From: neumann@dec4.wu-wien.ac.at (Gustaf Neumann)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl
Subject: Re: Is there a tcl interface to Motif, even commercial?
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 19:07:13 MET
Organization: WU-Wien
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: dec4.wu-wien.ac.at

In article <1992Oct9.224358.6648@twg.com> from [Fri, 9 Oct 1992 22:47:06 GMT] you wrote:
 |> The possibilities I know of:
 |> 
 |> WaFE has most of the stuff necessary to interface with Motif.  It includes
 |> some files which give templates to all/most of the Xlib/Xt/Xaw procedures,
 |> along with Perl scripts to process those into .c files which define matching
 |> functions to TCL.  ...

A Motif version is under construction currently. It needs about one week of
work to get finished (the relevant converters have been written, what's missing
are mostly routines from the programmatic interface and access possiblities
for various callback structures plus documentation). I have ported a few 
applications from mastering-motif, which are working nicely. I cannot say, when 
i will have the time to finish it.

 |> DETAILS: They strip off the prefix which identifies which module a command
 |> is originating in.. for instance, XtDestroyWidget() becomes destroyWidget.
 |> This makes it harder to learn because the names are gratutituously different.

we had a Athena widget version without stripping, which was kind of ugly
to read since all commands started with Xaw. In addition some of the
commands we have implemented consist of sequences of Xt or Xaw commands, or
they are more general (accept a list of widgets instead of a 
single widget), which belong for instance to Xaw, for which i would not give
a Xaw prefix.

In the forthcoming version all of the tcl commands provided by wafe a generated 
from a high level description, and go through the same naming procedure. It is 
simple to replace this naming procedure and to create a "private" version of wafe.
btw, the short reference and index are also generated from the same source, so if 
you replace the renaming procedure, the short reference will be updated as well.
You will like the short reference and the index!

 |> There is also the danger of name collisions if some procedures are the
 |> same name sans prefix.  There are actually a couple such name collisions
 |> between the Athena and Motif text widgets. 

we have no naming conflicts, Motif-names like XmCascadeBottonGadget are registered
as tcl commands without the leading X. I do not think, the naming is a big problem.

Apropos naming: Wafe stands for Widget Athena Front End. The Motif version will 
be called mofe (Motif Front End). It is similar to wafe in the respect that 
wafe looks like a typo of wave. Any complaints?

 |>                                            This is available from somewhere
 |> in Germany.. ask Archie for a better pointer ;-).

Please note that the times, when Austria belonged to Germany are over since 1945.
The current published version is called wafe-0.92.tar.Z (you might find also some
older version via archie).

 |> The marketing glossy for `ezX' (an X/Motif Interface Builder which runs
 |> on Vax/Sun/DEC-RISC/RS6K/386 Unix/SGI) includes a paragraph saying:
 |> 
 |> 	{\bold Any interpreted language} can be used to control
 |> 	the behavior of windows and widgets.  Common languages such
 |> 	as Tcl, BASIC or PROLOG can be used or a custom language
 |> 	defined and integrated by the end user.
 |> 
 |> Anybody know what they mean here?  They're at: Sunrise Software International,
 |> phone: (401) 847-7868, fax: (401) 847-7879.  I have no experience with
 |> them other than talking to a sales person on the floor at XHibition & getting
 |> confused.

sounds like wafe :-}, but i hope, it is not wafe.

-gustaf
--
Gustaf Neumann          neumann@dec4.wu-wien.ac.at, neumann@awiwuw11.bitnet
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration 
Augasse 2-6,  A-1090 Vienna, Austria		
Tel: +43 (222) 31-336 x4533  	Fax: 347-555

Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl