III. GLOSSARY
Here are some words that you'll find in this FAQ along with working definitions for them.
- API
- Applications Programming Interface. This is what the programmer sees when he's using a software development kit. Normally, this would be a set of function
calls and/or objects.
- CDE
- The GUI part of COSE (q.v.) is CDE, the Common Desktop Environment which includes hypertext help, IPC (q.v.), printer support, and a bunch of other
stuff. The look-and- feel is Motif-like, but there's a lot more than that to CDE. It looks like CDE certification will be withheld from most (if not all) PIGUIs
since CDE includes its own API -- you have to comply with the API to be certified.
- COSE
- Common Open Software Environment. COSE is the industry-agreed- upon graphical environment that will augment (significantly) and replace Motif and
OpenLook.
- CUI
- Character User Interface. This is like a graphical user interface, but it's implemented only with characters (e.g., ASCII). Many Platform-Independent CUIs
are developed using the public-domain curses package.
- DDE
- Dynamic Data Exchange. This is a method of inter-process communication under Microsoft Windows.
- DDEML
- Microsoft Windows' Dynamic Data Exchange Management Library.
- DLL
- Dynamically Linked Libraries. These are, essentially, shared libraries under Microsoft Windows or OS/2.
- FAQ
- Frequently Asked Questions. A list. . .like THIS one!
- Font
- A specific set of shapes for a character set. Old English is one example of a font (it's more complicated than that, but I'm not going into it here).
- GDI
- Microsoft Windows' Graphical Drawing Interface.
- GUI
- Graphical User Interface. If you don't know what this is already, you have quite a bit of homework before this FAQ will mean anything to you.
- IPC
- Inter-process Communication. It's a generic term for the way separate processes (or tasks) under an operating system talk to each other.
- MDI
- Microsoft Windows' Multiple Document Interface. An MDI parent window is intended to be the main window of an application and MDI child windows
represent separate documents or sessions (or whatever) under that application.
- Motif
- This is one of the choices of look-and-feel under the X Window system. In order to have one's software certified as Motif compliant, one must pay a fee to
the Open Software Foundation (OSF).
- OpenLook
- This is one of the choices of look-and-feel under the X Window system. It was originally championed by Sun Microsystems before they agreed to support
COSE (q.v.).
- PCL
- Hewlett Packard's Printer Control Language. It's a language for getting HP printers to display what you want. Several versions exist, including PCL4 and
PCL5.
- PIGUI
- Platform-Independent Graphical User Interface. Actually, it refers to a platform-independent API (q.v.).
- PM
- OS/2's Presentation Manager. This is the GUI under OS/2.
- PostScript
- This is a printer language owned by Adobe Systems. It's an interpreted language that is used by a wide variety of printers. This is yet another technology
created by Xerox Parc.
- SDK
- Software Development Kit. It's software to help a programmer build other software.
- Unicode
- This is an international (16-bits per character) character set in which all the characters from the various supported international languages co-exist at once.
Among the supported character sets is the Latin alphabet (as used for English and other languages), Hebrew, and kanji.
- WYSIWYG
- What You See Is What You Get (pronounced Wizzy-Wig). It's a way of allowing the user of a package to see the package's output (in its ultimate format)
while the user is developing using that package. Most WYSIWYG software is really WYSISWYG (pronounced Wizzy-Swig) -- What you see is sort-of
what you get.
- Xlib
- This is the library of X-Windows functions distributed by MIT with the X Window system (hence, it's free -- just like X Windows). One can generate
software that is compliant to the OpenLook or Motif look-and-feel (or any other, for that matter) using Xlib.
- YMMV
- Your Mileage May Vary.