ajcd@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Angus Duggan) (09/20/89)
I've just been reading some articles in this newsgroup which seem to imply that the Sun X11/NeWS merge has been released. Is this true? I've been looking for info on it for a while, but haven't seen anything authoratative. Can someone from Sun comment, please? Thanks, Angus -- Angus Duggan, Department of Computer Science, | <This space for hire> University of Edinburgh, JCMB, | USENET: ajcd@lfcs.ed.ac.uk The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, | JANET: ajcd@uk.ac.ed.lfcs Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, Scotland. | OR: ajcd%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden) (09/22/89)
In article <445@castle.ed.ac.uk>, ajcd@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Angus Duggan) writes: > I've just been reading some articles in this newsgroup which seem to imply that > the Sun X11/NeWS merge has been released. Is this true? I've been looking for > info on it for a while, but haven't seen anything authoratative. Can someone > from Sun comment, please? > > Thanks, > Angus Me too. Actually, I am now utterly confused as to what Sun's window strategy architecture is/will be. Does the OpenLook GUI sit on top of an X11/News server? Where does SunView fit (below, above, beside)? Can I still pixrect? Will Motif operate on top of this combined thingy? Does it perform well on anything less than a SPARC? Will the X11 implementation support remote X11 clients (e.g., peecees)? How is it all organized? How fat is it? Is this all supported on all Suns? What should I read??? -scott -- Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc. scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive (508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (09/24/89)
>Does the OpenLook GUI sit on top of an X11/News server? It can. Three implementations of OPEN LOOK toolkits either exist or are under development, that I know of. Two run atop X11, and thus can presumably run atop X11/NeWS, as well as vanilla X11 - AT&T's "XT+" or whatever it's called, which is a set of X Toolkit widgets, and Sun's XView, which has a SunView-like programmatic interface (or, to use the official TLA for those, API). One runs atop NeWS, or possibly only atop the flavor of NeWS implemented in X11/NeWS (I don't know if it runs atop earlier implementations) - Sun's NDE. XView should appear in source form in X11R4 - an alpha version has already been made generally available in source form. I can't speak for the availability of the others, either in source or binary form. There also appear to be three OPEN LOOK window managers in existence or under development, as I remember - one X11-only one done by AT&T, one X11-only one done by Sun which will be available in X11R4 in source form (and which is also available in source form along with XView), and one that is NeWS PostScript(R)-or-whatever-Adobe's-lawyers-would-insist-on- calling-it-given-that-it's-not-based-on-their-implementation running in the server which can presumably manage both X11 and NeWS windows. >Where does SunView fit (below, above, beside)? SunView programs can, I think, share the screen, keyboard, and mouse with the X11/NeWS server; I think the server looks to them like a replacement for the "sunview" program - i.e., manager of the root window. This is a SunOS-specific hack for binary compatibility. The intent, as far as I know, is to replace the SunView tookit with the XView toolkit, which runs atop X11 and should thus be more portable. >Can I still pixrect? If that means "can I still bang on the raw frame buffer", you can still do so to the extent that SunView programs can do so, but you probably don't want to, in general, unless you don't want to have your program run on anything other that Suns. If that means "what do I do about programs that use e.g. memory pixrects", I'll quote a message from one of the XView developers, posted to "comp.windows.x": XView itself does not support operations on memory pixrects, though you can use the Sun pixrect library in conjunction with XView. However, this construct is not portable, since only Suns have the pixrect library. If you're concerned with portability, I would suggest using server images instead of memory pixrects. >Will Motif operate on top of this combined thingy? Ultimately, I presume it will; I suspect the main problems would have to do with the version of X11 upon which the X11 part is based - R2, R3, or whatever. I would expect it to ultimately match R4, but if it currently isn't R3-compatible in ways that break Motif, it may have problems; I have no idea whether it is sufficently R3-compatible to support Motif or not. >Does it perform well on anything less than a SPARC? I've heard claims from Sun people that it is in some ways faster than the MIT server; I assume they're referring to bit-bashing speed. "Well" depends on the observer, ultimately; SunView runs on my 4MB 3/50 fast enough that I consider it usable, but I liked it better on a 32MB 4/280.... >Will the X11 implementation support remote X11 clients (e.g., peecees)? -I've got a slug. -Can it talk? -No. -Well, then it's hardly a proper replacement, then! --M. Python's Flying Circus, Dead Parrot sketch If an X11 implementation doesn't support remote clients on a system that supports the appropriate network connection, I'd hardly consider it a proper X11 implementation. As far as I know, the X11/NeWS X11 implementation supports them the same way any other X11 implementation would. (But you say "peecees" - do you mean remote *clients* or remote *servers*? Are there PCs running as X11 *clients* - i.e., doing their displaying on some screen *other* than the one to which they're directly attached?) >How is it all organized? In what way? Robin Schaufler has given a paper on the way it was implemented, which I think appeared in some USENIX proceedings in the past few years.)
jordan@Morgan.COM (Jordan Hayes) (09/26/89)
Guy Harris <guy@auspex.auspex.com> writes: >Will Motif operate on top of this combined thingy? Ultimately, I presume it will; I am running mwm and Motif applications on top of xnews started with the NOPSWM environment variable set so that the OpenWindows Window Manager does not run. My only problem to date: if you create a window from a shell (like "xterm") that gets created "on top of" the current cursor, the window manager doesn't notice that the cursor is now in a new window and adjust the focus accordingly. I am not sure if this is an xnews problem or an mwm problem, because I used to see problems with focus under olwm as well. /jordan
lpw@jvc.UUCP (Lance Welsh) (09/27/89)
In article <563@ssgp32.UU.NET>, scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden) writes: > In article <445@castle.ed.ac.uk>, ajcd@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Angus Duggan) writes: > > I've just been reading some articles in this newsgroup which seem to imply that > > the Sun X11/NeWS merge has been released. Is this true? I've been looking for > > info on it for a while, but haven't seen anything authoratative. Can someone > > from Sun comment, please? > > Me too. Actually, I am now utterly confused as to what Sun's window > strategy architecture is/will be. Does the OpenLook GUI sit on top of an > X11/News server? Where does SunView fit (below, above, beside)? Can I > still pixrect? Will Motif operate on top of this combined thingy? Does it > perform well on anything less than a SPARC? Will the X11 implementation > support remote X11 clients (e.g., peecees)? How is it all organized? How > fat is it? Is this all supported on all Suns? What should I read??? > After attending Sun's technology conference, I have the feeling that they will release OpenWindows (of which a part of that is the X11/NeWS window server) by the end of the month. The recommended platform will be the sparcstation (8 Mbytes). Releases on other systems will probably happen by the end of the year. OpenWindows includes the OpenLook user-interface, a DeskSet application, an X toolkit with a SunView API called XView (not based on the intrinsics), some graphics interface libraries such as PHIGS and GKS (not on top of the window server yet), the X11/NeWS window server, OpenFonts, and support for graphic accelerators such as their GX board. SunView is not part of it, but there is support for PixRect called PixWin via the window server, which uses something new. If Motif is going to run in OpenWindows, it will be the doing of a third party. Sun intends for the merged server to be complete - remote clients and everything. For a good description on the merged window server (architecture and compatibility), there is a good paper on it by Robin Schaufler at Sun. Size, performance, and platform support I am also anxious to discover. The conference was quite good, although X got most of the attention. I wonder if/how the opening of Adobe's fonts will impact the Folio OpenFonts in OpenWindows? -Lance P. Welsh uunet!jvc!lpw JVC Laboratory of America (408) 988-4675