Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!linus!linus!linus!dsr From: dsr@mitre.org (Douglas S. Rand) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: What's the disadvantage of X Window ? Message-ID: Date: 14 May 91 15:41:09 GMT References: <824E719F0020153E@TWNCU865.BITNET> Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service) Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA Lines: 43 In-Reply-To: T441613@TWNCU865.BITNET's message of 14 May 91 20:42:00 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: mir.mitre.org In article <824E719F0020153E@TWNCU865.BITNET> T441613@TWNCU865.BITNET writes: I know many good features about X Window. But I don't know what is its bad features. And I want to know what X window will be in the future. Can anyone tell me answers or discuss about it. Thanks. Michael Lin There are plenty of bad features. IMHO (and I'm sure someone will correct my mistakes) X was never intended to solve all problems for people with specific needs in the graphics arena. X is more of a virtual terminal protocol with some graphics thrown in, kind of a networked Suntools (forgive me). Here's a few of my FWL (Frequently Wished List) along with what little I know about solutions: 1) No scalable graphics or fonts (but scalable fonts in R5). Packages which run on top of X can supply this (InterViews, ULGKS, Phigs, etc.) 2) Lacks 3-D handling. The Phigs Extension to X (PEX) does fill this void as well as creating other problems. 3) No image processing capability. This includes poor handling of images and image compression. Some are working on an X Image Extension to deal with this area. 4) Real pain in producing WYSIWYG products since the rendering in X is unrelated to rendering on a printer. Display Postscript can answer this in the X world or one can always use NeWS ( ;^) ). 5) Smooth animation and timing are all a b*tch. Some work is being done in this area and a standard extension supporting double buffering are already out as part of R4. I'm sure you'll get more comments. -- Douglas S. Rand Internet: Snail: MITRE, Burlington Road, Bedford, MA Disclaimer: MITRE might agree with me - then again... Amateur Radio: KC1KJ