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