HP Motif/iX (TM) Enhancements [ COMMUNICATOR 3000 MPE/iX Release 5.0 (Core Software Release X.50.20) ] MPE/iX Communicators
COMMUNICATOR 3000 MPE/iX Release 5.0 (Core Software Release X.50.20)
HP Motif/iX (TM) Enhancements
by Robin Florentine and Mily Tsou
Commercial Systems Division
Overview
HP Motif/iX provides HP 3000 developers with a set of libraries to create
X Windows based OSF/Motif applications. The X Window System (TM)
(X) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is an
industry-standard windowing protocol that allows users to access multiple
applications with different systems on a network using a single display
screen. X consists of:
* Xlib, a low-level graphics and windowing library.
* Xt Toolkit, a higher-level library of interfaces used to create
widgets.
A widget is a user-interface component; for example, a scale, a menu, a
scroll bar, and a pushbutton are all widgets. OSF/Motif (TM), a product
of the Open Software Foundation, is a library of widgets. Applications
written using the OSF/Motif user interface routines have a consistent,
high-resolution, three-dimensional "look and feel".
The HP Motif/iX product includes Xlib, Xt Toolkit, and Xm, the OSF/Motif
library. These libraries provide the HP 3000 systems with a widely
accepted, standards-based, vendor-independent graphical user interface.
HP Motif/iX is compatible with X Window System Version 11, Release 4 (X11
R4) and OSF/Motif version 1.1.
X uses a client/server architecture. The application using X, in this
case the HP Motif/iX application executing on the 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.
HP Motif/iX Releases
The initial release of HP Motif/iX on MPE/iX 3.0 was a Developer's
Release. It allowed developers an early chance to produce applications
that executed on a HP 3000 systems and used X to present graphics or an
OSF/Motif graphical user interface (GUI) on an X display.
A subsequent release of HP Motif/iX (A.01.00) was a general release
involving significant enhancements to allow developers to build and
distribute applications using OSF/Motif and X on MPE/iX. The product
contained the necessary libraries, C header (include) files and learning
products necessary to develop X applications on MPE/iX as well as the
User Interface Language Compiler (UIL), the Motif Resource Manager
library (Mrm), and a set of standard bitmap files. Significant
enhancements were made for performance of HP Motif/iX applications due to
tuning of the libraries and improvements in the networking software.
The current release of HP Motif/iX (A.02.00) is a second general release
of the product. The major change for this release is that HP Motif/iX
uses the features of POSIX.1 and POSIX.2. In doing so, the HP Motif/iX
product is structured in a similar way to the HP Motif product on HP-UX.
In addition, it is able to use the features of the MPE/iX Hierarchical
File System (HFS) making porting applications from UNIX (TM)platforms to
MPE/iX more straightforward. Any POSIX.1-compliant application that uses
the features of POSIX.1 that are available on this MPE/iX release, should
port to MPE/iX with no changes to the source code.
Product Features
The HP Motif/iX A.02.00 product consists of:
* The C language header files necessary to compile an application on
the HP 3000 that makes calls to OSF/Motif, the Xt Toolkit, Xlib,
or Mrm, located in /usr/include/Motif1.1 and /usr/include/X11R4
.
* The relocatable libraries with which the resulting object file
must be linked to create an HP Motif/iX client program, located in
/usr/lib/Motif1.1 and /usr/lib/X11R4 .
* The C language source code for a simple HP Motif/iX example
program called /usr/include/example/pizza.c . A makefile is also
provided for compiling and linking the application in
/usr/include/example/Makefile .
* The UIL compiler program, called /SYS/HPBIN/UIL .
* A set of standard bitmap description files in
/usr/include/X11/bitmaps .
* A learning products kit, updated for this release of HP Motif/iX,
consisting of the HP Motif/iX Programmer's Supplement
(36394-90001) and HP Motif/iX System Administrator's Supplement
(36394-90002).
* An optional learning products kit consisting of the standard X and
OSF/Motif learning products shipped with the HP 9000 workstations.
Hardware Requirements
The HP Motif/iX product requires the following hardware:
* A 900 Series 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.
Software Requirements
The HP Motif/iX product requires the following software:
* MPE/iX Release 5.0 or later for the Series 900.
* MPE/iX Developer's Kit.
* HP-UX 7.0 or later for the HP 9000.
* The necessary NS LAN software on both the HP 3000 and HP 9000 to
connect the two computers.
Supported Display Servers
High resolution, bit-mapped displays and pointing devices are not
directly supported by MPE/iX. Therefore, no X display servers are
supported on the HP 3000. An external X display device, such as an HP
9000 workstation or HP 700/X terminal, is required for the display of HP
Motif/iX applications.
An HP 9000 workstation is required even if you plan on using HP 700/X or
700/RX terminals for additional displays. 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 log on to an HP 3000 and execute commands, including running block
mode applications.
You must connect the X display to the same LAN as the HP 3000 and install
and configure the required NS/3000 and HP 9000 networking software.
Certification
Hewlett-Packard certifies that HP Motif/iX is OSF/Motif (TM) 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.
MPE/iX Communicators