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From: zwicky@kiwi.cis.ohio-state.edu (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: Toolkit for NeWS
Message-ID: <644@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 17:33:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: tut.644
Posted: Wed Oct 21 17:33:42 1987
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References: <8710202033.AA00500@linc.cis.upenn.edu>
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In article <8710202033.AA00500@linc.cis.upenn.edu> Bodick@CIS.UPENN.EDU (Andre Marquis) writes:
>
>I'm still wondering if there is going to be a standard user-interface
>(similar to SunView if need be) toolkit for NeWS.  I talked breifly with
>Saul Wold of Sun (I'm not sure what his position with them is.) and he
>indicated that there is nothing on the horizon.  Is this indicative of Sun's
>long term commitment to NeWS?

You don't seem to understand NeWS really at all. There already is a
standard user-interface for NeWS, consisting of the LiteMenu and LiteWindow
classes. It hasn't been fleshed out, but it exists, and it's cake to use;
all my NeWS programs have interfaces just like the ones that came with the
package. Now, there are still deficiencies, but the documentation clearly
indicates that Sun does intend to update and improve these interfaces, 
and discusses their commitment to standard interfaces. You may be confused
by the fact that one can short-circuit the defaults, or by the fact that
they are in the window system classes, not in the C-libraries. 

>From the dearth of replies to my image queries, I'm assuming the user
>community is as apathetic toward NeWS as I am acerbic.  Sun is right out.
>Comments?

 Why not assume that the user community is not terribly interested in
NeWS bitmaps? I am an enthusiastic NeWS user and programmer (in the
original PostScript), with four or five fun graphics programs to my
credit, and I didn't answer because I don't deal with bitmaps. As I
remember, my husband, who envied X users their backgrounds, had fiddled
with bitmaps and did reply. I am hoping/praying for the next release; I
want a better terminal emulator, a lock screen program, and more X
support, and non-PostScript people around me want more help dealing
with NeWS from other languages (not just C but also Pascal and Lisp).
A good half our staff will switch as soon as they have a good terminal
emulator and a screen lock. The attitude some of our operators have
towards X is kind of mean, really; between the bad user interface and
the bugs it displays on a Pyramid, it's got a lot of them fed up.

>Andre Marquis

Elizabeth Zwicky (zwicky@ohio-state.arpa or cbosgd!osu-cis!tut!zwicky)