Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: An ignorant question?

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

> I don't discount a more traditional X interface (please, no more
> X-windows, there is no such beast :)

It's the X Window System.  But that's a mouthful hence the many shorter
forms, e.g. X Windows, and X.

> as provided by e.g. Lesstif.

The OP who wanted a Visual Basic equivalent but `direct to X' probably
doesn't realise that X has no concept of push-buttons, scrollbars, etc.
It provides only a mechanism in many things, not a policy, e.g. how a
scrollbar should look and work.

These higher level things are typically implemented by widget sets.
Many make use of the Xt Intrinsics library that, again, doesn't know
what a scrollbar is but provides a frame in which these things can be
defined.

Athena is one of the widest available widget sets and can be seen at
work in xterm.  It's 3D descendent, still maintained, is used by gv.  If
you want a free widget set that will likely be installed on a user's
*Unix*, not Linux, machine that already has X it's a strong contender
despite its age and lack of features;  it `does' for basic GUI control.

Motif is a more well known widget set built on top of Xt Intrinsics.
Typically available with commercial Unix systems, e.g. IBM's AIX, it has
more features than Athena.  Lesstif is a `free' clone, and in recent
times the Motif source has become available in some shape or form.

Tk is a widget set built without Xt, originally for the Tcl language,
hence Tcl/Tk.  Since then it has been appropriated for other languages
use.  If you're writing your application in a scripting language, e.g.
Python, then it could be a good candidate and IIRC there are GUI's
available for defining the window layouts, etc.

gtk, Qt, and WxWindows are widget sets/application frameworks, again
built without Xt.  They tend to only be available on `free' systems and
given their constant development your user may find he has to upgrade
his version of these.  `Bindings' for other languages, e.g. Python,
exist for all these.

Hope that helps clarify the relationship between them.

Cheers,


Ralph.