OPEN LOOK/Motif, was Re: MOTIF: The GUI

[John David Miller]

Comparing user-interfaces is especially tricky, since the
comparisons are, by nature, entirely subjective to individual
taste.  As such, UI-discussions have a habit of turning into
non-productive flame wars.  I hope this doesn't happen here.

Disclaimer aside, I use and prefer the OPEN LOOK GUI.  I have used it
in various forms since January, and am quite pleased with it.  

I have written several thousand lines of code with the AT&T OPEN LOOK Toolkit
(Xt+, based on the MIT Intrinsics) and have enjoyed the experience.  I
am just starting to write several thousand more lines of code using the
Sun XView Toolkit, which is not built on top of the Intrinsics, but has
a SunView-like API.  

The user interface was extremely well thought out and has been highly
refined by an public review program that ran for about a year.  Motif
may or may not look like PM (I don't think it does) but OPEN LOOK is
very similar to the Mac, and actually better in several places.  As 
an example: the up/down (or left/right) arrows on scrollbars ride 
with the position indicator, rather than being at the extremes of the
region being scrolled.  Much less mouse movement is involved to 
scroll back and forth.

OPEN LOOK detractors have said:

	1. AT&T and Sun OPEN LOOK implementations have different looks.

		The AT&T Release 2.0 will have the same look as the Sun
		implementation.  The new look was made in response to
		industry review.  It is very clean and functional looking.
		I personally find it ironic that, while the OPEN LOOK
		team was simplifying the look in response to industry
		review, Motif comes out with a very visually complex
		look.

	2. But I really *like* Motif's 3D look.

		The color specification of OPEN LOOK allows for this "3D"
		implementation, if you really must have it.  I think that
		3D looks are cute at first, but they take up too much
		valuable pixel space.

	3. But which OPEN LOOK toolkit should I use?

		Whatever one you want.  Do you like programming with the
		widget API provided by the Intrinsics?  Use AT&T's toolkit.
		Got a whole lot of SunView code you want to port to X?  
		Great, use XView.  Think X is okay, but you really like
		NeWS?  Use the NDE toolkit.

	4. Motif looks just like PM and we should just use that UI.

		I'd like to know how many people *really* think that 
		Motif looks like PM.  I don't.  Even if it did, I don't
		think that that is necessarily a good thing.  Why make
		your workstation look like it is running a DOS derivative?

	5. But Microsoft and IBM are behind Motif.

		No, they're not.  Microsoft wants OS/2 and PM everywhere.
		IBM does, too.  To them, X and Motif are placators.

	6. But what about OSF/1?

		Where is it?  UNIX SVR4.0 is in OEM's hands right now.  It
		will have X, NeWs, and all 3 OPEN LOOK toolkits available,
		not to mention integration of SysV, BSD, SunOS, and Xenix
		feature, plus a whole lot more.  The XView source code
		is availabe FREE from Sun and is on the MIT X11R4 tape.

I have probably said too much, already.  I just wanted to register my
somewhat emphatic vote for the OPEN LOOK GUI and encourage you to really
look at all sides of this issue before making any decisions.  Write some
code in each toolkit and see how easy it is to do what you want.  Look 
through the Style Guide for each and see how you like the behavior.

I am sure that there are a few reasons why someone might want to use 
Motif and maybe even OSF/1.  I am interested in hearing them, but please,
no flaming!

-- jdm
-- 
...!{tektronix!verdix}!sequent!gssc!jdm                John David Miller
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