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From: noren@dinl.uucp (Charles Noren)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.c++,comp.windows.x
Subject: InterViews vs. Xt
Message-ID: <1681@dinl.mmc.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 90 19:28:02 GMT
Reply-To: noren@dinl.UUCP (Charles Noren)
Organization: Martin Marietta I&CS, Denver CO.
Lines: 57

Here is the situation:

1.  We will be using a commercial C++ compiler.
2.  We are redoing a graphical user interface using X-Windows
    as the foundation.  The user interface will have:
    a.  Buttons
    b.  Simple menus (walking menus would be nice, but Xt does
        not support it nicely yet and neither does InterViews
        as far as I can tell).  Menus include pop-up and
        persistent.
    c.  Scalable-size graphical objects, that are a composite
        of circles, rectangles, polygons.  These can be filled
        or unfilled.
    d.  Geographical maps of various sorts.
    e.  Displays can be constructed by the user using scalable-sized
        objects and maps.
    f.  Displays organized into hierarchies.
    g.  Certain information displayed as bar-charts, line-graphs, 
        pie-charts, with lines of different types (color, thickness, 
        dashed/dotted/unbroken).
    h.  Scrollable text and graphics windows.

The question:

What inexpensive/public domain toolkit best suits the job.

We have been getting up to speed on Xt of X11R4 and know how
to do everything we want using Xt.  We are just beginning to
look at the InterViews C++ class toolkit from Stanford University
which looks like it offers similar functionality of Xt but
organized into classes.  

Some related questions:

1.  How widely used is InterViews?
2.  How strongly does Stanford support (or whatever the real
    development entity is) InterViews development?
    As X-Windows matures, will InterViews mature?
3.  How much of a standard is InterViews now and how
    likely will InterViews be a standard in the future?
4.  How mature is InterViews?  How bug free is it?
    How compatable is it to other libraries (I've heard
    of an incompatability with NIHCL)?
5.  Is there another toolkit that we should be examining?

I know that the user interface begs to be written in Objective-C
with their ICPAKs (in fact, prototypes were developed *very*
quickly in Objective-C) and that is my preferred way to go,
but I'm given a C++ environment.


-- 
Chuck Noren
NET:     dinl!noren@ncar.ucar.edu
US-MAIL: Martin Marietta I&CS, MS XL8058, P.O. Box 1260,
         Denver, CO 80201-1260
Phone:   (303) 971-7930