mayer@HPLNPM.HPL.HP.COM (Niels P. Mayer) (04/24/91)
First, a blurb to answer the question "what is WINTERP?", The blurb is
followed by specifics on the new release and how to obtain it.
==============================================================================
WINTERP: An object-oriented rapid prototyping, development and delivery
environment for building user-customizable applications with the OSF/Motif
UI Toolkit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WINTERP is a Widget INTERPreter, an application development environment
enabling rapid prototyping of graphical user-interfaces (GUI) through the
interactive programmatic manipulation of user interface objects and their
attached actions. The interpreter, based on David Betz's XLISP, provides an
interface to the X11 toolkit Intrinsics (Xtk), the OSF/Motif widget set,
primitives for collecting data from UN*X processes, and facilities for
interacting with other UN*X processes. WINTERP thus supports rapid
prototyping of GUI-based applications by allowing the user to interactively
change both the UI appearance and application functionality. These features
make WINTERP a good tool for learning and experimenting with the
capabilities of the OSF/Motif UI toolkit, allowing UI designers to more
easily play "what if" games with different interface styles.
WINTERP is also an excellent platform for delivering extensible or
customizable applications. By embedding a small, efficient language
interpreter with UI primitives within the delivered application, users and
system integrators can tailor the static and dynamic layout of the UI,
UI-to-application dialogue, and application functionality. WINTERP's use of
a real programming language for customization allows WINTERP-based
applications to be much more flexible than applications using customization
schemes provided by the X resource database or OSF/Motif's UIL (user
interface language).
An environment similar to WINTERP's already exists in the Gnu-Emacs text
editor -- WINTERP was strongly influenced by Gnu-Emacs' successful design.
In Gnu-Emacs, a mini-Lisp interpreter is used to extend the editor to
provide text-browser style interfaces to a number of UN*X applications
(e.g. e-mail user agents, directory browsers, debuggers, etc). Whereas
Emacs-Lisp enables the creation of new applications by tying together
C-implemented primitives operating on text-buffer UI objects, WINTERP-Lisp
ties together operations on graphical UI objects implemented by the Motif
widgets. Both achieve a high degree of customizability that is common for
systems implemented in Lisp, while still attaining the speed of execution
and (relatively) small size associated with C-implemented applications.
Other features:
* WINTERP is free software -- available via anonymous ftp from
export.lcs.mit.edu.
* Portable -- runs without porting on many Unix systems.
* Interface to gnuemacs' lisp-mode allows code to be developed
and tested without leaving the editor;
* Built-in RPC mechanism for inter-application communications;
* XLISP provides a simple Smalltalk-like object system.
* OSF/Motif widgets are real XLISP objects -- widgets can be
specialized via subclassing, methods added or altered, etc.
* Automatic storage management of Motif/Xt/X data.
* Contains facilities for "direct manipulation" of UI components;
You may obtain the latest released version of the WINTERP source,
documentation, and examples via anonymous ftp from internet host
export.lcs.mit.edu (18.30.0.238): in directory contrib/winterp you will
find the compress(1)'d tar(1) file winterp-???.tar.Z. (??? represents the
version number). Slides, papers and further documentation can be found in
directory contrib/winterp/papers.
If you do not have Internet access you may request the source code to be
mailed to you by sending a message to winterp-source%hplnpm@hplabs.hp.com
or hplabs!hplnpm!winterp-source.
There is also a mailing list for WINTERP-related announcements and
discussions. To get added to the list, send mail to
winterp-request%hplnpm@hplabs.hp.com or hplabs!hplnpm!winterp-request.
For discussions about XLISP, see the USENET newsgroup comp.lang.lisp.x.
==============================================================================
WINTERP 1.12 is a minor patch release over the first Motif 1.1 release of
WINTERP, version 1.11, which was announced only to the WINTERP mailing
list. Release 1.12 corrects a few simple source & Makefile bugs that
appeared when porting to non-HP platforms. This release should work on most
hardware and software platforms. WINTERP 1.12 has been tested on the
following platforms:
* HP9000s3xx (68030/68040) running HPUX 7.0, HPUX 6.5.
* HP9000s8xx (HP's PA-RISC) running HPUX 7.0, HPUX 3.1.
* HP9000s7xx (HP's PA-RISC 2) running HPUX 8.0
* Sun Sparc 2 running SunOS Release 4.1.1
* Data General AViiON (m88k, DG/UX 4.30, GNU C 1.37.23)
* DECStation 3100 running Ultrix.
I've received reports that previous versions of WINTERP have run on the
following:
* IBM RS6000 AIX 3.1
* Sun 3 running SunOS 4.0.3
* MIPS (Mips RS2030)
* Intel System Vr3.2 v2.2 (using Intel X11R3 with Intel Motif v1.0.A and TWG/TCP v3.1)
* Apollo's 680xx machines.
Release 1.11 and 1.12 feature (briefly):
* Support for most of the new functionality of Motif 1.1 and 1.1.1
* Support for some of the new functionality of X11r4
* Source is #ifdef'd to automatically compile with Motif 1.1/1.1.1
or 1.0.
* Lots of new & nifty example and test programs.
* Various bug fixes and code cleanup.
* Added a number of missing Motif resources, methods, etc.
* Better portability -- I've tried to accomodate all the
patches and changes people have suggested in order to
allow WINTERP to compile on a variety of machines.
* Imakefiles corrected and updated to X11r4.
* Makefile.generic, Makefile.hpux, Makefile.sparc -- a generic
makefile system for those that don't want to bother with Imake.
* The TCP/IP eval server is now a compilation option, a Unix Domain
socket is used by default. This means that running WINTERP is
no longer a security hole. The TCP/IP server seemed to be a
big portability problem -- hopefully the Unix Domain socket
version will be more portable.
* TCP/IP and Unix Domain Socket servers can be enabled/disabled
via X resources. Verbosity of evaluation messages output can also
be reduced via X resource options. These options are useful for
people building stand-alone applications on top of WINTERP.
* Entering XLISP break-loop on Xlib errors, XtWarnings, and
XtErrors is optional. This allows applications delivered in
WINTERP to behave more like normal Xtoolkit programs.
* More and Better documentation.
* Various emacs-lisp functionality added in "contrib" directory,
courtesy of Bob Weiner of Brown University. (I Haven't had time
to integrate or test this software yet).
* etc, etc, etc.
Note that I've mainly tested WINTERP 1.12 on HPUX 7.0 running on HP9000s3xx
(Motif 1.0, Motif 1.1, Motif 1.1.1, and HP UEDK Motif 1.1); I've done a
little bit of testing on an HP9000s8xx machine, but only with Motif 1.0.
I've also briefly tested on an HP9000s7xx (Snakes series) machine running
HPUX 8.0 and HP UEDK Motif 1.1. I've also tested it on a Sun Sparc 2
running SunOS Release 4.1.1 and Motif 1.1.1.
I've received reports from Victor Kan (Data General Corporation) that this
version of WINTERP compiles and seems to run ok on a Data General AViiON
(m88k, DG/UX 4.30, GNU C 1.37.23).
* *
* *
***** I'd like to hear results from any Apollo, MIPS, IBM *****
***** users out there. *****
* *
* *
--------------------
This is the size of the new compressed tar file:
-rw-r--r-- 1 mayer users 1414493 Apr 22 02:06 winterp-1.12.tar.Z
Don't be alarmed by the size -- this distribution contains extensive
documentation, a massive number of Motif examples, and various papers on
WINTERP that have been published.
--------------------
If you have internet access, you may retrieve this version of WINTERP via
anonymous ftp. If you don't, send e-mail to
winterp-source@hplnpm.hpl.hp.com (hplabs!hplnpm!winterp-source)
and I'll begin to send out sources by electronic mail in about one to three
weeks. If you are requesting the sources to be e-mailed, please make sure
that your e-mail system can handle receiving up to two megabytes of
uuencoded text split into 30-50 messages of under 50 kbytes each. (No
requests for tapes, please!)
--------------------
Here's how to ftp WINTERP 1.12: (your input denoted by ^^^^^^^^^^)
hplnpm-17-/tmp> ftp export.lcs.mit.edu (HPites, use hplnpm.hpl.hp.com)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...]
Name (hplnpm.hpl.hp.com:mayer): anonymous
^^^^^^^^^
Password (hplnpm.hpl.hp.com:anonymous): <anypassword you want here>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd contrib/winterp (HPites should do "cd pub")
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
200 CWD command okay.
ftp> type image
^^^^^^^^^^
200 Type set to I.
ftp> get winterp-1.12.tar.Z
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ftp> get winterp-1.12.tar.Z
200 PORT command okay.
150 Opening data connection for winterp-1.12.tar.Z (15.255.176.225,3988) (1414493 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
1414493 bytes received in 690.63 seconds (1.96 Kbytes/sec)
ftp> quit
^^^^
221 Goodbye.
hplnpm-18-/tmp> zcat winterp-1.12.tar.Z | tar xvf -
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[... lengthy list of files from tar ...]
hplnpm-19-/tmp> rm winterp-1.12.tar.Z
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
* For compilation tips, take a look at winterp-1.12/doc/COMPILING
* For running hints, take a look at winterp-1.12/doc/RUNNING
* For known (Motif 1.1 only) bugs, see winterp-1.12/doc/BUGS
* For information on the examples, look at winterp-1.12/examples/README
* For general information about WINTERP, see winterp-1.12/doc/winterp.doc
==============================================================================
PS: I will be unable to answer any e-mail correspondence or requests for
source until well after May 7, 1991 (I'll be attending the SIGCHI
conference in New Orleans).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Niels Mayer -- hplabs!mayer -- mayer@hplabs.hp.com
Human-Computer Interaction Department
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Palo Alto, CA.
*