mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) (12/23/87)
We're considering using the X Window System on a 386-based UNIX Sys V.3 system. We know that X Windows will be availble for Sys V/386, but we now need to know to what extent the user interface is configurable. For example, I watched a grad student (who, admittedly, was not particularly familiar with X) try to demonstrate X to me, and he had a lot of difficulty remember what combination of accelerator keys and mouse buttons were required to resize a window, move it around, etc. This is not a major problem for techies, but it will be a problem for our intended audience. For example, can you tell X to put window-resize gadgets on all windows (without major rewrites?) What kind of support is there for creating buttons, gadgets, resizable scroll bars, etc.? Is there is visual shell like the MS-DOS Executive under Windows (it doesn't need to be icon-based like the Mac, but mouse-based at least). How about text editing? What kind of support for varying fonts? Are there good mouse-based editors available---they don't have to be word processors, just mouse-based editors with a Mac/Windows-like interface. Is it possible to configure an environment easily so it can run without ever requiring command-line interaction (except at boot-up?) This is how we intend to finally package our development environment. -Mitsu Hadeishi Electronic Arts