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From: thp@westhawk.UUCP ("Timothy H Panton.")
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: a question of GUI style
Message-ID: <9011081003.AA01583@westhawk.uucp>
Date: 8 Nov 90 10:03:21 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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wood@rutgers.edu writes:
> I'm in the process of writing a X based front end for a database.
> The functionality of the original front end must be retained
I've been around this loop, and there are 2 issues.

 1) User interface.
My experience is that trying to stick closely to a ascii based
gives unsatisfactory results. The problem is that the limitations 
(screen size, bandwidth etc)that defined the layout and menus etc. aren't there 
anymore. Users are very soon aware of this and grumble about it not being 
flexible. If you can get the management agreement it is probably best to go
to a "full" X multi windowed style first. You will almost certainly end up doing
it in the end.

 2) Internal program design.
 Many of the current crop of X programs are just frontends
to ascii programs (Xmh, xdbx etc). I've written one, and it alows one to stick
with the event driven approach. The only difference is that there are 2 sources 
of events, the Xserver (user) and the backend (data-base). Xt handles this very
well.
In your case I'd try to find a low level interface to the database (SQL??)
to talk to.

Hope that helped.
Tim
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|Tim Panton, Westhawk Ltd.    "... avoiding vain and profane babblings."     |
|Phone: +44 928722574                              -1 Timothy 6:20.          |
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