Devguide and GXV

Devguide is a development tool designed to make the interface programmer's job much easier. It gives you the ability to create and test user interfaces without writing any code.

Devguide can be used with either of two code generators to turn the GIL file that it generates into executable code.

Figure 1-1

The two code generators, GXV, and GOLIT, are described in this manual set. This manual describes the GXV code generator for the XView toolkit.

Names and Terminology

The word "Guide" in the full name "OpenWindows Developer's Guide" is an acronym for Graphical User Interface Design Editor.

When the abbreviated name, Devguide, is used, it refers to the graphical interface tool you use to develop the user interface.

The terms postprocessor and GXV (GXV++) are used to refer to the code generator that takes the GIL file produced by Devguide and produces executable C (C++) code and XView calls that create your user interface.

gxv and gxv++ refer to the UNIX commands invoked to run the GXV and GXV++ postprocessors.

What You Need to Run GXV and Devguide

GXV and Devguide run on any machine that runs the Solaris 2.x (Solaris 2.0 or later) environment. You need--in addition to Solaris 2.x--the Devguide software, the XView toolkit, and a C compiler.

Installing GXV and Devguide

To install Devguide and the code generators, follow the instructions in the Software Developer Kit Installation Guide; see also the Software Developer Kit Introduction.

How You Interact with Devguide and GXV

The basic interaction with Devguide is very simple. You use the Devguide program to develop your user interface with the OPEN LOOK look and feel by dragging and positioning glyphs on interface windows. You can save a description of the interface in one or more .G files. You can create a project (.P) file if you save the interface in more than one .G file. Interface building is explained in detail in the OpenWindows Developer's Guide: User's Guide.

Once you have built a working prototype of your user interface and saved it in one or more .G files, run the GXV program on the .G or .P file you created. GXV produces four files from a single .G file, referred to as <fn>.G in Figure 1-2 below. The .G suffix is the standard suffix for GIL files.

Figure 1-2 .G

GXV also automatically generates a program Makefile -- and a .db file if the -r argument is used.

The C code GXV produces is by default ANSI C. All the sample code in this manual is written in ANSI C. Use gxv's -k option to produce Kernighan and Richie C.