Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!zorba!dtynan
From: jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix
Subject: Re: Screen Manager for Unix terminals
Message-ID: <3545@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Date: 23 Feb 90 03:28:48 GMT
References: <3533@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Sender: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM
Organization: Radiation Systems, Inc. (a thinktank, motorcycle, car and gun works facility)
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Approved: dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM
In-Reply-To: <3543@zorba.Tynan.COM>
Cc:

>> Can anyone point to me to Screen Manager packages available to support
>> Unix terminals?  I would like the screen manager to handle menus,
>> forms, windowing, and keyboard entries.  The screen manager must work
>> with terminals like VT100, so it rules out GUIs like OpenLook, motif, etc. 
>
>Thanks to all who responded.  Some of the suggestions (in no particular
>order) were:
>
>Chris McCoy at Purdue University:
>	C-scape from Oakland Group (800) 233-3733
>	Vermont Views from Vermont Creative Software (800) 848-1248
>

I've got extensive experience with both products in the DOS world and have
looked into them for unix.  Here's the poop.

C-scape is a pretty good package for DOS.  It has a wide variety of 
functionality at several different levels.  It is moderately fast but 
generates large programs.  Oakland group tends to be a bit flakey.
I was a beta tester for release 3.0.  I got the docs for the product and
empty disk packs.  About 2 weeks later, and before I ever got the disks,
they had the product on the market.  Their screen generator is pretty
poor.  I say that not having seen the latest and greatest from them, but
I've learned to let others get bloodied on new stuff from them.

They do have a unix product but it has 2 problems.  First and foremost,
they did not use curses but instead implemented their own hokey "terminfo".
If you want to drive much more than a VT-100, you gotta write your own
cscape terminfo files.  No utility is supplied to convert standard terminfo
files.  The second problem is cost.  They seem to think that the guy sitting
on a unix system is gonna pay a LOT more for a tool than for his PC sitting
next to it.  By a LOT, I mean thousands.  Plus the license terms claim that
payment must be made for each new user on the development system.  I have
flamed them in writing several times but they're too hard headed to 
listen.

Pretty much the same goes for Vermont Views.  The screen generator is much
better and it is faster but less capable.  Again, they went their own way
with terminal control PLUS they want an astronomical price for Unix 
source - $7000 last time I checked.  

C-scape could probably be adapted pretty easily to curses because they
use the concept of a driver structure such that the entire library
interfaces with the underlying system at only one point and through 
a structure of function pointers.

Hope that helps.

John