Re: Looking for Ada GUI builder for Sun

["Theodore E. Dennison" <dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com>]

David Kristola wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know of a GUI builder (X/Motif/whatever) for Sun (Solaris 2.5) that
> produces Ada code?  I don't mind working with mixed language programs, but it
> would be nice to avoid if possible.

Altia (from Alsys) does this. Black&White's UIM/Ada for HP/UX also does this, but 
I don't know if they have a Solaris port. These are both Motif GUI builders, so 
you must work with Motif-level widgets. If you want X-level stuff like gauges, 
rotating knobs, or graphic pictures with hot spots, you will still have to do it
manually. I don't know of any X-based GUI builders that generate Ada.

One big problem with going this route is that GUI-builder products will tie you in to 
their proprietary runtimes, if you are not careful.

The solution I generally reccomend for folks (who can work at the Motif-level) is
to use a Motif GUI builder that can generate and read UIL. UIL is a separate language
than Ada, but the UIL compiler comes with all Motif systems, and will catch 
inconsistencies and errors that would look like perfectly good code to a C or Ada 
compiler. UIL is also completely portable across all Motif implementations (of the
same version). If you want to change platforms, or even Motif GUI builders, you 
have that option. With other implementations you are tied to your GUI-builer vendor,
and their supported platforms, for life. There are even some tools available to 
translate UIL into Windows GUI code! Interfacing Ada to UIL object files (.uid) is
trivial. Its just a matter of 3 Motif calls (+ one for each widget you want to use
directly).

-- 
T.E.D.          
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