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From: etaylor@wilkins.iaims.bcm.tmc.edu (Eric Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: MOTIF vs Athena. Practical to conditionalize?
Message-ID: <3165@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 90 16:42:07 GMT
References: <3132@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <7036@mitech.com>
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Reply-To: etaylor@wilkins.iaims.bcm.tmc.edu (Eric Taylor)
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
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|> Here is a question. How difficult is it to conditionalize or
|> abstract ones code such that different widget sets can be used
|> depending on the local configuration/availability?
|> 
|> Then if somebody has the MOTIF set on his system your application
|> could look 3d/MOTIF, and if *not* then you would use Athena
|> (and the person would probably not notice the difference, not being
|> *used* to the 3d look, since he doesn't have it on his machine).
|> 
|> -gjc
|> 
|> p.s. Just a suggestion in the form of a question.


Sometimes it is not too hard.  It your application is nothing
but a bunch of buttons then it is a snap.

However, sometimes it is not so easy.  For instance, toggle
widgets are handled completely differently in Athena Widgets
than they are in MOTIF (when using mutually exclusive toggles).

Mutually exclusive toggles in MOTIF code must all be children
of the same widget.  The Athena analog can be spread out all over
creation.

Layout widgets are also fairly different from toolkit to toolkit.

I have my own layout widget that I use to exclusion in which I
have MOTIF flags.  That helps some, but not always.

MOTIF is awfully dependent upon itself.  It is very easy to use
Athena widgets in any other Xt-based toolkit, but not MOTIF.
MOTIF widgets do all sorts of different things based upon the class
of its parent.
--
					Eric Taylor
					Baylor College of Medicine
					etaylor@wilkins.bcm.tmc.edu
					(713) 798-3776