Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!xanth!xanth.cs.odu.edu!jason From: jason@cs.odu.edu (Jason "dedos" Austin) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif Subject: Re: XmListDeleteItemsPos bug?? Message-ID: Date: 10 May 91 20:45:40 GMT References: <54456@inkwell.UUCP> <2899@istop.ist.CO.UK> <24232@oolong.la.locus.com> Sender: usenet@cs.odu.edu (Usenet News Poster) Organization: Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA Lines: 45 In-Reply-To: jfr@locus.com's message of 9 May 91 17:52:21 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: sarasvathi.cs.odu.edu In article <24232@oolong.la.locus.com> jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) writes: -> In article jason@cs.odu.edu (Jason "dedos" Austin) writes: -> > -> > The nice thing about X is that it's expandable. You can -> >easily create new widgets by adding to existing ones. No one could -> >possibly come up with a widget set for all situations, so it's left -> >open to the programmers to expand as they see fit. -> -> Good point, but it is NOT SIMPLE TO DO and the Motif toolkit is abysmal... -> The previous author's post indicated some valid concerns about missing -> widget functionality, similar to some that I have posted here (multi- -> column lists, highlighting (not selecting) items in lists, etc)... -> -> The Macintosh came out in 1984 (and the Lisa a year before that) and -> had many features and some missing ones... That is NOT startling since -> the Mac was really the first widely used GUI-based product... Since -> then, the Mac has made many new features available, including the ones -> named above and others... These were mostly known by early 1987 when -> the Motif effort actually started... Therefore, it is hard to believe -> that the OSF group did not attempt to incorporate as many of these -> features as possible into Motif... Certainly Motif made some strides -> in different areas.... The form widget, particularly, is a major -> stride given that it removes the need for a programmer to deal with -> constant resizing of subordinate objects when a window is resized... -> This has always been a gripe I have had about Mac (and early Windows.. -> I do not know if Windows 3.0 solved this problem)... But stil, -> multi-column lists is obvious... and not hard to implement from a -> systems perpspective... But if I am an application programmer, it -> may be WAY beyond my abilities to do that... I just want the tools -> to do my job... -> -> Jon Rosen There's not need to limit yourself to motif (or Xt for that matter). If a particular Widget set doesn't apply itself well to your application, use another. (Of course, there's always the limitation of management, but that's not a fault of the system) I have never seen a completely generic high level user interface, and motif is no exception. I never meant to say expanding the widget set was simple, but it easy in the sense that the system was designed with expansion in mind, and extensive knowledge of the implementation and hacking is not necessary. -- Jason C. Austin jason@cs.odu.edu