you need to answer "Across which platforms?" If you are planning to port to OS-2/PM, Windows and Macs as well as UNIX/X you might consider the toolkit veneer being offered by some company out here in San Jose (I believe, will followup with their name). It costs about $595 and allows portability across those platforms. If UNIX is your only concern you may want to go ahead and use the Sun OPEN LOOK toolkit. It is implemented in a rather nice object oriented fashion (as a C style, not in a special language) with a small set of operations like "create," "destroy," "get/set property," etc. Previous comment on this list indicated it was less buggy than the AT&T one (Sun's is NOT based on Xt) The Sun OPEN LOOK toolkit will be part of the next X distribution (read: "free source code"). It has been claimed that it will show up on the MIT X system ftp server "real soon now." IMHO, given this kind of distribution and portability I think that OPEN LOOK may become quite popular very quickly. (ron)
emike@richsun.UUCP (E. Mike Durbin) (06/14/89)
------------------- First, Hi Jack! Second, OPENLOOK is not an implementation, but only a well defined "look and feel". This is different than DECwindows, HP's New Wave, Apollo's Open Dialog, etc., which are IMPLEMENTATIONs that provide the companies "look and feel". Therefore, OPENLOOK's "look and feel" can be provided by MANY implementations. Sun's Xview and AT&T XT+ were two known implementations from the start. I haven't used either, but I have programmed in SunView (Xview provides almost the same programmer's interface) and with the Athena toolkit (XT) which is widget (and Intrinsics) based. There are advantages to a functional interface, as provided by Xview (memory requirements, existing software, etc.). There are also advantages to widgets, e.g. XT+ (object-oriented benifits, extendable, etc.). I prefer widgets, but you have to judge based on you applications. I expect that both will be portable. Sun will donate an Xview library to the X consortium, and I must believe that AT&T will do the same with XT+ (if they don't, you should seriously concider something else, like MOTIF, if there is ever a public implementation). We can talk offline if you want more info. E. Mike Durbin Manager - X Workstation Development Rich - A Reuter Company.
news@sq.sq.com (06/14/89)
>We're depressed. After spending much time deciding upon a user interface >for our project and finally deciding to use X with an OPENLOOK look and feel >we find much to our chagrin that there are two implementation's of OPENLOOK >toolkits -- Sun's and AT&T's... On the contrary, we are pleased. For the first time there are toolkits that support a variety of (well, two) quite different programming paradigms, and that will together allow the conversion of large numbers of existing programs (both Xt-based and SunView-based) to use THE EXACT SAME (they say) USER INTERFACE. How could anybody get depressed by THAT? The users win because of consistency, and vendors who have used either type of toolkit win because one of these two toolkits will let them run with OPENLOOK. As for which toolkit to choose, well, it depends on a variety of factors. You mention portability: well, Sun has stated openly that the source for their XView toolkit will be donated (royalty-free) to the X Consortium for XV11R4, so if you're willing to do the work, you can take that toolkit with you to *any* working XV11 machine that you want to port your application on. Does this help you decide? Ian Darwin SoftQuad Inc.