andy@garnet.berkeley.edu (Andy Lieberman) (05/16/89)
We are planning to write several application programs to be run (initially) on a SUN 3/50. We would like our applications to have a consistent"Look and Feel" and would like them to be consistent with other major X applications from other vendors. I am looking for facts, opinions, and pointers to facts about the various user interfaces. Somewhat more specifically: -- Which of these are actually available now? How would I go about getting them? -- I saw a chart in UnixWorld (Feb. 89) that showed Presentation Manager running on top of HP Widgets on top of Xt Intrinsics. Is this the same as Microsoft's PM for OS/2? Is it the same in X and OS/2 both in terms of look and feel to the user as well as in terms of toolkit calls to the programmer? -- How hard is it to port between these? And how hard would it be to port from Microsoft Windows? Thanks in advance, Andrew Lieberman Library Systems Office UC Berkeley
reha@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Reha Elci) (05/16/89)
In article <24454@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> andy@garnet.berkeley.edu (Andy Lieberman) writes: >-- Which of these are actually available now? How would I go about getting >them? Athena and DECW are being used right now, Motif is kind of there but not officially, I have seen a few copies out there... Why PM? To the best of my knowledge that will not run on the Sun anyhow. Athena is public, DECW you have to buy from DEC and I have no idea what the deal is to get MOTIF right now although a lot of people seem to have it including all source code. > >-- I saw a chart in UnixWorld (Feb. 89) that showed Presentation Manager >running on top of HP Widgets on top of Xt Intrinsics. Is this the same as >Microsoft's PM for OS/2? Is it the same in X and OS/2 both in terms of look >and feel to the user as well as in terms of toolkit calls to the programmer? > Athena, DECW run on X windows. In fact, DECW will be a part of OSF and will be distributed by them in June (last I heard). As far as the look and feel? I think MOTIF is the winner from what I have seen and used; next runner up is DECW which is a tremendous improvement over all the other widget sets and it is commercially supported. I have used all of these and as far as ease of use and functionality goes I would place DECW at the top right now; if you are willing to wait a little MOTIF will offer tremendous advantages as far as portability, look-and-feel and probably functionality. At any rate, I think you should give DECW and MOTIF serious consideration, Athena is pretty primitive compared to either. >-- How hard is it to port between these? And how hard would it be to port from >Microsoft Windows? > > >Thanks in advance, As I said, I programmed using all three that I mentioned and they are pretty different. My guess is that it will not be too easy to port from one to the other. > >Andrew Lieberman >Library Systems Office >UC Berkeley Reha Elci
dbrooks@osf.OSF.ORG (David Brooks) (05/17/89)
In article <1516@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> reha@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Reha Elci) writes: > > Athena and DECW are being used right now, Motif is kind of there but not >officially, I have seen a few copies out there... Why PM? To the best of >my knowledge that will not run on the Sun anyhow. > >Athena is public, DECW you have to buy from DEC and I have no idea what the >deal is to get MOTIF right now although a lot of people seem to have it >including all source code. [...] >As far as the look and feel? I think MOTIF is the winner from what I have seen Thankyou! OSF/Motif combines technologies from HP, DEC and Microsoft. Currently it is available to several dozen source licensees, all of whom are OSF Members, and who are being fed by a process of successive snapshots. We will make Motif generally available in July. Then we will continue to offer source licenses for $1000 (the purpose being for vendors to port it to their equipment), binary licenses (for ISVs) and runtime licenses (for finished products) on a sliding scale, and university site licenses also for $1000. Apollo, DEC, Groupe Bull, HCR, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Interactive, MIPS, Nixdorf, Oracle, SCO, and Siemens have announced various kinds of support. -- David Brooks dbrooks@osf.org Open Software Foundation uunet!osf.org!dbrooks 11 Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142, USA No disclaimer this time!
mlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) (05/18/89)
In comp.windows.x (<886@osf.OSF.ORG>), dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks) writes: >We will make Motif generally available in July. Then we will continue >to offer source licenses for $1000 (the purpose being for vendors to >port it to their equipment), binary licenses (for ISVs) and runtime >licenses (for finished products) on a sliding scale, and university >site licenses also for $1000. Good heavens! OSF, the Saviour of Software, Defender of the Weak from the Evil Giants at Sun and AT&T, who actually want to *charge money* for their window system, deciding to *license* Motif, for *cash*? With *runtime licenses* yet! Next they'll be moving their headquarters to Mountain View! :-) :-) -- Matt Landau Oblivion gallops closer, mlandau@bbn.com favoring the spur, sparing the rein.
ben@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Benjamin Ellsworth) (05/18/89)
> ... Athena, DECW run on X windows. So does MOTIF. > In fact, DECW will be a part of OSF and will be distributed by them > in June (last I heard). Ummmm... Not exactly. OSF's user environment component is MOTIF. MOTIF has a great deal in common with both DECW and the HP's CXI. Perhaps some authority from OSF would be willing to state the official party line? > As far as the look and feel? I think MOTIF is the winner from what I > have seen and used ... That's good to hear. > ...if you are willing to wait a little MOTIF will offer tremendous > advantages as far as portability, look-and-feel and probably > functionality. We think so. >>-- How hard is it to port between these? Transforming between any of them will be hard work. The easiest port should be from DECW to MOTIF. >>And how hard would it be to port from Microsoft Windows? Very hard. The goal of MOTIF was to allow portability of *users* not code. Users of Microsoft Windows and Presentation Manager should have no difficulty using MOTIF applications. Code written for PM will be very difficult to port to MOTIF (and vica-versa). >>Andrew Lieberman >Reha Elci ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Ellsworth | ben@cv.hp.com | INTERNET Hewlett-Packard Company | {backbone}!hplabs!hp-pcd!ben | UUCP 1000 N.E. Circle | (USA) (503) 750-4980 | FAX Corvallis, OR 97330 | (USA) (503) 757-2000 | VOICE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- All relevant disclaimers apply. -----------------------------------------------------------------------