SUMMARY: GUI Builders

Hi netters,

Here is a summary of all of the responses I got to my post about a GUI builder. Note there are some in the FAQ for comp.windows.x that aren't listed here.

                         Database        Interface
            Public       Capabilities    Designer       Where is it?
Name        Domain?      built in?       built in?      (for PD-Software)
__________  _______      ____________    __________     _________________
AUIS/ATK      Yes            No             Yes (ADEW)  export.andrew.cmu.edu
Accell/SQL    No             Yes             ?
DIRT          Yes             ?             Yes         export.lcs.mit.edu
Druid         No             No             Yes
IEF           No             Yes             ?
Interviews    Yes (C++)      No             Yes         interviews.stanford.edu
GQL            ?              ?              ?
Galaxy        No             No             Yes
NeuronData    No             No             Yes
Omnis 7       No             Yes            Yes
SUIT          Yes            No              ?          cs.tut.fi
Smartstar
 Vision       No             Yes             ?
SuperNOVA     No             Yes            Yes
JAM           No             Yes (DBi)      Yes
Tcl/Tk        Yes            Yes            Yes (Xf)    sprite.berkeley.edu
TeleUSE       No             No             Yes
Uniface       No             Yes            Yes
UIM/X         No (C, C++)    No             Yes
VUIT          No (DEC)       No              ?
ViewCenter    No (C++)       No             Yes
Wcl           Yes            No             No (its a lib) export.lcs.mit.edu
XVT           No             Yes (Xi)       Yes
XView         Yes             Yes            Yes (Devguide) xview.ucdavis.edu
Xdesigner     No             No             Yes
Xcessory(ICS) No
Xtpanel       Yes             ?              ?          lth.se
Xwafe         Yes (perl-    No, but for      Yes (xwafedesign)
                   based)   Oracle there's
                              oraperl!

************************ Responses *******************************************

from Chris Anderson, caa_at_unify.com

> Are there any others that I've forgotten?

Yes, Accell/SQL from Unify.

  Accell          No                 Yes/No         Yes

  What the Yes/No part means is that we work with both our own database   product Unify2000 (which is a full featured ANSI SQL based database)   or with Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and Ingres, etc.. Our approach is   to support all of the features that each database provides in our 4GL.   We also support character, Motif, and Openlook presentation modes;   you can change between them just by changing an environment variable.

  You can get more information from 1-800-248-6439.

  And of course, I can answer any specific questions that you might have,   since I work for Unify.

from Baard Haugerud, baardh_at_stud.cs.uit.no

Have you heard about IEF (Information Engineering Facility) from TI/JMA. Multi platform UNIX/OS2/WINODOWS 3.1 (UNIX HP-UX Motif Oracle/Ingres).

It will follow you throgh a project from a to z. planning, analysis, design, construction, .........

from Donald.Edgar, Donald.Edgar_at_UK.Sun.COM

There is an excellent Sybase extension to Tcl by Tom Poindexter (tpoindex_at_nyx.cs.du.edu), available from the TCl archive at harbor.ecn.purdue.edu - a similar extension for another database vendors C lib would only take a few days.

from jeremyr_at_ibmpcug.co.uk

SuperNOVA is written by Four Seasons, Bilthoven, Holland. It supports MS-Windows Motif, OpenLook, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Ingres, C-ISAM, Teradata, Unix, MS-DOS, VMS.....

Please call me on +44 81 446 6481 or fax me your details on +44 81 446 9143 and I will send you more information.

from solar%fsrg.bear.com%ursa_at_cmcl2.NYU.EDU

XView is another X widget library comparable to Xt, Motif, and OpenLook. XView is not a GUI builder although Sun sells the GUI builder, devguide, which may be used with code generators for XView (C and C++), OpenLook, and TNT.

>Are there any others that I've forgotten?

devguide         No (C, C++)         No             Yes
Interviews       Yes (C++)           No             Yes
NeuronData       No (C)              No             Yes
ViewCenter       No (C++)            No             Yes

devguide does not get in the way of a programmer: Its code generators generate code in files separate from those where the programmer's stub functions should be put and merges all code from those files each time a code generator is invoked. It's a Sun only product.

InterViews is freely available. It is a high quality product with its own builder and extensive C++ class library.

NeuronData and ViewCenter have their own widgets and their own event loops: That means that you will not be able to realize widgets from third parties if you use that product. If you want an off the shelf graph widget, ie XRT, to work with either of these two, you must resort to IPC.

from nathan_at_seldon.foundation.tricon.com

I think there is one that you have forgotten. They happen to be a local company here (in Santa Barbara, California) and we are using their product on an IBM RS/6000. It is called "Smartstar Vision" and meets all of your requirements, including a special "virtual database" that actually lets you mix any of three different database types, their built-in C-ISAM based database, Sybase, Ingres, DEC's rdb, and Informix (soon, I hear). Oops, that was more than five. It is *not* public domain, and it is rather expensive for the development environment - US$12,000. It is a 4GL object oriented environment and is quite fun to develop in.

They have an e-mail address, it is "sales_at_smartstar.com" or, to talk with someone directly, try "eadams_at_smartstar.com" or "edadams" at the same address. For technical contact, try "mickey_at_smartstar.com" - she'll help you find out whatever you need to know technically. Their phone number is (805) 685-8000. And it definitely runs on Ultrix.

from Wilfred.Hansen_at_cs.cmu.edu

The Andrew User Interface System (AUIS; formerly the Andrew Toolkit, ATK) offers an interface builder called ADEW together with a selection of widgets. Some widgets are the usual low-level interactors; others are full-scale object editors such as those for figure, rasters, and typographic-quality text. AUIS is an open system; you can add new objects or modify existing objects to suit your needs. Semantics for interaction can be coded in C or a user-level language called Ness.

For information, contact info-andrew-request_at_andrew.cmu.edu. For a demo from any X server on the internet: finger help_at_atk.itc.cmu.edu.

    Public domain? The source code is copyright by IBM and CMU, but can     be exploited commercially under the usual X license.

    Database capabilities? No

    Interface designer? Yes, ADEW

    Where is it? export.andrew.cmu.edu (128.2.45.40) or CDrom

from Colin Sanson, colins_at_pec.co.nz

UCS from Software Transformation, Inc.
Suite 100, Cupertino, CA 95014
TEL (408) 973-8081 FAX (408) 973-0989
Supports Windows 3.x, Macintosh, Motif and MoOLIT. An 0S/2 version is under development.

zApp from Inmark Development Corp.
2065 Landings Drive, Mountain View, California. TEL (415) 691-9000 FAX (415) 691-9099
Supports Windows and DOS text mode.
Development for OS/2 2.0 and Unix X/Motif may be complete by now.

Zinc from Zinc Software Incorporated.
405 South 100 East, 2nd Floor, Pleasant Grove, Utah 84062. TEL (801) 785-8900 FAX (801) 785-8996
Supports Motif, Windows, DOS text mode and DOS graphics. Development for OS/2 2.0 may be complete by now.

XVT from XVT Software Inc.
4900 Pearl East Circle, Box 18750, Boulder, Colorado 80308. TEL (303) 443-4223 FAX (303) 443-0969
Supports Windows, OSF/Motif, OpenLook, Macintosh, PM and character mode DOS, UNIX and VMS systems.

C++/Views from Liant Software Corporation. 959 Concord Street, Framingham, MA 01701. TEL (508) 872-8700 FAX (508) 626-2221
Supports MS Windows, OS/2 PM and Motif.

Aspect from Open Inc.
655 Southpointe Ct, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906 TEL (719) 527-9700 FAX (719) 576-3835
Supports Motif, OpenLook, MS Windows, Macintosh and character terminals.

Galaxy from Visix Software Inc.
11440 Commerce Park Drive, Reston, Virginia 22091. TEL (703) 758-8230 FAX (703) 758-0233
Email info_at_visix.com
Supports Macintosh, MS Windows, Motif and OpenLook.

WNDX from WNDX Corporation.
305 1550 Eight St, SW Calgary, Alberta T2R1K1. TEL (403) 244-0995 FAX (403) 244-1039
Supports MS Windows, DOS graphics mode and X/Motif.

OpenUI from Open Software Associates Pty Ltd. P.O.Box 401, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia 3134. TEL +61-3-871-1666
Supports Motif, Microsoft Windows and character terminals.

StarView from Star Division.
1140 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, California 94301. TEL and FAX (415) 329-9008
Supports Windows 3.1, Windows NT, OS/2 2.0, Macintosh, OpenLook and Motif.

Guild from Guild Products Incorporated.
1710 South Amphlett Blvd, San Mateo, CA 94402. TEL (415) 513-6650 FAX (415) 349-4908
Supports Windows 3.1, Windows NT, OS/2 2.0 and Macintosh. A Motif version is under development.

TeleUSE from Alsys, Inc. (formerly TeleSoft) Alsys CASE Division, San Diego, CA USA
(619) 457-2700 Fax: (619) 452-1334

from harden_at_ics.com

I saw your posting. A builder that was not on the list is Builder Xcessory (BX) from ICS. It may be in the FAQ you alluded to, though.

If you need more info on BX, let me know and I'll send you our standard spiel and answer any specific questions you may have. We do have demos available. Our German distributor is:

 Applied Systems
 Kassel, Germany
 Tel: 49 561 81 30 64
 Fax: 49 561 81 92 76

from Peter J. Scott, pjs_at_euclid.Jpl.Nasa.Gov

Wcl is the best for my money. It has no database nor interface designer (although someone in the UK wrote one called Dirt, haven't heard anything of it for a while). Here's part of a report I wrote which explains why I recommend it:

%
\subsection{Interface Builders}
%
The market at present is flooded with tools with the generic title of ``interface builders,'' whose intended purpose is to provide a way for novices to construct GUIs. Since you may have heard of these and been told by vendors that they save untold time in training and development, some elaboration is called for.

Peter Scott has evaluated almost every interface builder there is -- the only reason he can't be sure that he's reached them all is because new ones are released by new vendors so often. Every one of them takes its cue from the archetypal program called ``Interface Builder'' (IB) on the NeXT\_at_. However, IB saves its users more time than do its imitators, the reason being that IB was designed at the same time as the underlying GUI, NeXTStep, which is not related to X~Windows or indeed any other GUI\_at_. X~Windows, however, was never designed with an interface builder in mind and every such tool that is developed for it has to live with limitations inherent to X~Windows that would probably not have survived if its creators had pondered the ramifications for interface builders. (This is not necessarily an indictment of X~Windows, since it achieves far more than NeXTStep does anyway, such as network transparency, behavior-independence, and other capabilities too abstruse to go into here.)

The upshot for the X~Window GUI developer is that no interface builder on the market really shields him from the vast complexity of X~Windows or Motif, glitzy demonstrations notwithstanding. There is no substitute for knowing how X and Motif work; no matter how much the interface builder is able to do by itself, eventually the developer is going to have to interact with the interface at the X and Motif level. You can see this in just about every interface builder by using it to set resources of a widget; they invariably pop up a ``resource editor'' the use of which requires that the user understand the original Motif names for resources such as {\tt XmNoverrideRedirect} or {\tt XmNtraversalOn}.

What we use for rapid prototyping is instead a tool called the Widget Creation Library (WCL), which makes it possible to specify the hierarchy and callback hooks of an application using resources. So much of the interface can then be specified in a simple textual form that virtually the only code left to be written is the application code which would have to have been written anyway.

from Marc Kenig, marcke_at_rossinc.com

Omnis supports both Sybase SQL and RPCs directly from it's scripting language (it also supports Oracle, Sequellink, Rdb, etc). The SQL interface is genericised, but allows for DBMS specific features. TheRPC allows you to send Pascal-like calls directly from the Omnis scripting language to Sybase RPCs, or as we are doing, RPCs written in Open Server. You can return rowsets, parameters and status values directly back to Omnis variables.

Works great.

--
David Pape                               | "The people who own the country    |
pape_at_plato.Chemietechnik.Uni-Dortmund.DE |  ought to govern it"               |
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