daniel@wind.bellcore.com (Daniel W Nachbar) (01/20/89)
Starting this week, the source code for the MGR window manager is being distributed on comp.sources.unix. MGR was written by Steve Uhler here at the computer science research division of Bellcore. He started the project years ago when was clear that suntools was a dead end and X was still vaporware. The result is (I think) clean, fast, and interesting. MGR is the window manager of choice for a great many of us in the research division. The system has been solid for several years, but bureaucratic footdragging has kept it inside Bellcore until now. The code is available on a "give it away but don't sell it" basis. The package was broken into 61 parts for shipment, the largest package ever for comp.sources.unix. But, the size of the posting is deceptive. Much of the package consists of documentation, icons, fonts, etc. The code itself is quite small when compared with other window managers. For the basic window manager, the MGR code is one tenth the size of the comparable X code. I won't discuss the internals here, although I think Steve has come up with come very clever and useful ideas. Interested parties are referred to the documentation in the package. I will mention that MGR is not tied to a given operating system or hardware. The port to System V took about 2 days. The port to the sun 386i took 2 hours. A summer student ported it to the Mac (running MacOS not A/UX) in less than two weeks. I suspect that a port to Minix might be similarly painless. The brevity of code, speed of operation, and easy of porting all reflect the quality of the design and constructon. Clearly, the X bandwagon is rolling. At this late date, MGR probably won't be able to displace X. But, I suggest taking a look at MGR to see how things might have been. And, you never know . . . Dan Nachbar Software Engineering Research Group Bell Communications Research (a.k.a. Bellcore) bellcore!daniel (201) 829-4392
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (01/22/89)
In article <13539@bellcore.bellcore.com> daniel@wind.UUCP (Daniel W Nachbar) writes: >Starting this week, the source code for the MGR window manager >is being distributed on comp.sources.unix. >The port to System V took >about 2 days. The port to the sun 386i took 2 hours. A summer student >ported it to the Mac (running MacOS not A/UX) in less than two weeks. >I suspect that a port to Minix might be similarly painless. Given the size of X, I doubt that it will ever run adequately on any machine for which MINIX is appropriate. Are there any window fans who have a few days to take a look at MGR and see if it can be ported to MINIX? Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (01/24/89)
In article <1942@ast.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: %In article <13539@bellcore.bellcore.com> daniel@wind.UUCP (Daniel W Nachbar) writes: %>Starting this week, the source code for the MGR window manager %>is being distributed on comp.sources.unix. %>The port to System V took %>about 2 days. The port to the sun 386i took 2 hours. A summer student %>ported it to the Mac (running MacOS not A/UX) in less than two weeks. %>I suspect that a port to Minix might be similarly painless. % %Given the size of X, I doubt that it will ever run adequately on any %machine for which MINIX is appropriate. Are there any window fans who %have a few days to take a look at MGR and see if it can be ported to MINIX? % %Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) I've just started playing with mgr on a Sun. It looks very nice, and the size is much more reasonable. (Just under 1.4meg for the entire binary tree, including all fonts and icons. Full library is only around 40K.) It's lean and mean, and very fast. (On a Sun, anyway.) I'm very interested in getting it running on my ST. At a first glance thru, it looks like it should be very easy for ST-Minix, and also doable for TOS. So far everyone who's seen it running here (on a Sun 3/50) has been very impressed. -- / /_ , ,_. Howard Chu / /(_/(__ University of Michigan / Computing Center College of LS&A ' Unix Project Information Systems
pokey@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) (01/25/89)
I have added mgrtopbm and pbmtomgr filters to the PBM package. This
version of PBM is available on a beta-test basis via anonymous FTP to
expo.lcs.mit.edu (18.30.0.212), file contrib/pbm.tar.Z.
---
Jef
Jef Poskanzer jef@helios.ee.lbl.gov ...well!pokey
"It's certain that fine women eat / A crazy salad with their meat." -- Yeats,
The Second Comingemv@a.cc.umich.edu (Ed Vielmetti) (01/26/89)
Using MGR right now -- thanks! A few questions before I dive into the source & documentation -- - SIGWINCH. Do changes in window size send this signal out? I don't see any evidence of it, though it would be useful for things like hpmgr. - /bin/ksh. My poor stupid sun doesn't have it, 'menu' uses it. In the case of menu, it works with /bin/sh just fine -- any one else who has experience converting the shell scripts over to executables for the crowd without /bin/ksh (like on the ST) would be good to speak up. - keyboard mappings. I hate mice. Is there a nice way to rebind keys on the keyboard to do things equivalent to mouse movements, pop up menus, or menu command options? I see ways to predefine windows (window-set IDs) for left-1 through left-9, so that might be adequate for now.