---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Catalyst Flash: SunSoft Developer Newsletter * Spring 1994 * Volume 5, No. 1 Part 2 of 3 SunFLASH Vol 66 #84 June 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Electronic Journal For Sun Users Since 1988 John J. Mclaughlin, Publisher & Editor - flash@sun.com ____________________________________________________________________________ 66.84 Catalyst Flash: Developer Newsletter - Volume 5, No. 1 (2 of 3) From: Catalyst-Flash@Sun.Com (Susan Yeh) (508 lines) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: GET READY FOR THE SOLARIS COMMON DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT ________________________________________________________________________________ By Ronald W. Lee, Product Manager In the spring of 1993, SunSoft(TM) joined 5 other major suppliers of UNIX systems; HP(R), IBM(R), USL, Univel(RM), and SCO(R), to create a Common Open Software Environment (cose) for UNIX(R) platforms. The first delivery of that commitment is the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), which provides a desktop application environment for users. The cose partners are currently working on reference implementations of the CDE standard specification that is being developed by X/Open(TM). SunSoft plans to begin an early access program for CDE in the summer of 1994, and to release CDE as an unblundled product near the end of 1994. As a Solaris(TM) developer, it's important to understand CDE and consider its impact on your products early. Components of CDE The primary strength of CDE is that it is based on existing technology standards including X11, Motif(R), and ToolTalk(R) that are open and available to all developers. With these standard components, CDE developers are guaranteed a common interface and portability across many different platforms. During 1994, Solaris will evolve to incorporate standard CDE services. Solaris Common Solaris Today Desktop Environment ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- Desktop Tools OPEN Look DeskSet CDE Desktop tools ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- GUI builder Developer's Guide Application Builder ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- Window Manager OPEN LOOK Window Manager CDE Window Manager ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- Application Integration ToolTalk, Xview, OLIT ToolTalk, Motif, ICCCM ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- Window server X11R5, Adobe DPS X11R5, Adobe DPS ----------------------- ------------------------ ----------------------- For Solaris application developers, the move from OPEN LOOK(R) to OSF/Motif(R) is one of the most important migration tasks. While the calls and some of the interface models differ, you will find that Motif has the same event-driven style architecture that OpenWindows(TM) uses. A Motif toolkit is available from SunSoft to help Solaris developers make the move. There are also a number of other third-party tools available. To facilitate GUI development, the CDE reference implementation includes App Builder, which is the successor to OpenWindows Developer's Guide. The types of facilities in App Builder are essentially the same as those in OpenWindows's Developer's Guide. Using a palette of interface design elements, App Builder allows you to graphically create the code needed for a CDE application user interface, by selecting various elements and positioning them on a window. CDE Desktop Tools provides users with a built-in set of tools to accomplish daily tasks such as reading mail, managing their calendar and interfacing with the system. Several OpenWindows DeskSet tools including Mailtool, File Manager, and Calendar Manager will be available as part of CDE Desktop Tools. Support for ToolTalk is also included, and as a consequence, you can use the DeskSet tools as building blocks for your applications. For instance, if you need to edit a block of text, you won't need to implement a text editor. Instead, you can just call on the text editor that is part of CDE. Users will benefit from having their customized text editor available in every application. The biggest visual change for Solaris users is the CDE Window Manager, based on the HP Visual User Environment (HP VUE). Instead of having a single desktop to handle all jobs, the CDE Window Manager provides as many as eight desktops, enabling users to specify each desktop to handle a particular job. The CDE Window Manager also provides users with a Control Panel utility and a hypertext Help Manager. The Control Panel appears on all desktops and provides an interface to the CDE Window Manager for launching applications, switching desktops and exiting an interactive session. The Help Manager supports libraries of on-line hypertext documents. Developers of CDE applications can now write common hypertext help documents that will be supported on all major platforms. Impact of Moving to CDE CDE changes how Solaris users, developers and administrators view the desktop and the services it provides. Solaris users will first notice the new Motif look and feel of the desktop. This will change how they interface with your applications. Users will discover that applications integrated with CDE will possess a common behavior making them easier to learn while providing better integration support with other CDE applications. For system administrators, the Common Desktop Environment was designed with enterprise computing in mind. CDE applications will have common configuration and control files, and the ability to create defaults at the company, system and user levels. Most importantly systems administrators will have a commn way to administer desktops across platforms from different vendors. As a CDE application developer, you will find some pleasant new changes. The first big change is portability. By taking advantage of the common services supported by CDE, your source code can quickly be ported between different UNIX implementations, and you will have access to major new facilities such as ToolTalk, that can increase application functionality and value for your customers. With the ToolTalk messaging facility, you have the ability to add interfaces to your applications that will enable other developers to integrate their applications with yours. CDE Application Integration More and more customers are making demands that applications be able to interoperate with other applications, especially in the PC applications market. CDE supports application integration through X and ToolTalk technologies. Using the Inter-client Communications Convention Manual (ICCCM) cut/paste model allows CDE applications to support data interchange using a cut/paste metaphor. Applications now have a common cut/paste implementation that can guarantee interoperability. ToolTalk allows application developers to provide a standard network wide messaging interface for integrators and other developers. The ToolTalk message sets provide a common interface API for applications. Using this interface allows developers to leverage other applications as building blocks to their applications and enables integrators to create customized automated solutions for users. Getting Started SunSoft's early access program for CEE is planned for this summer, with the release of CDE as an unbundled product due out near the end of 1994. Current plans are to bundle the CDE desktop with Solaris in mid-1995. The first thing you should do to prepare yourself for CDE is to obtain a copy of the CDE Developer's Conference Proceedings. Drawing over 1200 people, the CDE Developer's Conference included engineering presentations covering the features and facilities of CDE. The conference proceedings (ISBN 0-13-301474-6) retails for $US 75 and is available through NeoData 515-284-6751, or from PTR Prentice Hall Corporate Sales 201-592-2498. Second, you should obtain the sample CDE implementation that was also distributed at the CDE conference. A SPARC system with a Solaris 2.3 environment is required to run this. The sample CDE implementation and Product Notes can be ordered through Uniforum for $US 295. Documentation is available for $US 100. UniForum 10/93 Snapshot Order US and Canada 1-800-986-1920 Ext. 30 International 1-408-986-8840 Ext. 30 X/Open is handling the process to standardize CDE. A draft specification is avail- able from X/Open for review and comment. All interested users and developers are encouraged to participate in the X/Open standardization process so their voices will be heard. The Motif toolkit, available from SunSoft, can help developers get started with their port to CDE. The toolkit is bundled with the Solaris 2 Software Developer Kit (SDK), or can be purchased separately by calling the SunSoft Telesales Center at 1-800-SUNSOFT or 1-310-348-6090. ________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: TELEPHONY COMPUTING WITH XTL TELESERVICES ________________________________________________________________________________ By Jeff Hong, Product Manager XTL Teleservices for Solaris, is a set of telephony software services and open application programming interfaces (APIs) that extends SunSoft's integrated multimedia software environment, LIVE! XTL Teleservices simplifies the development of telephone-based applications and telecommunications hardware, thereby reducing overall development costs for computer telephony integration (CTI) in business, medical, education, entertainment, scientific and other industries. SunSoft will incorporate XTL Teleservices into the next major release of the Solaris operating environment. A Component of Solaris LIVE Solaris LIVE is the integrated multimedia environment for Solaris, designed for building powerful applications incorporating graphics, imaging, audio, video, printing, and now telephony technologies. These foundation technologies provide open APIs and hardware device interfaces, thus offering an open platform that ISVs and IHVs can leverage to deliver powerful solutions to their customers. XTL Teleservices provides an open platform for call centers, integrated voice mail, fax and electronic mail, video conferencing, video-on-demand and other integrated applications. Meeting Market and Customer Requirements XTL Teleservices offers advantages to applications that require integration of information systems and business communciations. Customers for such applications include users, third-party product and service providers, systems integrators and communications service providers. For users who are developing their own teleservices applications, XTL Teleservices provides a well defined API for building applications without concern for the peculiarities and details of specific communications technologies. For third-party product and service providers and systems integrators, XTL Teleservices enables the building of value-added products and services in a service- and platform-independent manner. For communciation service providers, XTL Teleservices opens up new opportunities in the lower-volume segments by making key communications management features available on desktop systems so that they are accessible to and affordable for small businesses. XTL Teleservices offers any business the advantages of computer/telephone integration: and integrated voice/data communications, thus resulting in higher employee productivity and improved customer satisfaction. Desktop Telephony XTL Teleservices is particularly well-suited for applications built for collaborative multimedia and customer management solutions, in particular, desktop telephony computing. XTL Teleservices brings to the desktop efficient telephone management, increasing user productivity. Existing desktop tools can be modified to incorporate XTL Teleservices. An existing mailtool can be extended to handled fax and phone messages in addition to Email. Other tools may be integrated into the desktop including a phonetool with answer machine, integrated rolodex and phone dial capabilities. And since XTL Teleservices is a component of Solaris LIVE, video, graphics, imaging and multimedia may also be integrated as part of the phonetool. Benefits The benefits of XTL Teleservices include: * Independent software and hardware development - XTL Teleservices offers a layered architecture with defined software and hardware interfaces, thus allowing separately developed telephony-based applications and telecommunication hardware to be combined seamlessly in varied business environments. * Support for diverse platforms - XTL Teleservices is highly portable, allowing for maximum portability to new hardware platforms or operating environments. SunSoft is actively working with emerging teleservices standards bodies to ensure the future development of open, portable solutions. * Scalablility - XTL Teleservices runs on platforms ranging from laptops to high-end servers for both x86 and SPARC architectures. * Flexibility - XTL Teleservices' flexibility, openness and layered architecture permits CTI products and applications to support new technologies as they become available. The object-oriented structure of the XTL subsystem and its C++ language bindings ensures easy integration of future object environments, including SunSoft's Project DOE: Distributed Objects Environment. * Extending the network - XTL Teleservices allows applications to take full advantage of Solaris' distributed networking capabilities while allowing easy access to public switched telephone networks, voice services and other wide-area and high-bandwidth networking systems. * Enabling customer management solutions - XTL Teleservices provides integrated access to resources such as telephone call control and routing, interactive voice repsonse systems, operator assistance, databases, Email, video applications and fax services. This means greater responsiveness to customers for business applications such as customer service, order processing, sales and telemarketing for any industry. * Controlled Access - XTL Teleservices is designed to operate on workstations and as a network resource. In these environments, security and validation of users are critical. Standard UNIX File System security features are used, making it easy to configure the system to restrict telephone usage to authorized users. XTL Teleservices Architecture The XTL subsystem is based on object and client/server computing technologies. From the applciation's point of view, the client-side library provides basic call control function with supplementary services including conferencing, transfer, hold, drop, redirect and extensions. Applications use the XTL C++ Class library. XTL Teleservices consists of three components: * Client-side API * System services * Provider porting interfaces The client-side library provides a high-level, object-oriented API for call control, Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) tone sending and detection, and the associated capabilities for security or shared management of calls by applications. The provider porting interface defines how telecommunications providers connect to the XTL subsystem (via the Media Provider Interface or MPI). The system services or XTL Teleservices Server acts as an intermediary between the application making calls to the client-side library and the telecommunications provider implementing the call. In addition, the system services provides a data stream multiplexor that allows applications to optimally access and share data channels associated with the telephone calls. Figure 2 illustrates the XTL Teleservices architecture. Availability XTL Teleservices will be a standard component of the next major Solaris release. Included will be the XTL Teleservices Run Time that includes the API Library, SPI Library, Server, and System Administration Tools. For software developers, the Solaris Developer Kit (SDK), sold separately, wlll include source code for sample programs. For hardware developers, the Driver Developer Kit (DDK), sold separately, will include source code for example programs. ________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: FIRST MAJOR SOLARIS X86 INSTALLATION IN NEW ZEALAND ________________________________________________________________________________ DuPont NewsPaper Publishing Systems Makes News with Solaris x86 The Solaris(TM) x86 operating sytem is fueling a technical revolution in Dunedin, a bustling port city on New Zealand's South Island. The Otago Daily Times, New Zealand's largest independent daily newspaper is moving to high-tech in one bold leap. By mid-1994 the paper will complete implementation of the Whirlwind(TM) 1000 Publishing System developed and marketed by DuPont Newspaper Publishing Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of the DuPont Corporation. SPARC to x86 DuPont originally developed and implemented the Whirlwind software on the Solaris SPARC(R) client/server architecture. When the Times opted to use Australian-built 486 PCs as client workstations, DuPont decided to port the software to the Solaris x86 environment. "Our biggest concern was that we had only a short window to certify the PCs for Solaris x86," recalls Ross Pollock, general manager of DuPont's Sydney, Australia office. "During that period we had some initial compatibility problems with display cards and other peripheral hardware. But we found that if we stayed with equipment from SunSoft's approved hardware list, we got consistent results. So we made our certificiation date, with a day to spare!" One major benefit of using the Solaris x86 operating environment proved to be its Wabi(TM) technology, which allows Microsoft(R) Windows applications to run on Solaris at native performance levels. "Being able to run both Windows and UNIX software seamlessly in the same network environment is a tremendous benefit to the customer," says Pollock. Ensuring Reliability Because the Times is a daily paper, system downtime is not acceptable. The completed Whirlwind 1000 installation will comprise 84 client 486 workstations and three SPARCservers(TM) in a triple-redundant network to ensure system availability at all times. The paper's Sybase(R) databases are supported by DuPont software that maintains mirror-image backup copies at all times and dynamically reconfigures the network if any server goes down. The database architecture allows for an infinite number of pairs of file servers, so that the system can grow as much as necessary. In addition to the client/server resources described above, the paper is installing eight additional SPARCstations for creating display ads, and two more as Raster Image Processors for its ULTRA output imagesetters. Phasing in a New Way of Working Because computer technology is new ground for most Times employees, the Whirlwind system is being implemented in phases. The display advertising function was automated first, followed by classified and then, one at a time, the editorial departments. The classified application provides a WYSIWYG display (which also accommodates logos and other graphics) while an ad is taken over the phone, so that the clerk can verify the layout and charge the customer accurately. Account credit and credit card checking is built in and handled at once when the ad is taken. The software also has special pagination routines which sort ads into categories, assemble the classified listings and flow them automaticallay around the display ad spaces in the page layout. The Whirlwind editorial application has copy flow requirements that are not met by ordinary word processors. The progress of any story must follow the newsroom hierarchy. For instance, no story can be sent over the network for production until passed by the appropriate editor(s). Tight controls are essential to avoid embarrassing errors such as printing duplicate stories. As each story is passed, the system captures its requirements for column inches, headline size, etc. Whirlwind page composition is also optimized for the time-driven newspaper environment. Rather than using the electronic cut-and-paste methods typical of electronic publishing, the newspaper is layout-driven. Using system data on the stories and display ads, each page is designed first, then the stories and ads are dropped into the layout. For the Otago Daily Times, the change to computerized publishing comes at the right time. "As an independent paper competing with much larger publishers, we have to run our shop as efficiently as possible. Changing our old habits has been a challenge, but the benefits are already apparent. The system is demonstrating that it can do everything we need, and our support from DuPont has been dedicated and thorough." DuPont Newspaper Publishing Systems is also in the process of installing additional Solaris-based Whilrwind systems in Sydney, Italy, Finland and the U.S. Each of these is being localized for each country, in language, dates, measurements, etc. Ross Pollock comments, "We've learned that Solaris -- for SPARC or x86 -- can deliver the tools, functionality, reliability and performance we need for these critical high-availability environments." ________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: NEW FAX-ON-DEMAND HOTLINE FOR DEVELOPERS ________________________________________________________________________________ SunSoft's Catalyst FAX-On-Demand Hotline provides 24 hour access to the latest developer information including upcoming events, press releases, early access software, developer kits and product specs. Callers can dial into the toll free service (U.S. and Canada only) by using either a touch- tone telephone or dialing directly from a fax machine to have their choice of documents faxed to them instantly. First time callers should select the index which provides a complete listing of documents that are available by fax. Current topics include: - Special Events/Promotions - Catalyst Developer Program Membership - Catalyst Developer Programs and Services - Solaris SPARC and x86 Product Specs Try the Catalyst FAX-On-Demand Hotline today. U.S. and Canada 1-800-769-4000 Outside U.S. and Canada 1-415-688-4357 ________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: INTRODUCING THE SUNSOFT FORUM ON COMPUSERVE ________________________________________________________________________________ CompuServe is a worldwide information network that has more than 1.5 million members. SunSoft Support Services has created a forum on CompuServe to provide a special meeting place for customers to gather information on SunSoft products, services, and talk with other CompuServe members on the network. For developers, the SunSoft Catalyst Group has teamed up with Developer Engineering to provide a special "Developers" library in the SunSoft Forum that includes the latest information on bugs and patches, developer kits, early access software, the Catalyst Developer Program, and more. On CompuServe, type GO SUNSOFT to view the SunSoft libraries and use the forum. If you would like to set up a CompuServe account, please call CompuServe at 800-524-3388, ext 540. ________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: PROJECT DOE AND OPENSTEP ________________________________________________________________________________ Project DOE, SunSoft's distributed object environment, was started several years ago to make it easier to build enterprise-scale solutions. DOE extends and leverages Solaris and allows programmers to build applications by assembling independent, reusable components together, thereby dramatically improving programmer productivity. SunSoft is working with standards bodies, including the Object Management Group (OMG), to ensure that third-party solutions are available for vertical markets. To further accelerate the standardization of object technology, SunSoft and NeXT Computer unveiled a series of agreements in late 1993, whereby NeXT would publish an open specification, and SunSoft would license NEXTSTEP's application environment for use in the Solaris distributed object environment. NeXT has opened up NEXTSTEP by freely licensing its application program interfaces (APIs) and the OpenStep trademark, to all independent implementations which pass an OpenStep test suite. This process has made OpenStep an open standard API, based on the operating-system independent portion of NEXTSTEP v3.2, the leading object-oriented application environment. SunSoft has licensed the NEXTSTEP application environment to speed time-to- market for the Solaris distributed object environment. An implementation of the OpenStep specification is being developed for the Solaris distributed operating environment. DOE will incorporate OpenStep into its Distributed Application Environment (DAE) component, which provides high-level services required by application developers. SunSoft and NeXT are collaborating to make the OpenStep specification available to standards bodies and the general public in mid-1994, integrated with the OMG architecture. Other agreements in the SunSoft/NeXT joint development effort include the porting of the native NEXTSTEP operating system to the SPARC architecture, and the licensing by NeXT from SunSoft of its implementations of networking and distributed object technologies, including the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), its accompanying Interface Definition Language (IDL), and SunSoft's industry standard Network File System (NFS).