View2 as a "toolkit"

[Chet Ramey]

>Let's assume that I have a Sun 3/60 running SunOS 4.1 with X11/NeWS, a
>DecStation 3100 running DecWindows, and a HP machine (whatever model)
>running X11.  All windowing systems are "based on" X11 and are claimed to
>be "compatible" in every way with X.

>Will a toolkit used on one of these machines "port" to another fairly
>painlessly?

It all depends on how you define "port".  I assume you mean that you want
to have the xview toolkit available on more than one machine, so that
clients that use what the toolkit offers can be built for different
architectures.  If a toolkit uses the stuff in Xlib and (if needed) Xt, I
see no reason why this would not be possible. After all, Xt, the HP widget
set (Xw), the Athena widgets (Xaw), and the Andrew toolkit (atk) are all
coexisting more or less peacefully here (and a lot of other places, I'm
sure).

>You see what I'm driving at.  If View2 is simply an X toolkit running in
>an X environment, can I use it on a DecStation?  Or an HP?  If a "port"
>isn't possible (whatever that means in an X environment), then what
>happens if the DecStation uses the Sun as an X server?  What happens then?

I would think that it would be painless to use view2 (or xview, or
whatever) on any machine (In either sense of "use": development and
running clients).

We have clients running on Vaxen using Suns as display servers, and vice
versa.  Clients even exist (the shared-memory version of xtrek, for
example) that are restricted to executing on a particular architecture,
but can use any workstation with an X server as a display engine.  I
assume that the same will be possible with clients built using xview, once
it makes its appearance on the X11R4 tape.

Even if it turns out to be restricted to Suns (which I seriously doubt),
you can do development on Suns and run those clients from anywhere.

Chet Ramey				chet@{cwjcc,pirate}.CWRU.EDU
Network Services Group	 
Case Western Reserve University		Weird, man.  Too weird.