CX - Uniform Interface Library.

["www.wep.net/~mlang" <mlang@netway.at>]

Hello.
Thought this would interest many people here.
Some days ago I saw a announcement on freshmeat about a Lib called CX.
Here is what freshmeat says about it:
description:
CX is a does-everything UI library. It allows for non-graphical UIs,
built-in themes support, and it's possible to use another API to
interface with CX. Currently only Pages (windows) and commands
(buttons) are implemented, further expansion is planned.
Tom Whittock @ 11/29/98 - 17:55

Homepage: http://ds.dial.pipex.com/shallow/

As I saw the announcement I instantly wrote a mail to the author to get
some more info.
And what I got is great.

Here some lines from the mail-contact I had with him. I would forward the
whole message also but I currently have some problems to access
blinux-list from my new mail-account where the mail came in. 

> First of all, will it allow to access X-apps which arent designed to
> work with CX? I suppose no but I thought asking were interesting.
Sort of. I think the CX-Emulation document goes into this a little. The
way CX is designed is this:

Application
CXLib
CXUILib
OS/Display

So it would be fairly trivial to insert an emulation library at some
point in the process which took in, for example, GTK API calls and put
out CX API calls. This would allow, for e.g. A braille GTK
application... Although I don't know how that would be laid out... But
that's a matter for the future.
> Why did you start this project. 
Hmm. I read someone's editorial on Freshmeat, about The X Window System,
and thought his comments were valid, so I set about doing something
about it. It took me a while to think up what exactly to do, and when I
started it took me a while to do anything vaguely useful, but finally
here we are.

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Basically CX will be able to get input from many application-libraries.
Qt, GTK, Tcl/Tk... everything should be possible in theory. Its a
high-level API.
And after CX collected the information it needs I will output it through a
UI you can write or choose yourself. So we could e.g. write a
Text-mode-UI, or on specially designed for Braille-display users, or one
designed for Speech-access users, or even on written in eLisp and useable
through Emacs&Emacspeak.
What do you think about this?
Its a great idea IMHO.

Anyway, have a look at his (very simple at the moment) homepage for the CX
project and write him a mail if you want to help. He is very happy about
feedback.

Here some more lines from our mail-contact:

> Ill wait for your answer and will put a message about CX on blinux-list
> (a for for blind linux users). Probably we'll get some more help from
> there.
That's GREAT!
> You know, Open Source Software only exists due to demand. And people who
> want to use something they cant use at the time are probably very
> enthousiastic..
I never expected a large reaction from blind linux users, although I
considered the application of CX for the blind, of course. I'm glad
there's a 'market' for CX amongst the blind - anything I can do to
increase the popularity of Linux will, of course be done :)


CYa,
    Mario