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From: elvy@harvard.UUCP (Marc Elvy)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Unix Display Manager
Message-ID: <262@harvard.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Jun-84 04:27:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.262
Posted: Wed Jun  6 04:27:15 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jun-84 00:45:02 EDT
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard
Lines: 26

()
	I am wondering if anyone has put together a package of screen
management facilities which run under UNIX.  After sitting up night
after night hard-coding coordinates into "curses" programs, I find myself
wishing that there were something under UNIX which functions like the
CMS "Display Management System" (DMS).  This program allows one to
interactively define a window (by putting text into a screen) consisting
of prompts (text strings) and variables (which can be restricted by
type and by range).  The defined "window" is then called by a PL/I
program, and the package takes care of all the dirty work.

	While something this sophisticated is not necessary, it would
certainly be nice if there were a package which enabled one to define
windows by typing a picture onto a screen and specifying what kinds
of variables should be read where.  This would eliminate the hours
of BORING programming which must be done to provide a nice, terminal-
independent, full-screen interface to a program.

	I welcome any hints, rumors, or suggestions.

Marc

			     Marc A. Elvy  ( elvy@harvard )
		    ({genrad,allegra,ihnp4,ima}!wjh12!harvard!elvy)
			     Aiken Computation Laboratory
				  Harvard University