Re: C++ and GNOME or Motif

[Dave Reed <dreed capital edu>]

> X-Sender: kroger imap princeton edu
> Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 13:37:22 -0500
> From: Jim Kroger <kroger Princeton EDU>
> 
> Thanks for the reply, Dave.
> 
> I am writing a program to read data from files, do various 
> computations, then construct and display graphical depictions of
> the results. For example, I may need to depict a rotatable solid 
> object, with shape or colors changing in time to reflect statistical 
> trends in the data. I program in C++, and plan to use OpenGL for the 
> graphics. I will work in Linux but need the program to be as portable 
> as possible to other *nixs using other windowing environments.


If I understand correctly, you need an animation (changing colors)
that can be rotated while the colors change.  I would think (but it's
been a while since I've done anything like that) that it could be done
in either one.

Both have a mechanism for creating a function that is called at some
interval (which would change the colors) independent of the X loop.
What may be a problem is if changing the colors takes a long time
because no interaction can occur while the colors are being updated.
Someone else may chime in with more details.

I wouldn't let the the fact that there's a book specific to
OpenGL/Motif make the decision for you.  It's very easy to use OpenGL
with GTK - there's even a gtkglarea widget that someone has created.

Motif is struggling to survive (IMO) now that GTK and Qt are freely
available and have matured to a point where they are very usable.
Motif used to cost money (I think it's more or less open source now
because nobody was buying it with free gtk/qt available).

HTH,
Dave


> I have no Unix programming experience, leave alone X Windows, Motif, 
> etc. A little research has shown that Motif is being superseded by 
> GTK+, etc.
> 
> Two reasons I want to use Motif: there is a good book on using OpenGL 
> with X Windows/Motif (Kilgard, I think); and it is pretty universal.
> 
> The reason I may not want to use Motif: I've been told that it is 
> very unfriendly, because of the nature of it's event loop, to 
> object-oriented programming.
> 
> I don't understand the latter issue, and I guess that's what I'm 
> trying to understand.
> 
> Thanks
> Jim