Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!ncar!boulder!stan!ninja!toml
From: toml@ninja.Solbourne.COM (Tom LaStrange)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Open Look versus Motif, and it's effect on NeWS vs. X.
Message-ID: <1990Feb17.222156.21791@Solbourne.COM>
Date: 17 Feb 90 22:21:56 GMT
Sender: news@Solbourne.COM
Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc.
Lines: 51

>> Unless: [dynamic linking] + a single API for both Motif and Open Look +
>> [binary compatible interface]
>
>That's a good point. If you can get the APIs together for Motif and Open
>Look it should be possible to let the user select them. So "unreasonable"
>isn't a fair description.
>
>Is anyone working on this, though? It looks like the "standard" for Motif
>and OpenLook is pretty much cast in stone. It seems as if NeWS gives you
>more leeway for getting around shortcomings in individual programs.

I just started reading this newsgroup today.

YES, YES, YES!!!!!

If you attended the X Technical Conference in January, you may have seen
a talk given by Gary Aitken of Solbourne on just this thing!  

We have a C++ toolkit called OI (Object Interface) whose interaction and
appearence model can be chosen by the user at run-time.  You heard it
right, RUN-TIME.  No need for the user to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to some
different directory.  Applications built with OI will get an Open Look
look-and-feel by default.  The user can take the same binary image and
start it with a -motif option or have a "*OI*model: motif" resource set and
they get the same application that looks and works like a motif application.

It's real and it works.  I've been using it for 10 months now it is the
easiest toolkit to use that I've encountered.  The hello world progam
can be coded in less than 10 lines of code.  Our window manager (swm)
is written on top of the toolkit and can emulate just about any other
window manager available.  Sorry if this sounds too much like an
advertisement, but it really is a nice environment.  One set of applications,
let the user decide how he/she wants them to look.

OI is being distributed by AT&T's Unix Software Operation and an Open Look,
pre-motif version should be available mid-1990.  Full motif support should
be there by the end of 1990.  And who knows what other interfaces will end 
up in it?  3D Open Look?  NeXT?  

We will be giving a tutorial on OI at Xhibition this year.  If you want 
information now, you can contact either of the two people listed below.

  George Kakatsakis  (303) 678-4362
  Steve Kowalski     (303) 678-4382

--
Tom LaStrange

Solbourne Computer Inc.    ARPA: toml@Solbourne.COM
1900 Pike Rd.              UUCP: ...!{boulder,sun}!stan!toml
Longmont, CO  80501