Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!mayer
From: mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Motif -> Open Look look & feel
Message-ID: <5529@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 90 20:09:14 GMT
References: <2986@osc.COM>
Reply-To: mayer@hplabs.hp.com (Niels Mayer)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Labs, Software & Systems Lab, Palo Alto, CA.
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In article <2986@osc.COM> george@osc.com (George Baggott) writes:
>Does anyone out there know anything about putting an Open Look look and feel on
>a motif application?  In an ideal world I would be able to link against some
>Open Look version of Xm and my application would be ported to open look without
>my having to change a line of code.

What about style guide compliance?? I can imagine a switchable look on the
UI-components (widgets), but I think you'd need even higher level
abstractions to capture differing layout styles, application-dialog-level
interaction, etc.  Such higher-level abstractions might be possible by
employing UIMS (*) technologies to provide a more abstract description of
application dialog.

> I am aware of
> Solbourne's OI Toolkit which supports both Motif and Open Look from a single
> C++ toolkit.  It looks neat, but I would prefer to avoid throwing away my motif
> and UIL code and starting from scratch.

To get style-guide level compliance, I think you'd have to start over again
anyways.

[footnote(*): I'm talking about "real UIMSs" the term has been weakened
lately by marketeers calling direct manipulation builders UIMSs.]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	    Niels Mayer -- hplabs!mayer -- mayer@hplabs.hp.com
		  Human-Computer Interaction Department
		       Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
			      Palo Alto, CA.
				   *