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- From: merlyn@usl.com
- Newsgroups: comp.windows.open-look
- Subject: Re: future of XView, NeWS, TNT, Sun, OLIT,....
- Message-ID: <j7xcbu9@openlook.Unify.Com>
- Date: 5 Nov 92 16:43:00 GMT
- Sender: news@Unify.Com
- Lines: 34
-
- > hopefully Sun and USL will fix this (even if it involves
- > having Sun put their OLIT group to work incorporating MoOLIT into their
- > system, the fact that it acknowledges the existence of the M-word
- > nonwithstanding, rather than pouring more resources into OLIT).
-
- We're trying....
-
- > On the other hand, it's a bit bothersome that OLIT and MoOLIT don't have
- > the same API; does that just mean MoOLIT is a superset of OLIT, or that
- > they're just different (to the extent that applications built atop OLIT
- > have to be modified to work atop MoOLIT, even if the application writer
- > doesn't care whether it plays well with the M-word)?
-
- It's not quite that bad. David Bryant's note was accurate, but it
- left unsaid the degree of difference. MoOLIT is derived from the
- same code as Sun's "OLIT 3.0"; the two branched at about "OLIT 2.0".
- Sun added one or two externally visible widgets (most conspicuously
- the DrawArea widget), USL added a Motif look-and-feel. In doing
- the latter, we added a couple of resources to allow a better
- "fine-tuning" of the Motif look; it is the nature of X resources
- that if a toolkit doesn't need them then they are safely
- ignored. Thus, for the purpose of achieving the Motif look and feel,
- there is no essential API difference created by MoOLIT over the
- OLIT 2.0 API.
-
- David's discussion of ABI incompatibilities is very literal. Indeed,
- neither OLIT nor MoOLIT has maintained binary compatibility *for
- widget subclassing*. But for applications that do not create
- subclasses, the ABI is largely preserved (see discussion of API
- differences above). Sun and USL still have a few details to
- iron out, and as I said we're working on this.
-
- Steve Humphrey
- UNIX System Laboratories
-