course of writing this book, I developed the Motif interface for Z−Mail that you see here, which was my reality−check
that what I preach really does work.
It should be mentioned that Z−Mail also supports an OPEN LOOK interface. To do the OPEN LOOK version, I chose
to use OLIT (OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit) because, like Motif, it is based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics. Xt is a great
environment for developing applications for the X environment. I also believe that the best applications are those
whose user interfaces can be abstracted, generalized, and modularized so that you can unplug one interface and plug in
another. My approach to doing that is also reflected in this book, although not as a major topic.
Since the first writing of this book, I'm happy to say that Z−Mail has become a great success. It has been ported to
Microsoft Windows and to the Apple Macintosh, both of which have graphical user environments that are
substantially different from Motif in look, feel, and API implementations. However, the models described in this
book, namely the abstraction and generalization of core components from one another, were maintained throughout
the course of the porting processes.
Dan Heller
1.9 Acknowledgments
The current edition of this book was updated to cover Motif 1.2, including drag and drop and internationalization, by
Paula Ferguson. Dave Brennan, of HaL Computer Systems, took on the unenviable task of learning everything he
could about UIL and Mrm, in order to write the UIL programming ...