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But in the particular case of open/save dialogs, I'd like to get rid of them altogether with XDS (Direct Save)

The application's UI includes a draggable icon representing the document. You drag it to an open file manager window and the file gets saved where you drop the icon.

This is especially nice if the file manager works like the MacOS Finder, where you can hover over a folder icon while dragging something to open that folder (pressing space opens it before the timeout).

I read about this being a general way to save files on Acorn Archimedes machines before x86's even had a GUI, so the idea isn't new.

Agreed, if that was the case. Fortunately, it isn't. DDD ships with most Linux distributions, and gives you the nice GUI interface you're used to, plus some extra goodies on top (the ability to visually see the state of data structures like linked lists or binary trees is an amazing debugging tool). And since this is Unix, naturally there are other choices if you don't like DDD: Code Crusader, mxdb, mxgdb, xxgdb etc.

Being out of college now, I don't run into this too much. And my trusty HP 48/49 RPN calculator keeps me from writing too much down when I do. But this is an interesting question that I will probably pursue for you (because I want to do it for myself since I regularly consider switching to teaching). In the meantime, I offer these leads (feel free to contact me directly), although it's NOT a direct answer to your question.

As you mentioned, LaTeX is less than ideal. But even those that do not like LaTeX like LyX. LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) TeX/LaTeX, SGML/DocBook, HTML, etc... editor for UNIX (and Windows if you have an X-Server like eXceed). It can export HTML c/o its integrated (as of v1.1.6) TTH (TeX to HTML) export. TTH produces multiline equations usually in standard HTML. So I guess using LyX and its export, people can generate HTML and cut'n paste the resulting HTML into their text box on your site (or export and cut'n paste LaTeX for that matter). Maybe you can take the LyX/TTH source (which is GPL) and tailor the app.

Another interesting program that I think does NOT have HTML export features (but is interesting none-the-less) is Net Planet Software's THX-1138. NPS has a clean X-Windows C++ framework called JX built right atop of plain'ole Xlib. THX-1138 is a "quickie, but goodie" program written in this framework and is a nice, equation writing features. Although I did not see an HTML export feature, it can export EPS (encapsulated postscript -- a size-efficient vector graphics format for printing) which can be used for conversion to another graphic format -- like a small, vector-based graphic format (so you don't have to worry about size/resolution issues with bitmap graphics).

I'm sure there are many, many other examples, probably ones not so UNIX-focused either (I run Linux 100% of the time -- and support UNIX at work -- sorry). I'll let you know if I find anything else.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Being out of college now, I don't run into this too much. And my trusty HP 48/49 RPN calculator keeps me from writing too much down when I do. But this is an interesting question that I will probably pursue for you (because I want to do it for myself since I regularly consider switching to teaching). In the meantime, I offer these leads (feel free to contact me directly), although it's NOT a direct answer to your question.

As you mentioned, LaTeX is less than ideal. But even those that do not like LaTeX like LyX. LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) TeX/LaTeX, SGML/DocBook, HTML, etc... editor for UNIX (and Windows if you have an X-Server like eXceed). It can export HTML c/o its integrated (as of v1.1.6) TTH (TeX to HTML) export. TTH produces multiline equations usually in standard HTML. So I guess using LyX and its export, people can generate HTML and cut'n paste the resulting HTML into their text box on your site (or export and cut'n paste LaTeX for that matter). Maybe you can take the LyX/TTH source (which is GPL) and tailor the app.

Another interesting program that I think does NOT have HTML export features (but is interesting none-the-less) is Net Planet Software's THX-1138. NPS has a clean X-Windows C++ framework called JX built right atop of plain'ole Xlib. THX-1138 is a "quickie, but goodie" program written in this framework and is a nice, equation writing features. Although I did not see an HTML export feature, it can export EPS (encapsulated postscript -- a size-efficient vector graphics format for printing) which can be used for conversion to another graphic format -- like a small, vector-based graphic format (so you don't have to worry about size/resolution issues with bitmap graphics).

I'm sure there are many, many other examples, probably ones not so UNIX-focused either (I run Linux 100% of the time -- and support UNIX at work -- sorry). I'll let you know if I find anything else.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Being out of college now, I don't run into this too much. And my trusty HP 48/49 RPN calculator keeps me from writing too much down when I do. But this is an interesting question that I will probably pursue for you (because I want to do it for myself since I regularly consider switching to teaching). In the meantime, I offer these leads (feel free to contact me directly), although it's NOT a direct answer to your question.

As you mentioned, LaTeX is less than ideal. But even those that do not like LaTeX like LyX. LyX is a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) TeX/LaTeX, SGML/DocBook, HTML, etc... editor for UNIX (and Windows if you have an X-Server like eXceed). It can export HTML c/o its integrated (as of v1.1.6) TTH (TeX to HTML) export. TTH produces multiline equations usually in standard HTML. So I guess using LyX and its export, people can generate HTML and cut'n paste the resulting HTML into their text box on your site (or export and cut'n paste LaTeX for that matter). Maybe you can take the LyX/TTH source (which is GPL) and tailor the app.

Another interesting program that I think does NOT have HTML export features (but is interesting none-the-less) is Net Planet Software's THX-1138. NPS has a clean X-Windows C++ framework called JX built right atop of plain'ole Xlib. THX-1138 is a "quickie, but goodie" program written in this framework and is a nice, equation writing features. Although I did not see an HTML export feature, it can export EPS (encapsulated postscript -- a size-efficient vector graphics format for printing) which can be used for conversion to another graphic format -- like a small, vector-based graphic format (so you don't have to worry about size/resolution issues with bitmap graphics).

I'm sure there are many, many other examples, probably ones not so UNIX-focused either (I run Linux 100% of the time -- and support UNIX at work -- sorry). I'll let you know if I find anything else.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Freshmeat has a development environment section:
http://freshmeat.net/appindex/development/environm ents.html

Here you will find Code Crusader, a CodeWarrier look-alike. Never used it, but there are some favourable comments on freshmeat.

I've never used ADA, but my favorite is Code Crusader. I don't know, maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but I think it's one of the easiest to use out there.

Arrow is a good program that is worth a look.

You might be interested in Code Crusader. Nice editor with syntax highlighting and most of the other nice features of the good commercial IDE's. Works with all kinds of compilers, and uses Makefiles.

Regards,

But gnome apps want gnome DD calls, where KDE apps want KDE calls.

The calls aren't what matters for drag-and-drop; the underlying protocol is what matters. GTK+ 1.2 and Qt 2.0 both use the Xdnd protocol, and other toolkits do so or will do so as well; hopefully this will make it more likely that you can drag and drop stuff between applications. (Current versions of KDE use Qt 1.x, which doesn't use Xdnd; you'll probably have to wait for KDE 2.0 to drag/drop songs from KFM to Xmms.)

As for Netscape, it currently uses Motif; GTK+ 1.2[.x] also supports the Motif drag-and-drop protocol, but other toolkits don't, so, unfortunately, that doesn't work as well as it should. Hopefully more toolkits will also add support for the Motif protocol, if possible (so that applications using Motif and applications not using Motif can mutually drag-and-drop; no, putting Xdnd support into Lesstif, even if that's possible, won't necessarily help, as you may have to deal with statically-linked binaries for non-open-source applications, or with applications dynamically linked with Motif 2.x).

YES, you can STILL have different WM's with different look/feel, but the UNDERLYING OBJECT MODEL MUST BE STANDARDIZED!

It's not necessary to standardize the object model in order to solve the drag-and-drop problem, but the lack of a standard object model might be an issue if you want to mix KDE and GNOME stuff, as KDE and GNOME have different object models - you probably won't be able to use a GNOME (Bonobo) object inside Konqueror (the KDE 2.0 file manager) or use a KDE object inside Nautilus.

I also suspect that you're not likely to see them agree on an object model any time soon, necessary though doing so might be.

(I'm saying nothing about whether people should standardize. I'm just saying that I suspect they won't standardize the desktop object model any time soon.)

Worth ignoring because Qt 2.x is, guess what - compatible with GTK+ and Motif.

And Motif? It does support the Xdnd protocol that GTK+ (and the toolkit/application framework that introduced Xdnd, JX) support, but I hadn't heard that it, like GTK+, also supported the Motif DnD protocol as well - are you certain that it does (e.g., because Troll Tech says so on their Web site)?

"There are hundreds of web browsers, too, but most of them suck. CodeWarrior is robust, fast, and mature, and it has a large user base already."

Only in the Mac community and to a lesser extent in the Windows community. And, there is one free alternative and one no-so-free alternative that stand out as being usable and as good as (or better than- depending on how you view it...) CodeWarrior.

Code Crusader is the freebie and is a best of breed IDE and is what I've been using for some of my work projects and all of my at home projects. It's worth a look-see.

CodeFusion, from Red Hat, is the other one. It's a little clumsy to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's also a great alternative to CodeWarrior. (It's what we're using for our stuff at work now- we're needing cross-platform... :-)

"However, I think that having CodeWarrior available for Linux would help entice developers coming from the Windows/Mac world."

Actually, we've got a lot there with the other two- if MetroWerks/Motorola aren't interested in us, it's their loss.

I've been pretty satisfied with Code Crusader. It looks and acts a lot like CodeWarrior, and is very stable. I don't know how well it would scale up to larger projects, but it's worth checking out.

Besides Open Source tools like Glade and JX Builder, Code Fusion (and other commercial tools like the Motif based BX pro) make for some very serious competition for Code Warrior. Maybe the abundance of such tools (and the availability of excellent Open Source ones) killed Codewarrior?
So instead of worrying too much about this (admittedly heavy) loss, look forward to new tools, and try one of the other ones!