Motif
| Motif
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 Screenshot of “Plan”, a calendar program that Motif uses |
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| Basic data
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| developer | Open Group |
| Publishing year | 1989 |
| Current version | 2.3.8 (December 5, 2017) |
| operating system | Unix with X11 |
| programming language | C. |
| category | GUI toolkit |
| License | LGPL (from version 2.3.4) |
| http://motif.ics.com/motif | |
Motif (or MOTIF ) is a GUI toolkit with which, among other things, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) can be developed under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-like systems. From version 2.1 Motif supports Unicode , which means that it is used in a number of multilingual environments. It came up in the 1990s with the spread of UNIX workstations and positioned itself against the OpenLook GUI. In addition, there is also a standard by IEEE 1295. It was and is still in use in the basic elements for the Common Desktop Environment and as an adaptation in PC / GEOS .
Motif can be recognized by the use of rectangular user interface elements with three-dimensional effects - menus, buttons, controls, text input fields and the like. These effects were later adopted by Microsoft in Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1 , with which the graphical user interface finally began to establish itself on PCs.
The very extensive adaptability of the appearance makes it possible to create programs that also correspond to current display trends. This is especially true for the shading and appearance of the widgets . Without the appropriate settings or specifications, the appearance appears antiquated. The fact that the libraries can look back on a very long history of development and are therefore equally resource-saving and stable speaks in favor of using Motif in current applications. Unlike many other graphics libraries, Motif allows you to program window applications that can still be operated smoothly even with a slow network connection. Since the Motif libraries have almost no dependencies on other libraries, a high level of stability is guaranteed for updates.
Many judge that it has become worthless these days in the face of GTK + and Qt (also because Sun Microsystems , one of the primary users of Motif, decided to switch to GTK + and Gnome ), but it is still used in many older systems. In addition, a large inventory of (mostly proprietary, in-house ) software in the industry that has grown over time uses Motif, which will be maintained and expanded for the foreseeable future. Motif will continue to be used, especially for business-critical or vital applications.
Motif was created by the Open Software Foundation (and is sometimes still called OSF / Motif), but is now part of the Open Group . The Open Motif development portal is not operated by the Open Group, but is available as an independent, industry-funded MotifZone .
Motif is still being developed, albeit slowly. With version 2.3 there is support for JPEG and PNG image files, analogous to XPM . From version 2.3.4 (October 2012) Motif is under the LGPL .
similar products
In the mid-1990s, the Hungry Programmers started a free ( LGPL ) reprogramming of Motif called LessTif .
OpenMotif is a version of Motif whose source code was published by The Open Group. It is (almost) identical to Motif, but can be used without license fees on operating systems that are free software . However, OpenMotif itself is not free software. With the appearance of Motif version 2.3.4 under the LGPL, OpenMotif is obsolete.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Pro-Linux.de: Motif released under the LGPL
