Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!IRO.UMontreal.CA!laplante From: laplante@IRO.UMontreal.CA (Pierre Laplante) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: X conference SUMMARY [LONG] Message-ID: Date: 15 Feb 91 15:29:06 GMT References: Sender: news@IRO.UMontreal.CA Distribution: comp Organization: Universite de Montreal Lines: 321 Voici quelque chose qui pourrait t'interesser grandement: pd@x.co.uk (Paul Davey) writes: >This article was written for the European Unix User Group Newsletter >and is posted here for the benefit of those who could not attend. >It was/is aimed at X literate, unix users/developers and does not >cover all presentations at the conference. > 5th Annual X Technical Conference. > Paul Davey > IXI Ltd. >The 5th annual X technical conference was held again in Boston from >Jan 13th to 15th. People from all over the world joined the MIT X >consortium to exchange information and ideas at the premier technical >X event. Three days of activity comprising formal presentation of >papers, slightly more informal tutorials and informal Birds of a >Feather sessions (BOFS) packed a large amount of knowledge into a >small amount of time. >Many topics of interest to application developers were covered, including >Interactive User Interface Builders (seen by many as the next logical >stage after current toolkits), PEX (The PHIGS extension to X), and the >use of toolkits (including both Open Look and Motif). >The opening talk of the conference was made by Aaron Marcus on `Future >Developments in Advance Graphical User Interface Technology'. In his >thought provoking presentation he covered such topics as Objectives, >Metaphors, Design Factors and Cognitive and Navigation Models. >Predicting future developments of HCI service centres, faster >prototyping tools, and systematic design conventions. Among >particularly interesting challenges for the 90's he included: > Agents, automated synthesised personalities aiding users to > access data in a familiar form, for example a TV weatherman. > Complexity, beating the video recorder problem of bad and non > standard interface design. > Audio, use of `earcons' and other feedback > Video, usage with computer graphics, difficulty of use and > control > INTERACTIVE APPLICATION BUILDERS >A full day tutorial on Interactive Application Builders (IABs) gave 12 >developers (by no means all of those working in this field) the chance >to present a paper on their tools. UIMX made two showings under its >own name and Hewlett-Packard's Interface Architect. >IAB's were a key part of this years conference. It was pointed out >that this will be probably the last year in which developers are >likely to be as open in sharing their design aims and methods. By next >year many more of these products will have emerged fully into the >market place. >Sun's OpenWindows Developer's Guide was the only dedicated Open Look >UIB presented. This tool can produce PostScript code for Sun's >proprietary graphics systems, or XView code, for the Sunview like >custom X based toolkit, or OLIT code for the AT&T sourced Open Look >Intrinsics Toolkit. Developer's Guide is already being used with Kanji >text in Japan with other Asian languages soon to follow. >Most commercial IABs produce standard Intrinsics based toolkit code >for either Open Look or Motif. These normally produce stand alone >`pure' MIT intrinsics toolkit code, though sometimes extra libraries >are also required. Some toolkits do not use the standard intrinsics >(they may still have widgets) and these must be seen as less standard >than the OLIT and Motif based applications. >European involvement is IAB's included interactive graphical user >interface builders such as XFaceMaker, from DEC's Paris Research Labs, >XBUILD, from Siemens Nixdorf and Ingrid, from Esprit funded INSEC in >Portugal. Sadly Imperial College's XDesigner and Sweden's TeleUSE were >not represented. >Many people find that even the best of these tools still require at >least an understanding of the basic toolkit principles underlaying >them. Many tools only provide a framework for creating the initial user >interface, without addressing the dynamic issues. > SIMPLE TOOLKITS >Several approaches for simpler forms of X toolkits were described. >Among these were SUIT, a subroutine library of about 10 thousand >lines of C allowing a GUI to be compiled transparently on Unix/X, >Macintosh and DOS machines. Described as being designed to be quick >and dirty the non intrinsics based toolkit is taught initially in 2 >hours to undergraduate students with no widget programming experience >at the University of Virginia. SUIT is available free to non profit and >academic organisations. >Another small and easy to use toolkit has been implemented by John >Ousterhout from UCB. Taking an existing development tool TCL, a >standard command language intended to be embedded in applications, he >has added a custom toolkit called Tk. Tk is Motif like but is driven >from the shell like command language. The first application so far is >a windowing shell called wish in which a directory browser was >constructed with 20 lines of TCL commands. >An alternative approach was described by David Smythe of JPL in >Pasadena. Carrying on a challenge suggested at last year's conference >the X resource mechanism is used to describe not just resources >(options) to widgets, but also the widget tree and the bindings to >application code callback functions. >The Widget Creation Library (WCL) is a lightweight (small) package of >C code which allows interfaces using standard Athena, Motif (and soon >Open Look) widgets to be constructed rapidly without writing any C or >even compiling. WCL code to produce a Motif periodic table showing >all the motif widgets is 20% of the length of the original program in >OSF's UIL(User interface language). WCL has an important advantage >over the other simple toolkits in that it can be easily expanded to >use any widgets based on the MIT intrinsics. > SUBCLASSING AND WIDGET INTERNALS >Ralph Swick and Mark Ackerman gave a tutorial session on widget >internals covering understanding and writing simple widgets and also >discussed subclassing widgets in a talk to the whole conference. >(Subclassing is the use of the object orientated features of the MIT >intrinsics to reuse existing binary widget code by replacing or >extending its component functions.) Since both are heavily involved >with the development and support of the Athena widget set they set out >to subclass Motif and Open Look widgets using only what is available >to standard developers. >With nothing but the documentation and header files they were >confident that this would prove an easy demonstration since the MIT >intrinsics were intended to support subclassing. However to quote >their paper directly > `... the minimal documentation was, alas, not > sufficiently common to support this assertion.' >To subclass effectively they found that sight of source code is >required due to undocumented internal functions. >This lack of even basic widget internals documentation was also raised >at a BOF session of Motif developers. Vania Joloboff of the OSF >explained that this was not a priority among OSF members, who are >mainly hardware vendors not application developers. > > MOTIF >Vania did however outline the benefits of the latest version of Motif >(1.1). New features include a full validation test suite and caches >gadgets for performance enhancement. UIL gains a Widget Meta Language >used for generating the UIL compiler extending it to handle new >widgets. UIL will also enter the core Application Environment >Specification. >New widgets include an improved file selection box simpler menu >functionality and a single line text field widget. Another welcome >change is the rewriting of the Motif style guide and documentation for >the toolkit has been improved. Mwm will also handle multiple screen >displays. >Forthcoming attractions for version 1.2 include the promise of smaller >dynamic data sections and to improve the response of Mwm on >Xterminals. The major change will be in greatly increased support for >internationalisation. X11R5 will provide an input method for compound >character entry and this and other relevant standards will be used. An >international text widget will be provided and source code should then >be codeset independent. (The term Codeset rather than character set >is used since for example, in Japan, three character sets are used at >one time.) > CUSTOMISATION >Customisation of X toolkit programs via the resource database has been >was discussed by Jim Gettys of DEC. Reaffirming the original >intentions he pointed out that although customisation can be a >nuisance, software is rarely perfect. Resources allow an application >to be fine tuned to particular situations. >Although support can be difficult, due to the extra permutations >possible, resource using applications can be rapidly modified for >unusual environments. Certain users of even ordinary software may need >special treatment. For example some hardware may well have different >keyboard layouts to that used while developing. Visually handicapped >users and persons demonstrating software may need a larger font than >was anticipated for normal use. >Andrew Peebles of MIPS took customisation to a new level by presenting >the concept of an application toolkit. Unlike a widget toolkit the >application toolkit comprises modules useful to application users, not >developers. The user is invited to take the application apart and >assemble it in the manner that suits him or her best. Using WCL >Andrew's team provided five high level objects with their own >resources in an application toolkit called the visual debugger. This >interface to debuggers can be used as a front end to any text driven >debugger and can change its appearance from an xdbx clone to a video >recorder metaphor. About 10% of the internal users have extensively >customised the visual debugger and it has just been released as a MIPS >product. >Another issue of customisation was addressed by Chris Peterson, >formerly of MIT. The resource database is a powerful tool, but is not >a user friendly system. The large quantity of possible options and >syntax of the database make it too complex for the average user. As a >step towards solving this problem Chris described `editres', a >graphical resource editor. >Editres can display a tree of the widgets in a program, and can >highlight them in the application and tree when a widget or widgets >are selected. Resources can then be selected and changes made >immediately before being committed to a file. Besides the graphical >resource editor editres comprises a small library linked into the >application and a protocol to transfer requests to the running >application. A single line needs to be added to the source code to >set up editres and it is expected to be released with X11R5. > SERVER EXTENSIONS >Jim Fulton of X terminal manufacturers NCD (Network Computing Devices) >presented another proposal for R5. Since X terminals have no local >disc space they currently obtain their fonts over the network via FTP >or NFS. Different server font formats impede inter-operation and make >new font formats (such as outlines) hard to install. The solution is >a font server which supplies fonts to X servers. Intended to be >simple but powerful the font server will be able to scale fonts >further reducing disc space. Benefits include an increased ability to >share fonts, and to make new fonts easier to support. >John Weber from DEC described work on an extension to handle digitised >documents under X. The extension allows compression (via G3 and G4 fax >and JPEG standards) of images passed from client to server saving >network bandwidth. Image storage is device independent and special >display hardware can be accessed via the protocol extension. Low >resolution browsing and interactive enhancement are supported for such >applications as catalogues and X-ray or satellite picture enhancement. >From England, Tim Glauert presented a paper on a synchronisation >extension to X. This extension provides millisecond accuracy between >applications allowing two or more clients to be run in step or for an >X application to be synchronised with external multi media controls. > PEX >Three presentations on PEX were made this year, as well as a tutorial >and BOF sessions. PEX stands for PHIGS Extensions to X, where PHIGS is >Programmer's Heirarchical Graphics System. An ISO standard since 1988 >PHIGS is an API (Application Programmer's Interface) for 3-D graphics. >PHIGS is one of many possible API's that could be supported under PEX >but the PEX-SI (Sample Implementation) has been coded to provide a >PHIGS environment under X. Members of a team from Sun contracted to >the X consortium have produced the PEX-SI server and API library. This >has established that the PEX requires a few minor modifications but >can supply support for a conforming and efficient PHIGS >implementation. >Presentations on both the API and server were followed the next day by >an extension to PEX, PEXIM or PEX Immediate Mode by Jim Hardenbergh of >Stardent. PEXIM gives an alternative to the display list approach of >PEX, providing a closer system to established proprietary graphics such >as Apollo's GMR3D, Hewlett Packard's Starbase and Stardent's Dore`. > THE FUTURE >It has long been frustrating that a high speed, high resolution >graphics workstation can make one sound by going `beep'. Even under X, >assuming the hardware supports it it may go beep at a different >volumes or pitch. High quality audio is beginning to appear on >workstations and a team from DEC in association with the MIT Media Lab >have been applying lessons learned in X to an Audio server. Their view >is that audio should be handled in a separate server, which requires >multi-threading and support for audio abstractions hiding such details >as encoding and sampling rates. >Following X they are concentrating on `mechanism not policy' and hope >to be able to provide an audio toolkit layer with which to build tools >such as telephone answering machines, voice mail, speech recognition >and synthesis and digitization >From Japan, Hidyea Ichihara of NTT described research into multi-media >applications with full motion video in multiple windows on an X >display. A video recording of an experimental desktop conference >terminal was shown comprising a general purpose workstation, audio >video controller and video multiwindow controller, linked to the >workstation by a SCSI bus. Sound is in stereo of course and moves with >the location of the associated window. Hand written entry of data is >also supported. >Hand written interaction was also demonstrated by a group from IBM's >Thomas J. Watson Research Labs. Investigating pocket book computers >they are working towards the concept of a `fat clipboard', with input >by stylus which writes an ink trail onto the screen. Besides a >productivity increase advantages seen include easy drawing or >sketching and the unobtrusiveness of the interface. A version of Lotus >123 adapted for hand written input proved 1.5 to 4 times faster to >use. The team hope to produce a prototype X based portable this year. >Once again the X technical conference provided a wide ranging forum >for the discussion of the X window system. As someone lucky enough to >have attended again I hope I have shared some of the benefits with >you. X gathers more flexibility and power as time goes on. In the >words of X consortium director Bob Scheifler, `It's been a long hard >year'. >-- > Regards, pd@x.co.uk IXI Limited > Paul Davey pd@ixi.uucp 62-74 Burleigh St. > ...!uunet!ixi!pd Cambridge U.K. > "These are interesting times" +44 223 462 131 CB1 1OJ -- Pierre Laplante Universite de Montreal, D.I.R.O. X-220, C.P. 6128, succursale A Montreal (Qc) H3C 3J7, (514) 343-6111 3530, laplante@iro.umontreal.ca