andrew@resam.dk (Leif Andrew Rump) (12/28/90)
In <1990Dec20.134254.7401@vax1.tcd.ie> cemurphy@vax1.tcd.ie writes: >I have just got my hands on a Sun SPARC IPC and want to develop an application >in XView. I am quite naive about it all. Help. Sure! >I believe that XView comes with the IPC and I am waiting for the delivery of >the developers toolkit that allows you to visually place buttons, etc where >you want them and will then generate template c code for the windowing aspects >of your application. Don't expect to much from Guide! If you want to create a "small" application with a "small" number of buttons, menues, etc. and a "small" number of windows then try it yourself - it's very easy in XView. Larger applications - well be prepared for some very hard work with Guide - it helps you making windows - that's it! >Can anybody give me any good sources of referneces on XView? With XView is some book from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. It's heavy stuff but try all the examples in vol. 7 and you may understand. Also have a look at the Open Look style guide. >Can somebody make it clear to me the differeneces between all these various >toolkits that exist for the X windows system? Is it that XView is in >competition with other toolkits such as motif and Xt? Don't these 'sit-on-top- >of' Xlib? Will I need to gain a good knowledge of Xlib? >Perhaps someone could suggest a base set of references for me (a beginner). In <1990Dec20.134744.7402@vax1.tcd.ie> cemurphy@vax1.tcd.ie continues: >I forgot to ask: >WHat is X11.....is it Xlib? (wow! I'm stupid!) >Thanks Cormac! Hmm. This is my 0.05 DKR worth! First there is X (your are running version 11, release 4 = X11R4) On top of X is Xlib, ... for the people with hair to their shoulders On top Xlib is XView, Xt, Motif, ... for people that still think digital watches is a neat idear... XView at least handles only you menues, buttons, ... but if you do it right your programs have (almost) an OpenLook(tm) look & feel (no it's not a program - it is how it look like and respond to you mouse clicks!). You must learn some Xlib to make drawings - but vol. 7 gives some hints. To completely globber you mind: The whole package you get from Sun with XView, NeWs, ... is called OpenWindows(tm) _not_ OpenLook - remember. Andrew Leif Andrew Rump, AmbraSoft A/S, Stroedamvej 50, DK-2100 Copenhagen OE, Denmark UUCP: andrew@ambra.dk, phone: +45 39 27 11 77 / Currently at Scandinavian Airline Systems =======/ UUCP: andrew@resam.dk, phone: +45 32 32 51 54 \ SAS, RESAM Project Office, CPHML-V, P.O.BOX 150, DK-2770 Kastrup, Denmark > > Read oe as: o <backspace> / (slash) and OE as O <backspace> / (slash) < <
chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) (01/02/91)
In article <1990Dec27.192254.1471@resam.dk>, andrew@resam.dk (Leif Andrew Rump) writes: > Don't expect to much from Guide! If you want to create a "small" application > with a "small" number of buttons, menues, etc. and a "small" number of windows > then try it yourself - it's very easy in XView. Larger applications - well be > prepared for some very hard work with Guide - it helps you making windows - > that's it! I find GUIDE (actually, Devguide) to be very easy to use and have built several large (many windows, buttons, and gadgets) applications with it. I estimate a factor 10X productivity when using GUIDE. > XView at least handles only you menues, buttons, ... but if you do it right > your programs have (almost) an OpenLook(tm) look & feel (no it's not a > program - it is how it look like and respond to you mouse clicks!). You > must learn some Xlib to make drawings - but vol. 7 gives some hints. Xview generates an OL interface. The widget appearance and feel is pure OL. Your only choice is the layout, and you should read the OL Style Guide to learn how to lay things out. The style guide is an excellent book. You should read it, no matter which toolkit you use. -- Chuck Musciano ARPA : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com Harris Corporation Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912 AT&T : (407) 727-6131 Melbourne, FL 32902 FAX : (407) 729-2537 A good newspaper is never good enough, but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever. -- Garrison Keillor
leif@winsoft.se (Leif Samuelsson) (01/04/91)
In article <5167@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) writes: > > I find GUIDE (actually, Devguide) to be very easy to use and have built > several large (many windows, buttons, and gadgets) applications with it. I > estimate a factor 10X productivity when using GUIDE. > [...] > Xview generates an OL interface. The widget appearance and feel is > pure OL. Your only choice is the layout, and you should read the OL Style > Guide to learn how to lay things out. The style guide is an excellent > book. You should read it, no matter which toolkit you use. Devguide is an excellent tool for prototyping and designing an OL user interface. It does however have one major drawback which makes it less useful for production code. The problem is that Devguide uses absolute pixel coordinates for window sizes and panel item positioning, thereby bypassing XView's automatic layout mechanism. XView knows a lot about OL's rules for button layout, margins, row distances, etc. Devguide does not. This is especially noticable when you start a Devguide-designed application with the -scale option. Try for instance starting Devguide itself with "guide -scale extra_large". See what I mean? I recently installed Chuck's excellent contool program which was built using Devguide. I think contool looks best when started with the "-scale small" option, but I had to edit the contool_ui.c file and remove all the absolute coordinates to make the windows look decent. I didn't feel all that good about doing this, because now the user interface can no longer be changed with Devguide, and the code is still hard to read (because it was generated from Devguide). The worst of both worlds... My recommendation is: use Devguide for designing what you want the user interface to look like. It's saves a lot of time. But be aware that if you use the code "as is", it probably won't be strictly OPEN LOOK compliant. Oh, and if you're using XView - don't forget to set WIN_BORDER to TRUE for panels (control areas) that touch the bottom of the frame. It's the law - and it looks so much nicer - but Devguide doesn't know it. Leif Samuelsson Winsoft Data Phone: (011 468) 730-1240 Lidgatan 18 Fax: (011 468) 730-3102 S-171 58 SOLNA E-mail: leif@winsoft.se Sweden