🚀 go-pugleaf

Starting this week, the source code for the MGR window manager
is being distributed on comp.sources.unix. 

MGR was written by Steve Uhler here at the computer science research division
of Bellcore.  He started the project years ago when was clear that suntools
was a dead end and X was still vaporware.  The result is (I think) clean,
fast, and interesting.  MGR is the window manager of choice for a great
many of us in the research division. The system has been solid for several
years, but bureaucratic footdragging has kept it inside Bellcore until now.
The code is available on a "give it away but don't sell it" basis.

The package was broken into 61 parts for shipment,
the largest package ever for comp.sources.unix.  But, the size of
the posting is deceptive.  Much of the package consists of
documentation, icons, fonts, etc.  The code itself is quite small
when compared with other window managers.  For the basic window manager,
the MGR code is one tenth the size of the comparable X code.

I won't discuss the internals here, although I think Steve has come up
with come very clever and useful ideas.  Interested parties are referred
to the documentation in the package.  I will mention that MGR is not tied
to a given operating system or hardware.  The port to System V took
about 2 days.  The port to the sun 386i took 2 hours.  A summer student
ported it to the Mac (running MacOS not A/UX) in less than two weeks.
I suspect that a port to Minix might be similarly painless.

The brevity of code, speed of operation, and easy of porting all reflect
the quality of the design and constructon.
Clearly, the X bandwagon is rolling.  At this late date, MGR probably won't
be able to displace X.  But, I suggest taking a look at MGR to see how things
might have been.  And, you never know . . .

Dan Nachbar
Software Engineering Research Group
Bell Communications Research (a.k.a. Bellcore)
bellcore!daniel
(201) 829-4392