The binary distributions do not require you to install or buy Motif at all. Much effort has been made to make the installation as simple as possible: one binary file. The install is so trivial, there is none.
If you have on OS that comes with Motif, the binaries dynamically link with it to save you some memory. If you have an OS that doesn't come with Motif, the binary statically links with Motif so you don't have to install or buy it.
CDE sets a number of resources on the XmDisplay object. In 2.0, this tells most of the Motif widgets to change their appearance. Some of these are:
XmNenableThinThickness: use smaller shadows to make the 3-D effects "flatter" XmNenableEtchedInMenu: reverse menu shadow effects XmNenableToggleVisual: use 'checkboxes' for toggles instead of reversing shadows.
To get the complete list, you need to have a 2.0 Motif manual. Unfortunately, most info out there is only for 1.2 as that's what is most prevalent.
Motif 2.x documentation is sometimes difficult to find in print, but there are some good sources online. Read the docs. Motif is impossible to use without full, accurate docs on all the resource settings.
You can put this in your.Xdefaults file to make all Motif 2.x apps look similar to CDE:
"..a completely new way of driving my car. I mean, just about every car out there from any brand is the same. Steering wheels, gas pedals, brakes, etc. I am looking for something new and different. "
Now, doesn't that sound silly? Sometimes there IS a best solution to a particular problem.
A great UI that lifts us to the next level is not likely to be enormously different than today's UIs. A great UI uses exisiting elements in a better new way, improving them.
Cars are better today than 30 years ago because they're safer, more efficient, more reliable, cleaner. Not because someone spent time figuring out what alternative gadget might be cooler than a steering wheel.
They *do* reinvent the wheel: making it more ergonomic, less likely to break your skull, putting the horn on it, less likely to slip out your hand, etc.
They'd be useless. You ever talk to a lawyer or an accountant online? They always spout BS like this:
Legal advice here. The above advice not legal advice. Consult your own attorney.
Gee, next time someone asks me a techinical newsgroup, I should respond similarly:
"Well, in C you can use a pointer to function for callbacks. The above is not software advice. Do not act upon it. You must hire your own local software engineer to tell you the same damn thing."
Not even then. Even if there are only SDMI-based media out there and it was perfectly secure (monkeys... butt...), anyone could still record the analog audio and digitize it. Sure, it's not a 0-generation, but 1-generation copy is good enough since it won't ever degrade.
Only when the record companies come up with SDMI media and players that plug directly into your brain, perfectly encrypted all the way, will they be able to control it. But, doesn't that sound a bit like The Matrix, scary and improbable?
Email makes no difference in this situation. What's to stop you from printing all that material, taking it home, stuffing it a legally-protected, unsearchable envelope and mailing it out? Nothing. Yes, what you did is probably illegal. It still doesn't give the company the right to rip open every envelope coming out of YOUR mailbox.
A company is not a human. It has no rights to privacy.
Well, I think Win98 only does the repartition thing if you select "Express Install". RedHat does the same thing! Do a custom install. Always. I have Linux/Win98 and, aside from the usual boot sector trashing, I've been able to reinstall them independtly.
Buying the full version still doesn't work. I own the "full" version of Win98 and tried to upgrade my wife's computer from Win95, trying to save her settings. I get a friendly message: "you can't do this- you need the upgrade version". So, the FULL version won't upgrade, and the upgrade won't install from scratch! You need BOTH if you want to do both. D'oh!
The kicker is that I said, ok, we'll do a full install into a separate directory, to make windows happy. Nope, don't work. Got the same message. Had to go delete win.com to trick it.
Fortunately, there are ways around most of these problems if you look hard enough.
- They require skins. I can't make WinAmp look like a normal Win32 application. Skinning should be an option.
- Being bitmaps, they are resolution dependent. WinAmp on a 1280x1024 desktop is ridiculous, the controls are about a micron high. Double-size? Oh great, ugly pixel jaggies. You say I can just get a "bigger" skin? Well, what if I switch res? Why can't I just use it without having to go find these silly extras!?
- They don't use standard controls. Oops, you can't use tabs, alt-accelerators, or the arrow keys,to navigate the controls. (Sure, accelerators work, but they are hidden, unlike the visual cues.) How many times have you been typing in a stupid homebrew text widget, and all the standard keys like Home/End/etc. don't work? GTK doesn't even always get this right.
- People with visual or motor disorders probably can't use it. If I use a standard control, I can make the font larger if I can't see it; or if I might be blind I can attach voice navigation to it. Not on a skin.
- They tend to ignore components of good UI design as much as most cruddy web sites do.
UIs are UIs, including the web, including apps, including skins. A lot of UI research has taken place over the years. As computers go mainstream, we shouldn't be ignoring it, but heeding it even *more*.
Does anyone know if OpenAL's reference implementation will support a GLX-like network protocol? Or will it cheat and assume the app is running on the local machine? The information on the website seems real thin.
If they go the protocol route, will it be an X server extension, or some custom daemon?
I want to have my cake and eat it too- hardware acceleration *and* run over the network. Witness running GL apps over the net to a non-GLX server. Barf, transmitting pixels on the wire.
Unfortunately, the current crop of hardware-accelerated drivers cross-network is fairly difficult to install. It took me a long time get get a TNT, running GLX on Linux. (hint: nVidia's instructions don't work- goto Mesa3d.org and use those). Until this gets resolved, I really can't see any Linux games reaching end-users.
The problem really hinges on what you send, not what you get. Whenever you send email, web posting, usenet posting, or slashdot message, you have to assume that it will be recorded for the rest of time, with your name attached. Send an email to your cow-orkers? Family? Friends? You can't rely on *them* deleting your mail, so you need to assume it's written down for good. At any time, some lawyer can go searching for it and find it. The problem with keeping all this data is that it's not difficult to single out a person, read everything he's ever said, and then find a crime to charge him with. But that's neither here nor there. Even stuff you don't explicity send isn't immune. I'm sure in a few years, we're going to start seeing people (e.g., elected officials) getting grilled for looking at porn on the web, just because some server logged an IP address and someone was smart enough to figure it out. I love computers, but their ability to track almost everything we do scares me sometimes.
The art of interface design and usability seem to have both taken great hits as applications move from the desktop to the web.
It seems that all the good practices we've learned in the last ten years of GUI design are simply thrown out the window, just because an app is on the web.
Zero keyboard navigability, garish visuals, bad fonts, and unintelligible buttons seem to be the norm instead of the exception nowadays. If a company released the same interface on the desktop, they'd be laughed out of existence.
What can be done to encourage web developers to follow solid, trusted, UI design guidelines?
Sigh. My point was that the numbers he is stating now (6 billion) implies everyone in the world is on the net now, which is fabulously untrue.
As for multicast, it needs to be standardized first, then implemented in every router between the mythical Afghanian website and each of those 6 billion computers.
Thats not to say it won't get easier, or faster. But even in 20 years, I doubt it will be possible "instantly" (his words) to send a movie to "6 billion" people, of which most of them don't even *have* computers. Even with fat pipes, even with multicasting. The fact is that most of the world is not and will never be on the net.
Does this guy even remotely get the concepts of bandwidth and scalability?
But if it was on the Net, 6 billion people would have access to it.
I had no idea all of China, India, and Zimbabwe had computers and ISPs! Such progress in such short time! (Maybe that's why AOL's stock is so inflated?) I doubt there are even 6 billion TVs in the world.
Now, you put it on some obscure Web site in Afghanistan and all of the sudden, it's in every computer in the world, simultaneously.
Wow! I never knew pipes to those third-world countries were so fat! And the net has the bandwidth to transport a 5GB move to all of those 6 billion computers simultaneously! (What is 5GB x 6,000,000,000 anyway? Are that many molecules in the universe?)
[The net] is an extraordinary new delivery system.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have on OS that comes with Motif, the binaries dynamically link with it to save you some memory. If you have an OS that doesn't come with Motif, the binary statically links with Motif so you don't have to install or buy it.
Either way, it just works.
Wrong. While Motif does define the look of an app, the desktop environment can make global changes to impose a look on all Motif apps.
CDE (and KDE) both do this.
XmNenableThinThickness: use smaller shadows to make the 3-D effects "flatter"
XmNenableEtchedInMenu: reverse menu shadow effects
XmNenableToggleVisual: use 'checkboxes' for toggles instead of reversing shadows.
To get the complete list, you need to have a 2.0 Motif manual. Unfortunately, most info out there is only for 1.2 as that's what is most prevalent.
Motif 2.x documentation is sometimes difficult to find in print, but there are some good sources online. Read the docs. Motif is impossible to use without full, accurate docs on all the resource settings.
You can put this in your .Xdefaults file to make all Motif 2.x apps look similar to CDE:
*enableBtn1Transfer: true
*enableButtonTab: true
*enableDefaultButton: true
*defaultButtonEmphasis: XmINTERNAL_HIGHLIGHT
*enableDragIcon: true
*enableEtchedInMenu: true
*enableMenuInCascade: true
*enableMultiKeyBindings: true
*enableThinThickness: true
*enableToggleColor: true
*enableToggleVisual: true
NEdit has recently been added as a SourceForge project. This was possible because the license recently changed to the GPL from a more restrictive one.
You can get the source there if the main distro site is overloaded. Stop by and see why NEdit rocks. (Hint: it's much faster than that Other Editor.)
Maybe, but you could play one on TV!
"..a completely new way of driving my car. I mean, just about every car out there from any brand is the same. Steering wheels, gas pedals, brakes, etc. I am looking for something new and different. "
Now, doesn't that sound silly? Sometimes there IS a best solution to a particular problem.
A great UI that lifts us to the next level is not likely to be enormously different than today's UIs. A great UI uses exisiting elements in a better new way, improving them.
Cars are better today than 30 years ago because they're safer, more efficient, more reliable, cleaner. Not because someone spent time figuring out what alternative gadget might be cooler than a steering wheel.
They *do* reinvent the wheel: making it more ergonomic, less likely to break your skull, putting the horn on it, less likely to slip out your hand, etc.
Legal advice here. The above advice not legal advice. Consult your own attorney.
Gee, next time someone asks me a techinical newsgroup, I should respond similarly:
"Well, in C you can use a pointer to function for callbacks. The above is not software advice. Do not act upon it. You must hire your own local software engineer to tell you the same damn thing."
I'm no MS fan, but what about NT/Alpha?
Only when the record companies come up with SDMI media and players that plug directly into your brain, perfectly encrypted all the way, will they be able to control it. But, doesn't that sound a bit like The Matrix, scary and improbable?
Then /. might want to remove the little spam logo before they get sued...
A company is not a human. It has no rights to privacy.
Well, I think Win98 only does the repartition thing if you select "Express Install". RedHat does the same thing! Do a custom install. Always. I have Linux/Win98 and, aside from the usual boot sector trashing, I've been able to reinstall them independtly.
Buying the full version still doesn't work. I own the "full" version of Win98 and tried to upgrade my wife's computer from Win95, trying to save her settings. I get a friendly message: "you can't do this- you need the upgrade version". So, the FULL version won't upgrade, and the upgrade won't install from scratch! You need BOTH if you want to do both. D'oh!
The kicker is that I said, ok, we'll do a full install into a separate directory, to make windows happy. Nope, don't work. Got the same message. Had to go delete win.com to trick it.
Fortunately, there are ways around most of these problems if you look hard enough.
1990s: Sell 'Em All
2000s: Sue 'Em All
What's next?
Most skinnable applicaations Suck(tm) because:
- They require skins. I can't make WinAmp look like a normal Win32 application. Skinning should be an option.
- Being bitmaps, they are resolution dependent. WinAmp on a 1280x1024 desktop is ridiculous, the controls are about a micron high. Double-size? Oh great, ugly pixel jaggies. You say I can just get a "bigger" skin? Well, what if I switch res? Why can't I just use it without having to go find these silly extras!?
- They don't use standard controls. Oops, you can't use tabs, alt-accelerators, or the arrow keys,to navigate the controls. (Sure, accelerators work, but they are hidden, unlike the visual cues.) How many times have you been typing in a stupid homebrew text widget, and all the standard keys like Home/End/etc. don't work? GTK doesn't even always get this right.
- People with visual or motor disorders probably can't use it. If I use a standard control, I can make the font larger if I can't see it; or if I might be blind I can attach voice navigation to it. Not on a skin.
- They tend to ignore components of good UI design as much as most cruddy web sites do.
UIs are UIs, including the web, including apps, including skins. A lot of UI research has taken place over the years. As computers go mainstream, we shouldn't be ignoring it, but heeding it even *more*.
Does anyone know if OpenAL's reference implementation will support a GLX-like network protocol? Or will it cheat and assume the app is running on the local machine? The information on the website seems real thin.
If they go the protocol route, will it be an X server extension, or some custom daemon?
I want to have my cake and eat it too- hardware acceleration *and* run over the network. Witness running GL apps over the net to a non-GLX server. Barf, transmitting pixels on the wire.
Unfortunately, the current crop of hardware-accelerated drivers cross-network is fairly difficult to install. It took me a long time get get a TNT, running GLX on Linux. (hint: nVidia's instructions don't work- goto Mesa3d.org and use those). Until this gets resolved, I really can't see any Linux games reaching end-users.
The problem really hinges on what you send, not what you get. Whenever you send email, web posting, usenet posting, or slashdot message, you have to assume that it will be recorded for the rest of time, with your name attached. Send an email to your cow-orkers? Family? Friends? You can't rely on *them* deleting your mail, so you need to assume it's written down for good. At any time, some lawyer can go searching for it and find it. The problem with keeping all this data is that it's not difficult to single out a person, read everything he's ever said, and then find a crime to charge him with. But that's neither here nor there. Even stuff you don't explicity send isn't immune. I'm sure in a few years, we're going to start seeing people (e.g., elected officials) getting grilled for looking at porn on the web, just because some server logged an IP address and someone was smart enough to figure it out. I love computers, but their ability to track almost everything we do scares me sometimes.
It seems that all the good practices we've learned in the last ten years of GUI design are simply thrown out the window, just because an app is on the web.
Zero keyboard navigability, garish visuals, bad fonts, and unintelligible buttons seem to be the norm instead of the exception nowadays. If a company released the same interface on the desktop, they'd be laughed out of existence.
What can be done to encourage web developers to follow solid, trusted, UI design guidelines?
Sigh. My point was that the numbers he is stating now (6 billion) implies everyone in the world is on the net now, which is fabulously untrue.
As for multicast, it needs to be standardized first, then implemented in every router between the mythical Afghanian website and each of those 6 billion computers.
Thats not to say it won't get easier, or faster. But even in 20 years, I doubt it will be possible "instantly" (his words) to send a movie to "6 billion" people, of which most of them don't even *have* computers. Even with fat pipes, even with multicasting. The fact is that most of the world is not and will never be on the net.
But if it was on the Net, 6 billion people would have access to it.
I had no idea all of China, India, and Zimbabwe had computers and ISPs! Such progress in such short time! (Maybe that's why AOL's stock is so inflated?) I doubt there are even 6 billion TVs in the world.
Now, you put it on some obscure Web site in Afghanistan and all of the sudden, it's in every computer in the world, simultaneously.
Wow! I never knew pipes to those third-world countries were so fat! And the net has the bandwidth to transport a 5GB move to all of those 6 billion computers simultaneously! (What is 5GB x 6,000,000,000 anyway? Are that many molecules in the universe?)
[The net] is an extraordinary new delivery system.
That's all it is to him.