[comp.windows.x.motif] UIL

hamad@optigfx.optigfx.com (Jerry Hamad) (12/06/90)

Does anyone out in the netland use UIL ?

We are new motif programmers running Motif v1.1, 
and we are wondering what's the pros and cons of
UIL as opposed to programming motif widgets in C.

Are there any known bugs/problems with UIL ?

Is it really easier to internationalize applications
using UIL ?

We have the UIL Programmer's Guide from OSF.  Are
there any other good publications on UIL ?

Any comments are appreciated.

marbru@attc.UUCP (Martin Brunecky) (12/07/90)

In article <351@optigfx.optigfx.com> hamad@optigfx.optigfx.com (Jerry Hamad) writes:
>Does anyone out in the netland use UIL ?
>
>We are new motif programmers running Motif v1.1, 
>and we are wondering what's the pros and cons of
>UIL as opposed to programming motif widgets in C.
>
    Stop right here. The LAST thing you want to do is programming
    motif widgets in "C".
    Please, look around and pick the lates release of Wcl/Mri from
    the comp.sources.x archive near you.
    Then compare Wcl and UIL.

    I personally hate UIL. But on the other hand, the last time
    I wrote a code line containg "XtCreateWidget" (or any of it's
    flavors) is more than a year ago, i.e. by the time I was still
    (occasionally) using DECwindows UIL.
    May be *sometimes* you may have to create widgets from "C".
    But my experience - using UIL -> WsXc -> Wcl - is that using
    "C" is the most akward way to do the job.

    The claim that UIL helps "internationalization" is misleading.
    ANY implementation that does NOT hardcode resource values (in C)
    is suitable for internationalization.
    UIL, for example, uses ASCII *encoding* for compound strings. The same
    *encoding* can (and should) be available for defining the same
    compound strings in resource files. Unfortunatelly, Motif does
    not bother to provide a decent string->compound string
    converter, even though all the necessary code is in UIL source.
    Of course, you don't have to wait for OSF to wake up: you can
    create your own converter (as most of us already did).

-- 
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Martin Brunecky                           {...}sunpeaks!auto-trol!marbru
(303) 252-2499                        (sometimes also:  marbru@auto-trol.COM )
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