Submitted by Mike_S on Mon, 07/16/2001 - 22:36. Developers
Hey!!
I`ve just installed my new Motif(linux) system. It works fine. I have som planes to write a small app with some opengl stuff. What do I need to write apps on motif??? I`ve heard of some toolkits....any recommended books to start out with??
Thanks, I hope its okey to ask a "newbie" question like this one! -)
/joda
The comp.windows.x.motif FAQ should help you out a lot; and look for the lists of information on this site.
And I should add the O`Reilly Volume 6 set is very good, as is the original Doug Young book on programming with Xt and Motif.
You can use Builder Xcessory tool from ICS for developing your apps using motif toolkit
Motif is a window manager kit. You get an "surrounding borders", resizing, dialog boxes, etc....
BUT... their is GLUT! Glut is a set of OpenGL libs (free) that are made to make your application menus and interaction using OpenGL (for instance, you might end up with a Sony Playstation style menus, easily).
I say this because I`ve done an OpenGL app. It turned out I spent WAY too much of my free time getting frustated learning this or that "technique" or "niche" to get windows, client windows, menus, dialog boxes, et al working and only about 1/10 of my total time putting stuff IN the OpenGL window.
Especially! if your making a game, use GLUT; its great and was developed in a unix environment. If you want to be "office style" compliant; use Motif to create offiice style menus. Though I think GLUT will do that as well and you`d be better off using glut if it does unless your doing an office suite. As you said; your doing a small OpenGL app.
CODING
Mind you your OpenGL (hardware) library will want exclusive controll of the inside of the window (really, an area of the desktop which you are allowed to constantly update an xpm image which MESA will do for you when it owns the window. It will actually create a hardware GL window and not use xpm at all). Doubtless you`ll have to instanciate a client area (window) in the appropriate manner which allows your OpenGL libs complete controll inside the frame.
On my video card, SVGA is a separate chip and hardware OpenGL windowing in SVGA is supported (that`s why its an exclusive window - two different chips on one memory buffer).
I`ve only used straight up OpenGL 1.1 hardware supported interface myself - not any 3rd party helpers. I assume you`ll be using MESA, which may have GLUT like caps - check for it. !! Make sure to look at its window allocation requirements before jumping to far into Motif !!
Elsewise, Motif is a great choice unless your aiming for an ineternet multiple user gee wiz enable thing; in which case you might consider GNOME and GTK.
Motif is actually a UI widget kit. It also comes with a window manager. The two are basically distinct products distributed together.
Glut is actually handy for getting OpenGL applications running quickly. It was developed as a simple quick start toolkit to get things going quickly. It was never meant as a replacement for a full fledged toolkit like Motif, Qt, GTK+, FLTK, or Delphi/C++ Builder. Please note that all of the just mentioned UI kits have GUI builders available that takes the tedium out of the UI coding.
================================================
re CODING
After reading what you have here, it would be best to check out some of the OpenGL sites like www.opengl.org, www.mesa3d,org, or even www.sgi.com, which has some excellent in depth materials for OpenGL developers.
-scorch