I'm a system administrator so forgive me if I sound stupid in this
newsgroup ;-).
We have a homebrew application that is built on Knowledge Craft, Lucid Lisp,
and CLX. This isn't the only application that our workstations will run
(although it is a VERY important one).
These are DEC Ultrix workstations and we are seeing writing on the wall which
says that we must get to OSF/Motif eventually. Most of our OA applications we
will be running on these workstations supposedly require OSF/Motif, as well as
some other software we will probably get in soon.
Question: Will the KC/Lucid/CLX application have problems running under
OSF/Motif? If so, what kind of problems?
Any help would be apprecaited.
Larry Cannell
Powertrain Electronics
Ford Motor Co.
From: Barry Margolin
Subject: Re: Lucid Lisp w/Knowledge Craft and CLX running under Motif?
Date:
Message-ID: <171og7INNene@early-bird.think.com>
In article <······················@e3u001.ped.pto.ford.com> ·······@ed8217.ped.pto.ford.com (Larry Cannell) writes:
>We have a homebrew application that is built on Knowledge Craft, Lucid Lisp,
>and CLX. This isn't the only application that our workstations will run
>(although it is a VERY important one).
>Question: Will the KC/Lucid/CLX application have problems running under
>OSF/Motif? If so, what kind of problems?
What do you mean by "running under OSF/Motif"? Motif isn't a window
system, it's a specification of a user interface look and feel and an API
to a toolkit that implements this UI. It also includes a window manager
that conforms to the UI spec.
If your question is "will the application run under the Motif window
manager" then the answer is that it should. In general, the choice of
window manager should be transparent to applications, although it's
possible for applications to take advantage of window manager-specific
extensions if they want to.
However, running under the Motif window manager isn't enough to make an
application conform to the Motif UI specification. Motif specifies the way
an application's UI works inside, not just how windows are manipulated.
For instance, it specifies how menu choices are made and how keyboard
shortcuts are provided. Your UI will almost certainly have to be rewritten
to provide this level of Motif compliance.
There's a facility called CLM that provides an interface to Motif for
applications written in Common Lisp. Instead of using CLX, it uses a
separate C program that uses the Motif toolkit. The Lisp API communicates
with this program over a stream, and it then makes the corresponding Motif
calls.
The Garnet window interface library implemented at CMU includes a Motif
toolkit written entirely in CL using CLX.
For more information on CLM and Garnet, see the section on window system
interfaces in the FAQ.
--
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.
······@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
From: Thomas Berlage
Subject: Re: Lucid Lisp w/Knowledge Craft and CLX running under Motif?
Date:
Message-ID: <berlage.714378026@gmd.de>
In <······················@e3u001.ped.pto.ford.com> ·······@ed8217.ped.pto.ford.com (Larry Cannell) writes:
>Question: Will the KC/Lucid/CLX application have problems running under
>OSF/Motif? If so, what kind of problems?
The only major problem I can think of is that your CLX code needs to follow
the ICCCM (Inter Client Communications Conventions Manual) that can be found
in the MIT X distribution. If not, you may have some problems with the Motif
window manager (mwm). That should not be too difficult to fix.
However, compared to other Motif programs your application may not look as
nice and may have a different feel (mouse buttons etc.). If you require that
your application is style-compatible with other Motif apps, then you could
use our Lisp binding for Motif called CLM (see the file CLM+GINA.README on
export.lcs.mit.edu in /contrib or on ftp.gmd.de in /gmd/gina). You could use
CLM to add Motif-style menus, scroll bars and dialog boxes to your
application. You will still need parts of your CLX code for custom drawings
etc.
Contact me for any further questions on CLM and GINA (GINA is a layer on top
of CLM and CLX, you can use it to write new graphical applications much more
easily).
Btw., do not confuse CLM with CLIM, the latter is a commercial interface
package.
Thomas Berlage (·······@gmd.de)
GMD (German National Research Center for Computer Science)
P.O. Box 1316, 5205 Sankt Augustin 1, Germany