Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!paperboy!hsdndev!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!nazgul From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: OL != Motif Message-ID: <1991Mar1.013721.14308@alphalpha.com> Date: 1 Mar 91 01:37:21 GMT References: <9102272142.AA02407@marvin.pbi.com> Organization: asi Lines: 73 In article <9102272142.AA02407@marvin.pbi.com> rick@pbi.COM (Richard M. Goldstein) writes: >The December 10, 1990 issue of UNIX TODAY! has an article which tells >of OSF's plans to add the "Drag and Drop" and stay-up menu features >"around the end of 1991" that Open Look has had from the outset. I believe that OSF is wisely waiting until the X Consortium makes a decision. It would be a bit of a bummer to have to change everything after the fact. >Will Motif have as intuitive of metaphors as the pushpin or the >elevator scrollbar? I don't find a widget which warps my mouse around on the screen intutitive. But that's up for arguement. However I will assert that the Motif objects are based on long-tested examples that have been used in real applications for years. OL's objects are for the large part invented out of whole cloth. If they guess right this is great, but it's not clear to me that they always did. > The article also mentions the mouse conventions >lacking in Motif but present in OL. I'm not sure what this refers to. >This is all, of course, a reflection of the fact that the folks who >designed Open Look had the good sense to START with the style-guide >instead of mashing pre-existing components together and trying to >fit a style-guide to it (and, as somebody posted, continue to modify >the style-guide to match the bugs in the current toolkit). The OL style guide has changed since the first version of the toolkit too. The Motif style guide was not created after the toolkit. However a toolkit was molded to fit the style guide, a decision which might be considered regretable, but OSF is unfortunately not chartered to create code, only acquire it. >Also relevant is the fact that the Open Look Functional Spec thought >enough to build-in the intrinsic parts of the environment and how >applications should interact with them. For example, in the OL >environment specifies the File Manager application and how other The OSF membership, seeing the number of Desktops currently or about to be available, decided that the implementation of a desktop should not be part of Motif. An interface between the toolkit and a desktop is definitely desirable however. It's not clear to me that this is or should be toolkit specific. But it's definitely something that should be included, perhaps even at a lower level than the GUI toolkits. >of the user having to learn all of the file-management components of >every application (as with Motif), he has only to learn the one File Manager ???? The file management components in Motif are standard. There's a standard mechanism for selecting/creating files. What are you talking about? >The bottom line is--vendor alignments aside--Open Look is simply >a more complete user-interface specification than is Motif. It is certainly more detailed, and it does contain some components that are not included in Motif. I have two critical questions though. Given that the specification is not publicly controlled, how much influence do you feel you have over seeing it changed and extended in the future? (This is after all, one of the major reasons for the creation of OSF and Motif.) Also consider here that your answer may be very different if you're a hardware vendor. It's not a very happy situation when something you use is guaranteed to be out earlier on your competitors equipment. Do you think that any of the OL toolkits that are not based on an underlying extensible mechanism (like XT) will survive in the long run? (Or are they more likely to survive, since they are lighter weight :-/). -- Alfalfa Software, Inc. | Poste: The EMail for Unix nazgul@alfalfa.com | Send Anything... Anywhere 617/646-7703 (voice/fax) | info@alfalfa.com I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.