[comp.windows.ms] windows 3.0 --> X porting

ken@aimed.UUCP (Ken Anderson) (10/22/90)

Suggestions please - X windows & Microsoft Windows gurus!

Now that I've got my flashy Windows 3.0 product humming along,
what is my quickest route to porting it over to X, say under OSF/Motif?

Is there software available to help me, or just books (and good planning).

Any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.
Thanks...

wescheng@hpcc01.HP.COM (Wesley Cheng) (10/24/90)

/ hpcc01:comp.windows.ms / ken@aimed.UUCP (Ken Anderson) /  7:24 am  Oct 22, 1990 /

> what is my quickest route to porting it over to X, say under OSF/Motif?

	We have recently done a port of a Windows product to Motif. It
	wasn't that hard. There is a pretty good correlation (for the
	stuff that we needed) between X11 and Windows; both use the
	basic event driven model.

	If your program uses basic objects (dialog boxes, list boxes etc)
	and does not depend on Windows "tricks", then it should not be a
	problem at all. 

	A couple of things to be aware of (just off the top of my head):
	* X11 Callback vs. MSW Message Passing convention
	* Modality differences
	* X11 defaults vs MSW resource file

	

> Is there software available to help me, or just books (and good planning).

	I have heard some talk of conversion utilities between MSW resource
	files and Motif UIL files, which will give you the dialogs. I don't
	know if anything has actually been written.

	My suggestion is to get some good books on Motif programming, like
	Doug Young's "Programming with OSF/Motif Widgets" (or something
	like that). Doug and I presented a talk, "Designing an X11 Application"
	at Xhibition 90 recently where I discussed our project of writing UI
	apps for X11, MSW & Char Mode terminals. If you would like a
	copy, I can try to find the slides and make one set for you.
	
	The most important thing we found was a good design is very important. 
	If it was well thought out and extensible, then it would be simple to 
	port from one UI to another.

Wesley Cheng
wescheng@hpcc01.corp.hp.com

pwong@dimsum.dec.com (Paul H. Wong) (11/03/90)

In article <2730002@hpcc01.HP.COM>, wescheng@hpcc01.HP.COM (Wesley Cheng) writes...
> 
>> Is there software available to help me, or just books (and good planning).
> 
>	I have heard some talk of conversion utilities between MSW resource
>	files and Motif UIL files, which will give you the dialogs. I don't
>	know if anything has actually been written.
> 

Do you have more details on the RC<->UIL converter(s)?  I know about
tools like XVT and Actor.  But I am specifically interested in just
the converters.

Thanks.

- Paul
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