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From: jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen)
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: <24872@oolong.la.locus.com>
Date: 30 May 91 03:31:14 GMT
References: <1991May26.044051.5284@mstr.hgc.edu>
Followup-To: comp.windows.x.motif
Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles
Lines: 39

In article <1991May26.044051.5284@mstr.hgc.edu> beau1029@mstr.hgc.edu (donald beaudry) writes:
>Neuron Data has recently released an interface builder for Motif, Open Look,
>MS Windows, OS/2 PM, and Macintosh.  They claim that you get the superset 
>of all "widgets" on all platforms.  I have seen a demo and it is most 
>impressive.  Wait - it gets better...
>You also get every look and feel on every platform!  With the click of
>a button, your Open Look application running on a Sun will redraw itself
>to look like it is running on a Mac.  You can get MS Windows look and feel
>under X, or on the Mac.
>The quality of the widget set is impressive.  They have created a 
>virtual graphics machine that runs on all platforms.  Using this VGM, 
>they developed their own widget set formed from the superset of all
>widgets on all the aforementioned platforms.   That means that you get
>tear-aways and modeless menus under Motif, a multi-column list that
>looks very impressive, etc.  Instead of relying on Xt and Widget sets,
>the VGM relies solely on Xlib on X platforms, and draws its own interface
>components on other platforms.

Some interesting questions about Neuron (for anyone who knows)...
 
Does it have compatible graphic primitives available in all environments?
Does it simulate those that are available in some but not others?
 
What about fonts?   The Mac, Windows and X font management is pretty
dissimilar... Resizing fonts is easily available on the Mac whereas
it is essentially nonexistent on X (you HAVE to have the exact font
bit maps available for each size you want or you have to do your
own font resizing like Framemaker does)...
 
Are Neuron widgets easier to build than Motif or Xt widgets?  
 
Is there an extended text manager like on the Mac that supports
tabs, font changes, highlighting, etc?
 
On the other hand, have they added the Form widget functionality into
the Mac and Windows environments?  This is one of the best features
of X/Motif going...
 
Jon Rosen