Re: submission from [Matt & Kim <patawi@ice.polarcom.com>] (fwd)

["R.G. Mayhue" <rgmayhue@serenesoftware.com>]

On Sun, 28 Nov 1999, you wrote: 
> 
> >What would be your plan for a UI. Maybe we should shoot for a consistent
> >look and feel. Sort of an Indy standard. (See my post a few days
> >earlier regarding my idea for a console desktop).
> 
> Thanks for that aside, I had completely missed the message the first time
> around, don't know how. :)   Anyway, my answer would be a resounding Yes. I
> certainly have felt the need for such a tool and have often wondered why
> nobody developed anything that would sit sort of halfway between the ascii
> command line and full blown resource intensive bitmapped windows.
> 
> As for look and feel, the best ascii/ansi consoles I've used have been
> similar to the dos versions of Norton Utilities or the Aurora Text Editor.
> I can send you screenshots if you are unfamiliar with them.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> -matt
>
Thanks Matt. I have been looking at Xterminal:
http://www.linuxsupportline.com/~Xterminal/

[snip from the web site]
Xterminal is an Object Oriented User Interface with a client-server
architecture. The main purpose is a friendly interface for the UNIX
operating systems. It is designed to be used to build text-based
applications in C++.
[end]

It currently uses ncurses and has a very similar look and feel to the
old Borland BGI for Turbo C under DOS. So it should look very similar to
those programs. That was one of the reasons I started looking at using
it. It should be very easy to understand and use. 

It's author has already written most all of the classes and the API
for a fully functional desktop environment. With it's client-server
architecture and object oriented design, communication between it's
objects is very easy to accomplish. The desktop class (or object) can
be used to tie all the applications together, complete with a messaging
loop.

I have joined the Xterminal mailing list and plan to contact the
author. Maybe I can persuade him and/or people on the mailing list to
help develop an Xterminal desktop UI for Independence. Can't hurt
to ask. Right? Someone in the group may already have started such a
project. If so it may need a home and a bigger audience!

Stay tuned!