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From: beau1029@mstr.hgc.edu (donald beaudry)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif,comp.windows.x,comp.windows.ms,comp.windows.ms.programmer,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Neuron Data's Open Interface
Message-ID: <1991May28.064919.16358@mstr.hgc.edu>
Date: 28 May 91 06:49:19 GMT
References: <1991May26.044051.5284@mstr.hgc.edu> <6592@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
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In article <6592@vela.acs.oakland.edu> rdthomps@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Robert D. Thompson) writes:
>
>	But, is the "interface builder" an extension of Nexpert Object?
>
No.  Open Interface was created to ease the port of Nexpert from its
original platform (Mac) to multple platform.  It is a completely separate
animal.  You do get several interesting browser widgets developed for
the Nexpert interface.
>
>	In other words, what does it provide to say, C++ developers?
>
Open Interface produces ASCII resource files which can be compiled on
a per-platform basis to speed things up at startup.  It also produces
a C template which contains the calls used to build an application
or dialog box (or whatever), and callback stubs, and a makefile.
>
>	There are a lot of tools coming out that are very impressive,
>	but do not answer issues of speed, efficiency, and integration.
>
Open Interface is incompatible with Xt and anything based on Xt like
Motif or OpenLook libraries.  It uses its own event management scheme,
providing the same set of events under all supported windowing systems.

I am looking for performance info on Open Interface-based applications
under MAC OS, OS/2 and Windows 3.  Under X, performance should be
significantly improved due to the "X-windowless" nature of the archictecture.
A single X window is created for the application. (I would guess that 
each dialog box would also get an X window...).  All "widgets" (not
to be confused with Xt-based widgets) are drawn on that X window.  Sounds
like Xt gadgets.

Neuron Data claims that unused widgets can be "stubbed out"  to reduce the
size of the executable.  They claim that performance on Mac and PCs is
comparable to the native toolkits, and that X performance is better
than Xt-based toolkits.

>	Anyway, I would appreciate more information on what development
>	area the product is related to - i.e. what does it create -
>	C++ classes, C source code, or some interpreted
>	pseudo-language???

It is supposed to produce C - they said that C++ was preferable, but
is not fully available on all the platforms they want to support.  You
can choose ANSI C (they strongly recommend this for portability reasons)
or K&R.  And,  you can customize the code generator - come to think of
it, I think they mentioned that you can make this thing produce FORTRAN.
So you probably can get it to produce C++.