HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
HP Motif/iXTM Enhancements
by Scott Cressler and Robin Florentine
Commercial Systems Division
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
The X Window Systemtm(X) (The X Window System is a trademark of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.) from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) is an industry standard, distributed, graphical user
interface system. X consists of Xlib, a low-level graphics and windowing
library, and the Xt Toolkit Intrinsics library, a higher-level library of
interfaces used to create user interface components called widgets.
OSF/Motiftm (OSF, Motif and OSF/Motif are trademarks of the Open Software
Foundation, Inc.) is a library of these widgets It is a product of the
Open Software Foundation (OSF)tm (OSF, Motif and OSF/Motif are trademarks
of the Open Software Foundation, Inc.) of which HP is a member. The
OSF/Motif component of HP Motif/iX is the code and documentation
necessary to more easily create an application with a consistent,
graphical user interface based on X. The X Window System and OSF/Motif
taken together provide the Open HP 3000 systems with a widely accepted,
standards-based, vendor-independent graphical user interface.
The previous release of HP Motif/iX was a Developer's Release. It
allowed developers an early chance to produce applications that executed
on a 900 Series Open HP 3000 computer and used X to present graphics or
an OSF/Motif graphical user interface (GUI) on an X display.
This release of HP Motif/iX (A.01.00) is a general release involving
significant enhancements to allow developers to build and distribute
applications using OSF/Motif and X on MPE/iX. The product still contains
the necessary libraries, C header (include) files and learning products
necessary to develop X applications on MPE/iX.
New components with A.01.00 are the User Interface Language (UIL)
compiler, the associated Motif Resource Manager (MRM) library, and a set
of standard bitmap description files. Significant enhancements have been
made in the performance of HP Motif/iX applications due to tuning of the
libraries and improvements in the networking software in the current
release of MPE/iX.
X uses a client/server architecture. The application using X, in this
case the HP Motif/iX application executing on the Open HP 3000, is called
an X client. It requests user interface and graphic services from a
process executing on the X display called the X display server. An X
display is a computing device that is capable of supporting an X display
server process. The supported X displays in this release of HP Motif/iX
are the 300 Series, 400 Series and 700 Series HP 9000 workstations and
the HP 700/X and 700/RX family of X terminals. Although not supported,
an HP Motif/iX application should be able to display on any X11
R4-compliant X display server, such as X server software running on a PC.
Hewlett-Packard certifies that HP Motif/iX is OSF/Motif R1.1 Validated as
tested with OSF/Motif Validation Test Suite R1.0.1 with no waivers.
Hewlett-Packard certifies that HP Motif/iX is compliant with the AES/UE
Revision B from Open Software Foundation, Inc.
The following information describes two new components of HP Motif/iX:
UIL and MRM; discusses the HP Motif/iX product features; and lists the HP
Motif/iX exceptions. For more information, refer to the related article
in the "Technical Articles" section in this Communicator.
UIL and MRM
The User Interface Language (UIL) is a specification language for
describing the initial state of a Motif application. The specification
describes the widgets (for example, menus, forms) used in the interface
and specifies the functions to be called when the interface changes state
as the result of user interaction. The Motif Resource Manager (MRM)
contains run-time functions that manage the UIL widgets by calling the
widget creation functions in the Motif Toolkit. Using UIL you can
specify the following:
* Objects (widgets and gadgets) that comprise your interface
* Arguments (attributes) of the widgets and gadgets you specify
* Callback functions for each object
* The widget tree for your application
* Literal values that can be retrieved by the application at run
time
Benefits of Using UIL and MRM Creating a user interface for a Motif
application using UIL and MRM offers the following advantages:
* Easier coding: You can specify an interface faster because you do
not have to know the specific widget creation functions or the
format of their argument lists.
* Earlier error detection: The UIL compiler does type checking.
* Separation of form and function: The application interface is
defined in a separate UIL module. This lets you separate the form
your interface takes from the functions provided by the
application.
* Faster prototype development: A variety of interfaces can be
created in a short period of time allowing you to refine the
interface until it is satisfactory.
* Interface Customization: You can customize an interface by
putting in a hierarchy of user interface definition files. At run
time MRM searches this hierarchy in the sequence specified to
build the appropriate widgets. One use of this feature would be
to provide an interface in several languages.
PRODUCT FEATURES
The HP Motif/iX A.01.00 product consists of:
* The C language header files necessary to compile an application on
the Open HP 3000 that makes calls to OSF/Motif, the Xt Toolkit,
Xlib, or MRM.
* The relocatable libraries with which the resulting object file
must be linked to create an HP Motif/iX client program.
* The C language source code for a simple HP Motif/iX example
program called PIZZAC.EXAMPLE.HPX11.
* The UIL compiler program.
* A set of standard bitmap description files in the group
BITMAP.HPX11.
* Two learning products that provide HP Motif/iX-specific
information as a supplement to the standard X and OSF/Motif
learning products, which are shipped with the HP 9000
workstations. These learning products have been updated for
A.01.00.
* An optional learning products kit consisting of the standard X and
OSF/Motif learning products shipped with the HP 9000 workstations.
The HP Motif/iX product requires the following hardware:
* A 900 Series Open HP 3000.
* A 300 Series, 400 Series or 700 Series HP 9000 workstation with a
high resolution display, keyboard and mouse. Additional displays
can be HP 700/X or 700/RX X terminals.
* The LAN hardware necessary to connect these computers.
The HP Motif/iX product requires the following software:
* MPE/iX 4.0 or later for the Series 900.
* C/XL compiler and libraries for the Series 900.
* HP-UX 7.0 or later for the HP 9000.
* The necessary NS LAN software on both the Open HP 3000 and HP 9000
to connect the two computers.
HP MOTIF/iX EXCEPTIONS
High resolution, bitmapped displays and pointing devices are not directly
supported by MPE/iX. Therefore, no X display servers are supported on the
Open HP 3000. You will require an external X display device, such as an
HP 9000 workstation or HP 700/X terminal, for the display of HP Motif/iX
applications.
NOTE An HP 9000 workstation is required even if you plan on using an HP
700/X or 700/RX terminal for an additional display. HP Motif/iX
applications can display directly to an X terminal, but the HP 9000
is required for executing several other X applications that are
necessary for a usable X environment.
These applications include the Motif Window Manager (MWM), the
hpterm terminal emulator and the vt3k or telnet (the workstation
side of Telnet/XL) connectivity application. MWM provides window
management that is essential to interacting with multiple,
concurrent X clients on the display. Hpterm and vt3k or telnet
allow you to create a window you can use to logon to an Open HP
3000 and execute commands, including running block mode
applications.
You must connect the X display to the same LAN as the Open HP 3000 and
install and configure the required NS/3000 and HP 9000 networking
software.