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Date:      Wed, 28 Feb 1996 04:11:52 +0200 (EET)
From:      Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee>
To:        Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com>
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   RE: Win32 (was:Re: Go SCSI! Big improvement...)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.960228034836.4890C-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.AUX.3.91.960227151831.25917C-100000@covina.lightside.com>

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On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Jake Hamby wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Narvi wrote:
> 
> > Have you ever actually tried the windows sound control panel? Ever tried 
> > it with having only the PC speaker? (Assuming you knew where to look and 
> > got the sound driver for the PC speaker).
> 
> The Windows Sound control panel works great, what are you complaining 
> about???  If you do have a sound card, or the PC speaker driver, then you 
> can associate many events with .WAV sounds, if you don't, then what do 
> you expect?  BTW, Windows NT explicitly does NOT support the PC speaker 
> for digitized sound output because it is very CPU intensive and requires 
> "real-time" programming to twiddle the bits (and doesn't sound very good, 
> to boot).  If you notice in Windows 3.1 with the PC speaker driver, the 
> mouse will seize up while its playing the sounds..  So the moral is BUY A 
> SOUND CARD (that applies for any operating system, not just Windows)..
>

Not exactly to the point...

	1) You cannot change the sound's parameters (should a particular 
	   thing happen not to sound correct) under the sound icon - go 
	   to the drivers config....
	2) Several events? Actually not several but just some spcific 
	   windows events.
	3) If your mouse freezes during playing the sounds, then you just 
	   have told windows to "disable interrupts while playing the sound".
 
> > Shut up! Windows was not the thing to start unified printing! Apple did 
> > it much earlier! And talking about GDI - from where the hell comes the 
> > thact that the same thing, using the same fonts, the same layout prints 
> > out a bit different on just slightly different printers (just +- some 
> > lines per some pages)? And once more the same question - have you tried 
> > it all out? Yes, I know it sounds rude - more ruder all the time - but 
> > the picture isn't just that beautiful... :(
> 
> Yes you are sounding a little bit rude, but that's okay..  Sure the Mac 
> did it first, the Mac popularized a lot of GUI ideas that Windows stole, 
> but the Mac stole them from Xerox PARC, so what's your point?  My 

The very same thing - not windows original idea, not the best possible 
way - should you want to port it to FreeBSD, you should look at it with a 
more broader viewpoint and make a broader port having the windows 
implementation as just a subset.

> argument was that Unix is missing these things, and Windows is a good 
> example of what we should be shooting for in terms of GUI features.  As 
> for printing, with the Mac you still have to have a Postscript printer 
> (with few exceptions like their Inkjet), it doesn't support PCL like 
> Windows does (or Unix with Ghostscript as a filter).  And thanks to 
> Windows using GDI calls for printing (and the Mac using Quickdraw) you 

GDI calls? I would very much like them to be a bit different... Windows 
GDI is quite pixel-device oriented. Just imagine that all who wanted to 
print something emitted postscript... if the printer didn't support it in 
native mode, it would be filtered through Ghostscript.

> can get Print and Print Preview functionality with remarkably few lines 
> of code (especially using MFC/C++ in Windows) because you're basically 
> "drawing to the printer".
> 

Until the functionality suits you - after that you will start infinetly 
writing new derived classes - yes the code (on the surface) would remain 
still short.

> > For example, take the time and read the notes on differernces about the 
> > printing code on Win31/Win32. 
> 
> Okay printing is a bit simpler under Win32, but it is simplest of all 
> when you use the MFC/C++ framework.  What is your point, exactly?
> 
> > > I agree, 110%!  Come to think of it, the ONLY programs I've seen with a 
> > > decent GUI (that are available on more than one vendor's flavor of Unix) 
> > > are Netscape, and MAYBE Emacs.  That is if you don't count WINE, WABI, 
> > > TWIN, and Softwindows (evil grin!) ;-)
> > 
> > Then you have really seen only a few.... :)
> > 
> > 	Grumpy Sander
> 
> Okay, I'm sure I missed some..  But give me some examples of really good 
> (not just adequate) Unix GUI programs.  I mean a program where you 
> don't have to consult the Man page to learn how to use it..ever!  Did 
> those programs use Motif, Tcl/Tk, or something else?
> 

Talking about real good GUIs... How do you define one? Windows certainly 
is not a GUI unified enough and there are quite some programs I really 
don't think should be like that at all - for several reasons the list 
contains Word 6.0, Corel Draw 5.0 and Windows95 (I will discuss none of 
these in this list). 

XF has a good GUI as well as fdesign - at least compareable to the 
equivalent commercial programs for the Windows environment.

> ---Jake
> 

	Sander



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