🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Feb17.223729.21903@Solbourne.COM> toml@ninja.Solbourne.COM (Tom LaStrange) writes:
>the mwm deocration, it's mouse button one.  If you are anyplace else
>in the mwm decoration, it's button 2.  At the OSF/Motif tutorial at the
>X Conference I learned that pop-up menus should come up on button 3.
I agree that the M1 vs. M3 distinction is strange (M1 selects, M3 is the
menu button), a selection on a Cascade Button results in a menu, thus
the confusion. However the 2 vs. 3 problem is probably historical, early
versions had M2 as the menu button.

>	the state (busy/idle/error) of each application?
>	
>I don't know about motif but Open Look clients can set a property on their
Motif specifies a standard "working" dialog box.

>	Is there a desktop metaphor? How complete is it?
>	Drag and drop?

Motif explicitly did not specify a desktop metaphor because the OSF membership
thought that there would be plenty of 3rd parties competing in that area and
the market should have a chance to make some choices first.  OL's connections
between the toolkit and the desktop manager are nice, but it's not clear to me
how an app can get the user to select a file if you aren't running OL's desktop
manager (and personally, I'd rather run Looking Glass).

>I think this is really where Motif shines.  Anything that can be done from
>the mouse can be done from the keyboard.  I'm not sure if they can be
>redefined.
Depends on the app, yunless they hardwire them you should be able to use the
standard app-defaults mechanisms.

----
In-Reply-To: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett)
>
>Does this mean that when you want to move a Motif window, you must
>grab the top border, instead of any one? The Mac's make you grab the
>top border, which is a real pain when the top border is covered.
No. The window manager allows you to define the mapping and menus that
go with any key. 'Alt-M1' (at least in my defs, and I think it's standard)
lets you drag the window when the mouse is anywhere over it.

----
In-Reply-To: don@brillig.umd.edu (Don Hopkins)

>I have been wondering about this too. Are 3-D buttons any easier to
>use? Is the 3-D "look" a metaphore or an illusion? That is, does the
>apparent third dimension effect the "feel" in any way at all? I think
>the "feel" is much more important than the "look". I'm not saying the
>"look" is unimportant, it has a lot of effect on people's first
>impression, especially if they're just looking over somebody's

I think 3D (beveled actually) is a little easier for people to initially use
because it's a more real-life metaphor. After that though, there probably
isn't a big difference.  I agree on the difference between look and feel
though, in fact that is a distinction made very clear by Motif, where
the feel is a mandated part of the style, but look is optional.  Note
that a "3D" Open Look on the other hand, is no longer Open Look, because
it violates the pixel by pixel discriptions in the Open Look Style Guide.

>>I don't quite follow the argument. I think Mac and MS-Window users can
>>use both Motif and OpenLook without much effort. I would be interested
>>in some real studies that measure the learning curve of Motif vs.
>>OpenLook.
I agree on the need for studies, but my experience just switching between
Mac apps which differ in things like commands to print, commands to
align, commands to... says that those things can be at the least very
annoying, and at most dangerous.

>And that brings up yet another issue: how many different toolkits
>implement a particular look and feel? I know of three toolkits
>implementing Open Look: the NeWS Toolkit, XView, and AT&T's X-Toolkit
>based Open Look. I only know of one implementation of Motif: OSF's,
>based on the X-Toolkit. I don't know what the Solbourn toolkit is
>based on, but it implements both Motif and Open Look. 
Solbourne, from what I saw, does not yet do a Motif compliant toolkit
Frankly I'm *glad* there's only one Motif toolkit.  Sure it's nice
to be able to experiment with different approaches, particularly in
an academic environment, but I need to get product out there.  I don't
want to have to port a toolkit everywhere I go, I want to find it there
waiting for me, and supported by the vendor. Show me an Open Look
toolkit for which you can say that across >50% of the vendors.

>Can you choose between click-to-type and focus-follows-cursor, or are
>you forced to live with one or the other? Open Look (at least the NeWS
>toolkit and XView implementations that I know of) allows you to decide
>which policy to use. I have not been able to figure out how to change
Ditto Motif.
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>Note
>that a "3D" Open Look on the other hand, is no longer Open Look, because
>it violates the pixel by pixel discriptions in the Open Look Style Guide.

My, you speak wich such authority! :-)

I have a copy of the Functional Specification, dated August 31, 1989,
and it gives examples of the 3-D look.

--
Bruce G. Barnett	<barnett@crd.ge.com>   uunet!crdgw1!barnett