source: trunk/third/wcl/README25 @ 8837

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Widget Creation Library Version 2.5 Distribution
------------------------------------------------

The distribution contains files which make up the Widget Creation
Library (Wcl or libWc.a), and resource interpreters and utility
libraries (which include Table widgets) for each of the following
widget sets: Athena, Motif, and OpenLook.

Wcl is completely widget set independent.  It provides mechanisms to
allow an entire user interface to be specified in resource files.
Basically, this amounts to providing new resources for specifying the
types of the widgets and the widget heirarchy.  In addition, Wcl
provides several callbacks and action functions which many programs
need.

See README20 for general information about Wcl version 2, and README22
for additional features introduced in Wcl version 2.2 and version 2.1,
and README23 for new features in Wcl 2.3, and README24 for new features
in Wcl 2.4.

New Features of Wcl 2.5
------------------------

This is the last Wcl release from Germany.  Following this release,
I will again be supporting Wcl from JPL in Pasadena California.

Doc                     - A directory with two very simple tutorial text
                          files which give you hints on how to actually
                          develop a program and/or libraries using Wcl.
                          Some improvements were made, for example I
                          mention that non-visible appShells must have
                          non-zero sizes.

Mri/Imakefile           - Has been enhanced to properly build a profiled
                          version of Mri.  This is still labor intensive at
                          the Imake level, but it works (on SunOS at least).

WcPrint                 - It is now easy to override Wcl's default use of
                          stderr for printing all messages.  You can provide
                          new, non-vargs replacements to print messages,
                          and messages with a "printf" like format string
                          which contains ONLY `%s' format characters.  See
                          WcCreateP.h, look at the section beginning with
                          the comment "Override for Default Wcl Error Printing"

XmpAddActionsAndCallbacks
XmpAddConverters
XmpAddMotifConverters   - These are called by XmpRegisterMotif(), but allow
                          applications to get just some of the Xmp things
                          without registering the Xmp and Motif widgets.


New Platform Support
--------------------
Interactive 3.0.1       - MakeByHand can be used to build the distribution
                          by using WcMake1.isc and WcMake2.isc, thanks to
                          J.J.Bailey (jjb@jagware.acco.com)

AIX and ESIX            - You need to do a tiny bit more work, but I hope
                          everything you need for these platforms is in the
                          files by these names.  These files were provided
                          by Klaus Kretschel <RZ13@dlrvm.bitnet> and
                          Dave Custer (ddc@druwa.att.com) respectively.

Sorry, but this distribution has NOT been tested on these platforms.
Next time...

Bug Fixes
---------

WcSetValues             can now take empty resource values, like this:
                        *foo.activateCallback:  WcSetValue(this.labelString:)

WcCvtStringToWidget     Sometimes did not work when widgets were destroyed
                        because the R4 and R5 conversion cache was being
                        used, but not cleared (it only gets cleared when the
                        `this' widget gets destroyed, NOT when any named
                        widgets are destroyed).  A new style converter is
                        now used on R4 and later builds to avoid this
                        problem.  However, this means YOU may need to change
                        calls to XtAddConverter to be XtAddTypeConverter
                        if YOU register this converter function without
                        using Wcl or Xmp to do it for you.

WcLoadResourceFile      no longer dumps core with multiple application
                        contexts.

WcName.c                has been modified to use isspace(), isalpha() and
                        so on.  This makes these routines portable across
                        character sets. A side effect of this is that
                        Constructors can now be specified in resource files
                        with trailing empty (ignored) parenthesis, like
                        callback procedures.

MapAg.c                 MapAg_Forget_Normal() had a bug detected by Purify.
                        Thanks, Ik Su Yoo (ik@mobydick.leis.bellcore.com)

WcTemplate Tracing      Tracing now (again) works correctly.


Table Widget
------------

Table really works much better now.  There was an annoying bug
where children which got managed and unmanaged multiple times
would slowly be squashed down to nothing.  This was because I
tried to be very, very literal with my implementation of Xt
geometry management.  See Xmp/TableLoc.c XmpTableLocPreferredWidth()
for a discussion of this point.

Unmanaged Tables (especially when children of popped-down Motif
dialog shells) now resize correctly when children resize.

A new set of resources sameWidth, sameHeight, sameBorder all of
class SameSize has been added.  This causes the Table to try and
maintain the named widgets to be the same size when the table
does a new re-layout (due to shell resize, child resize, child
manage/unmanage, etc).

Table now completely forgets about destroyed widgets (it kept a
pointer to un-managed widgets in the default_layout location list,
and it now clears this out when children get destroyed).

Make and Imake changes for Clients
----------------------------------

Build Instructions
------------------

See README_BUILD for detailed instructions on how to build the
distribution.

If you are using imake, you MUST provide a Wc.tmpl file.
The distribution provides two versions of this file,
one of which may be exactly what you need:

 Wc.tmpl.r5     Should work as-is with X11R5 from mit.

 Wc.tmpl.irix   Should work as-is on Irix (Silicon Graphics) machines with
                SGI X (R4) and Motif installations.


If you are using make, you MUST look at WcMake1.tmpl and WcMake2.tmpl.
Again, a couple of different versions of these files are provided, but
you almost certainly must do something to make it build on your
platform.

 WcMake1.tmpl   These work on my machine
 WcMake2.tmpl

 WcMake1.svr4   These work on SVR4 machines with X11R4 and Motif 1.1,
 WcMake2.svr4   and are used to make dynamic libraries.

 WcMake1.svr4-a These work on SVR4 machines with X11R4 and Motif 1.1.,
 WcMake2.svr4-a and are used to create static libraries.

 WcMake1.sco    These work on SCO Open Desk Top machines.  Whew!  Also,
 WcMake2.sco    installable man pages (*S.z, *C.z) are now provided.

 WcMake1.isc    These work on Interactive 3.0.1 machines,
 WcMake2.isc    thanks to J.J.Bailey (jjb@jagware.acco.com)

 AIX            What you need to know to build on AIX machines,
                thanks to Klaus Kretschel <RZ13@dlrvm.bitnet>

 ESIX           What you need to know to build on ESIX machines,
                thanks to Dave Custer (ddc@druwa.att.com)

Wcl has been built against Motif 1.2 and Xaw3d without any problems.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David E. Smyth                  David.Smyth@ap.mchp.sni.de
Object/X Researcher             AP 154, Carl-Wery-Str 22, Munich 83 Germany
        Research Grant provided by Esprit Investments Ltd, 
        major sponsor Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG