Subject: Comp.windows.misc Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.answers,news.answers From: mike@htsmm1.las-vegas.nv.us (Mike Haaland) Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1993 08:01:06 GMT Archive-name: windows-misc-faq Last-modified: 1993/04/22 Welcome to comp.windows.misc! This is a newsgroup for discussions of miscellaneous windowing systems that don't have their own groups. Examples of windowing systems that DO have their own groups are Microsoft Windows, the X Windows System, NeWS, and PC GEOS. Examples of windowing systems & multi-system libraries that don't have their own groups and thus go here are MGR, 8 1/2, and STDWIN. comp.windows.misc is also a good place for discussions involving several window systems and discussions which are independent of any particular window system. Examples: - Toolkits implemented on top of multiple window systems (XVT, Nexpert, ...) - Porting from one window system to another (e.g. MS Windows to OPEN LOOK). - General GUI design (e.g. modeless vs. modefull). - General technology (e.g. effective backing store). Discussions along the lines of "My window system is better than your window system" are welcome in alt.religion.computers, but rarely generate useful conclusions. List of Questions: 1) Where do I find information about Microsoft Windows? Windowing Systems: 2) MGR 3) 8 1/2 4) What other windowing systems exist? Multi-GUI libraries: 5) STDWIN 6) XVT 7) JYACC Application Manager 8) Open Interface 9) Aspect 10) Galaxy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Where do I find information about Microsoft Windows? Try the groups under comp.os.ms-windows. There used to be a comp.windows.ms group, but the new groups were voted in around May 8, 1992, partially because MS Windows users were posting to comp.windows.misc and comp.windows.news thinking they were Microsoft-related groups. Please don't cross-post MS Windows material to these groups. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) What is MGR? MGR is a windowing system developed by Steve Uhler of Bellcore. It supports a variety of hardware platforms and operating systems. MGR can send graphical commands over serial connections, so networking over TCP/IP or modem connections is easy. MGR may be obtained from bellcore.com via anonymous ftp from the pub/mgr directory. Versions are available for: 3B1 Unix PC Atari ST / mint (& multitos?) DEC MIPS / Ultrix Macintosh / System+Finder (not multifinder, though) PC Clone / Xenix PC Clone / Linux PC Clone / Minix (16 or 32 bit) PC Clone / PC-Choices Sun Sparcstation / SunOS Those of you used to the feature-full environment of X may be a bit disappointed with MGR. What it provides you with is a simple desktop inside of which you can open multiple windows, which can display graphics. These windows don't come with fancy gadgets or buttons around the outside, and you don't have fancy libraries to construct fancy applications with fancy buttons. Instead, you have to program on the bare metal. Many people consider this a feature, not a bug ;-) There's an MGR channel on the Linux mailing list. At this point I don't know if it's Linux specific. Watch this space as we get more info on this mailing list. To join, send mail to linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi with this single line as the first line in the body (NOT in the Subject): X-Mn-Admin: join mgr ToAdd: A description of the above mailing list. Is it Linux specific? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) What is 8 1/2? 8 1/2 is the windowing system written by Rob Pike for Plan 9, the new OS from Bell Labs. It is not freely available; in fact, it hasn't even been ported to Unix yet since it depends on some of the interesting features of Plan 9's filesystem. In any case, it's a very interesting design. You can ftp a paper describing it from research.att.com: dist/plan9doc/4. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) What other windowing systems exist? Most single-OS windowing systems are discussed on the newsgroups for the vendor: Amiga Intuition, and the Acorn Archimedes windowing systems are examples of this. NeXTStep is discussed on comp.soft-sys.nextstep. GEM is technically available for the IBM PC, Atari ST, and X via a library but I believe only the Atari ST has a large number of developers, so comp.sys.atari.st.tech would be a good place to ask GEM questions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) What is STDWIN? STDWIN is a free, simple windowing library designed to provide a simple high-level programming interface to a large number of windowing systems. The author is Guido van Rossum. Supported windowing systems include: X11R4 MS-DOS character-mode Macintosh Atari ST (obsolete but not that hard to update) STDWIN is used in the Python language environment. You can ftp both STDWIN and Python from one of the following sites: Europe: hp4nl.nluug.nl (IP address 192.16.202.2) pub/windows & mcsun.eu.net (IP address 192.16.202.1) pub/programming/languages North America: wuarchive.wustl.edu (IP address 128.252.135.4) usenet/alt.sources gatekeeper.dec.com (IP address 16.1.0.2) pub/misc & pub/misc/python ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) What is XVT? XVT is a commercial toolkit that lets you write a single application that can run under the following platforms: MS Windows / DOS Presentation Manager / OS/2 X/Motif / lots of Unix boxes Open Look / ditto character-based terminals / ditto Macintosh The system sometimes provides only least-common-denominator support (i.e. all mice have only one button, because the Mac mouse has only one button), and sometimes provides additional abilities, such as the capability of printing any screen, which is provided by the Mac native windowing system but not by X. You can also combine calls with direct calls to the native windowing system. There are articles about XVT in the June 1991 issue of Byte magazine, and the May 1991 issue of Unix World. The company address is: XVT Software Inc. EMATEK (Germany and Switzerland) 1800 30th Street Subbelrather Strasse 17 Box 17665 5000 Koln 30 Boulder, CO 80308 (303) 443-4223 Tel (0221) 51 2074 FAX (303) 443-0969 Fax (0221) 52 9666 There is also a C++ version (XVT++) in beta, as well as Open Look support on the way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) What is the JYACC Application Manager (JAM)? JAM is supposedly a commercial 4GL tool which can be used to generate GUIs. It is available under Motif, Microsoft Windows, Open Look, character-based, and RSN for the Macintosh. The company address is: JYACC 116 John Street New York NY 10032 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) What is Open Interface? Open Interface is supposedly a cross-platform GUI builder. It supports Motif, Open Look, Presentation Manager, Microsoft Windows, and character terminal support is pending. The company address is: Neuron Data Inc. 156 University Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94301 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) What is Aspect? Aspect is supposedly a cross-platform GUI development system. It supports Motif, Open Look, Presentation Manager, Microsoft Windows, the Macintosh, and character terminals. The company address is: Open Inc. 655 Southpointe Court Suite 100 Colorado Springs CO 80906 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) What is Galaxy? Galaxy is a application development environment with a GUI builder and visual editing tools. It supports Motif & Open Look, with Microsoft Windows and Mac ports coming soon. The company address is: Visix Software Inc. 11440 Commerce park Drive Reston VA 22091 (800) 832-8668 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ToAdd: All the windowing systems I'm missing. I don't really want interfaces that run on just one piece of hardware or just one OS, unless they have freely-available source code or documentation that people can learn from and use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This is only the start of a FAQ for comp.windows.misc. Since I wrote it off the top of my head, it's very incomplete and parts of it are probably wrong, since I haven't looked at MGR or STDWIN for a couple of years, and I've never seen 8 1/2 at all. Please help fill in the holes. Short reviews of the commercial libraries would be nice, as would be phone numbers for the companies.