Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!esquire!yost
From: yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Overview of motif
Message-ID: <1353@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 14 Aug 89 14:46:09 GMT
References: <3741@cn.sei.cmu.edu> <138@paperboy.OSF.ORG>
Reply-To: yost@esquire.UUCP (David A. Yost)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 48

In article <138@paperboy.OSF.ORG> mitch@zippy.osf.org (Mitch Trachtenberg) writes:
>	Briefly, Motif is the user interface software offered by 
>the Open Software Foundation.  It consists of:
>    Window manager
>    Widget set
>        derived from the DEC and HP widget sets, and has the HP
>        3-d appearance.
>    User Interface Language
>        allows the widget hierarchies and (for example) string
>        literals to be specified outside of an application's
>        code, for easy change.
>    Style Guide
>        aims at making a user's transition from IBM's
>        Presentation Manager (or Microsoft Windows) to Motif
>        nearly transparent.
>
>    For more information, you can contact OSF at (617) 621-8700
>or email uec-comment@osf.org.

What is the availability of UIL and Style Guide documents?

We have ordered a ($1,000) Motif source license, and
we were told that the documentation was available
separately for $30, so we ordered it and have received
it.  What we got was The Motif Preliminary Functional
Description, which appears to be a massive,
practically illustration-free programmer's reference
with no overview or tutorial and no higher-level
discussion of user interface guidelines.  The Window
Manager section does, however, briefly claim adherence
to the "CXI Behavior Guide".  What is this, and where
does one get it?

A Motif user interface design guidelines document
will be essential if there is to be a consistency of
user interface across Motif applications, a goal
more important than the mere availability of Motif's
graphical goodies across UNIX platforms.

I urge UNIX programmers and applications designers
considering developing with Motif or Open Look to
spend at least a week exploring the existing real
world body of graphical interface software on the
Macintosh, and to read the "Apple Human Interface
Guidelines:  The Apple Desktop Interface"
(Addison-Wesley).

 --dave yost