Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!WSL.DEC.COM!price
From: price@WSL.DEC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Open Look vs. DECwindows
Message-ID: <8809080026.AA04531@eros.pa.dec.com>
Date: 8 Sep 88 00:26:37 GMT
References: <1542@daisy.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 117


Here is some information regarding DECwindows specifically.

DECwindows is an ongoing program at Digital to develop systems and applications
across our strategic operating environments (Ultrix, VMS, MS-DOS and in the
not too distant future, OS/2) which share a common human interface. As
much as is technically possible, the application programmer will 
see a common API.

While many of the component products of DECwindows are still to be announced,
we have announced XUI, which is basically the common API for DECwindows
applications.

XUI includes:

  1. The DECwindows Style Guide.
  2. The DECwindows Widget Set (Xt Intrinsics based implementation of
     the Style Guide).
  3. Simplified programming interface to the widgets in addition to the
     standard Xt style interface.
  4. Tools for separating 'form' from 'function' via a User Interface
     Language, a "Resource Manager", and a User Interface Language
     'Compiler'. These tools are also used to internationalize applications.
  5. The DECwindows Window Manager (ICCCM compliant overlapping window manager,
     DECwindows Style Guide conformant).
  6. The DECwindows Session Manager. An application which 'manages' the
     user's session, including login/logout, screen lock, host access control,
     application execution, and session attribute control (mouse acceleration,
     screen/pointer/window color control, keyclick volume, pointer shape, etc).
  5. Documentation.

XUI is available now on Digital's Ultrix platform. It will be available
soon on VMS. It is licensable in SOURCE FORM (all items listed above) for
porting to other platforms. This is the package that has been submitted
to OSF in response to the OSF RFT. The software will be supported by Digital.

The XUI licensing details are still being worked out, but it will basically
amount to a media charge for software vendors who wish to use the system
for their specific application product (no royalty charge, unlimited copying
allowed). For hardware platform vendors, the terms are still under review.
There will likely be a small royalty charge per copy to hardware vendors.
Again, this is still being worked.


To answer some of Ken Lee's specific questions:

Architectural Differences:

Toolkit (XUI)
-------------
Assuming Open Look for X is built using the Xt Intrinsics, both systems
will be architecturally the same. At least, one should be able to mix and
match widgets from both systems in an application. But until Open Look
is actually *implemented*, we will not know for sure.

Window Manager
--------------
Ours is ICCCM conformant, and I assume theirs will be too. Ours will conform
to our Style Guide.

Applications
------------
The DECwindows program has been in progress for 2 years, and currently consumes
1/4 of Digital's *entire* engineering staff. Needless to say, we have a
significant suite of applications in the wings. (At one time I counted
*50* separate projects underway). Announcements of specific products will
be ongoing. Stay tuned. All applications will be DECwindows Style Guide
conformant. In addition, we have been working with our third party
software vendors to integrate DECwindows into their products since December
1987.

Communications
--------------
We conform to the ICCCM. In addition, DECwindows utilizes a new Compound
Document Architecture, based upon ANSI standards in that area (I'm speaking
a bit beyond my own expertise now). This is a document architecture designed
to handle such things as integrated voice, moving video, and text in one
document.

Toolkit Contents

The XUI toolkit implements the complete DECwindows Style Guide. This includes
pulldown, pullright, and pop-up style menus, buttons, dialogs, scroll bars,
scale bars, radio buttons, toggles, etc., etc.

The Style Guide is available now from Digital. Contact your Sales Rep.

>ICCCM?

Yes.

>Window Grouping?

The window manager handles the grouping of multiple top level windows
within a single application. It will not provide the ability to arbitrarily
group applications in the first release.

>Colormap handling?

Yes. Also some support for color specification via the Session Manager.


Regarding another person's comments re: Digital adopting the OpenLook
Style Guide: Digital has been defining, implementing, and refining
the DECwindows Style since January 1987. We have been actively developing
applications which use the Style Guide and feeding back that experience
into the Guide. It would be silly to dump it now, to adopt an untested,
unimplemented style just because that style is arbitrarily named "Open".
It is no more or less "Open" than DECwindows. By the same token, the OpenLook
team should seriously consider adopting the DECwindows style. It works, and
source code is licensable and will be available very soon.

BTW, we will track the OSF decision.

-chuck

% flames >/dev/null