A Smalltalk X Server

Subject:    Re: Squeak with native look-and-feel?
      Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:21:06 -0700
      From: Eliot Miranda 
 Newsgroups:  comp.lang.smalltalk


Steve Wart wrote:
> 
> So here's a silly question: what would it take to port XWindows to
> Smalltalk?

I'm jumping in before I've read all the replies to this thread, so if
someone's already answered this, then "oops!", but Georg Heeg already
implemented an X server in ObjectWorks 2.3 (I think).  This would be
back in 1986 or so and so would only be X11 R2/R3, right?  Georg could
give you an estimate of how much time it took, but my guess is that one
person could do it in less than a year.

> 
> Surely this would benefit the SqueakNOS folks...

Right.  Having Smalltalk provide the window management functionality
would allow one convenient access to other applications while allowing
one to use the full power of the Squeak GUI.  This would make a great
CampSmalltalk project and might be the kind of killer app that gets
Smalltalk wider visibility.  If one could implement a "really cool"
window manager that just happened to be a Smalltalk environment that
allowed one to do great scripting things with Smalltalk then it might
attract a lot of people.


> 
> Cheers,
> Steve
> 
> "Lex Spoon"  wrote in message
> news:m3hexp8zlq.fsf@chaos.resnet.gatech.edu...
> 
> > In fact, I'd much rather import an XWindow into Squeak than vice
> > versa.  Squeak can easily emulate the non-complexity of an XWindow.
> > Likewise on other platforms.

-- 
_______________,,,^..^,,,____________________________
Eliot Miranda              Smalltalk - Scene not herd

Hans-Martin Mosner says:

Andreas T�nne was the primary implementor, IIRC, and he says that it was X11R3 (monochrome, based on ST-80 r2.5). Way back then, X was relatively simple. I think that it has accumulated so much bloat in the meantime that I would not engage in such a project. Existing X servers are free&fast, supporting all kinds of graphics hardware. For SqueakNOS, a VNC client for graphical apps, plus telnet with an ANSI terminal emulation and seamless FTP integration would probably be a more sensible first step.

Claus Gittinger says:

I have some code which I could provide - it is still incomplete and needs a lot of work, but is able to show an xclock, xterm, xload and some other (simple) applications. It does not yet handle things like netscape, acroread etc., which was originally my intention. I can show a demo where x-apps are running inside a smalltalk window... The code is 100% pure smalltalk; ST/X based, but it should be pretty portable (the event mechanisms are different and need more work, though). The VNC alternative is easier to implement, but less sexy imho.

BTW: I completely agree that having ST as desktop/window manager would be VERY cool - especially since KDE is looking more and more like windows: large (huge), slow, buggy, crashing...