Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!ginosko!uunet!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Graphics User Interfaces... standards?
	(Re: OSF and MOTIF)
Message-ID: <5910@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 29 Aug 89 10:02:55 GMT
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 22

It's all very well to standardise the look-n-feel of man interface, but the
important part is to standardise the programmer interface to window systems.
Is anyone doing any real work on this?

Ideally, there should be some sort of high-level call standard that lets
an application open a window, create buttons, text panes, menus, scroll-
bars, and so on. To convert the program from Motif-style to OpenLook-
style should just require setting some parameters... or at worst a
recompilation.

I know of a fairly simple attempt at this, called STDWIN. I've made it
available in the amiga-sources archive on uunet (ironically, there isn't
an Amiga port of it... but I think it's important). Programs written
using the STDWIN interface are portable to the Macintosh, X, and even
text displays using curses.

Is anyone else working on something like this?
-- 
Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-'
"Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that isn't immune to bullets"  'U`
   -- The Brigadier, Dr Who.