The XView toolkit

XView is an interactive graphical command toolkit on top of XWindows graphics. It combines and upgrades the SunView toolkit with XWindows. The advantages of SunView are a simple and powerful subroutine syntax and semi-compatibility with a huge base of existing software. Improvements include some new command objects, more object-oriented features, consistency with the Open Look interface style, machine independence and network transparency. It is distributed freely in the standard XWindows release unlike its competitor Motif. XView runs on all our large computers and workstations.

XView consists of two parts: a window manager and library. The window manager implements the Open Look style for the windows and total screen. The library implements the Open Look style for command objects within windows. An XView library program will run under a foreign window manager, but not as well as under the Open Look manager.

Drawbacks of XView include: It is not as widespread as Motif. One currently can't easily create new command objects by extending existing ones. For example, range sliders would be superior to the slider pairs in the bandpass application of Figure 5. Finally, some parts of XView, such as menus and raster images, are slow.