Editorial from X Author on Freshmeat

["Andrew S. Townley" <atownley informix com>]

I don't know how many of you have read this or seen it, but I think  
it is a very good editorial on the state of things right now.  There  
are some positive comments about both GNOME and E in the article, but  
I think that the most important things (in the context of this list)  
is the discussions about alternate input/output mechanisms and  
especially the discussion about modularity.

On the subject of modularity raised in this article, I think it is  
one are which will be a big deal.  Microsoft has already started to  
implement this sort of thing using OLE/COM.  They were first.  Now  
the WWW browsers are doing similar things by supporting plug-ins  
which allow Acrobat files to be displayed within the browser rather  
than spawned as seperate applications.  My hope is that some of what  
the baboon architecture is all about will address this issue as well,  
but it definately bears discussion within this context because there  
are some questions which need t be answered in this area:

How will embedded applications behave?

What UI will enable the user to control, interact and switch between  
embedded applications?

What UI is necessary to configure/manage this interaction (if any)?

While I'm not a huge fan of the OLE/COM embedding mechanism--there  
are times when i don't WANT to open the document inside another  
application because of what I intend to do with it--it is definately  
something which is around and a source of one approach to gaining the  
modularity discussed in the article.

ast

Begin forwarded message:

> From: gregory j pryzby <pryzby@tux.org>
> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 13:47:18 -0500
> To: e-develop@rasterman.com
> Subject: Editorial from X Author on Freshmeat
> X-Accept-Language: en
> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.1.125 i586)
> X-UIDL: 90b230dec55140793a4d5913fabfe42a
>
> http://editorials.freshmeat.net/jim981031/
>
> I think it indirectly speaks highly of E... See quote below!
>
> As a result, I believe that any toolkit that does not allow full
> customization or cannot be customized to look like the other toolkit's 
> default style should be considered broken. The sooner people accept the 
> premise that all toolkits should be configurable to closely match other 
> styles (and future styles) as a minimum of all future X toolkit
> development, the better, and that the less grief we will all have. 
>
> --
> gregory j pryzby               | pryzby@tux.org
> Founded NOVA Linux Users Group |
> http://www.tux.org/~pryzby/house.html
> Check out the Home Pages       | http://novalug.tux.org/
> Love animals-- don't eat them! | http://www.tux.org/~pryzby/
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