Common Windows

["Scott B. Layson" <gyro@KESTREL.ARPA>]

We here at Reasoning are using Common Windows on both Symbolics
(supported by Intellicorp, I think) and Sun 3 and 4 under Franz
(supported by Franz).  I think there may also be a version for the
Explorer.  I don't know about any Macintosh implementation, but it's
certainly possible.

I don't know if it's been firmly standardized, but it doesn't seem to
be too much of a moving target.  It makes calls to the resident window
system, which on the Suns means either NeWS or X, although the
implementation in X is new and quite buggy; the NeWS one is only a
little buggy, though still more than enough so to be annoying.

Therefore, we are giving serious consideration to abandoning Common
Windows and just calling X directly.  I'm not the person actually
working on this, but I have the impression that Common Windows
provides higher-level operations (e.g. "select from a menu of the
following choices") than X; but it doesn't sound like too terribly
much work to get the same things done in X.

Hope this helps
  Scott