Xbae widget set

# The Xbae Widget Set

The Xbae widget set is a group of three widgets, originally part of the Bellcore Application Environment. (Note that Bellcore has changed its name to 'Telcordia Technologies'.)

The original author was Andrew Wason of Bellcore (up to version 3.8). Release 4.0 was made by Kevin Brannen, maintainance from then until release 4.7 was in the hands of Andrew Lister (lister@syd.net.au). In the 4.7 release (July 1999), Andrew indicated that he wanted to transfer maintainership to someone else. As of then, Xbae is part of the LessTif distributions.

The Xbae widget set currently consists of three widgets :

- XbaeMatrix

  The XbaeMatrix is a Motif-based widget which displays a grid of cells in the same manner as a spreadsheet. The cell array is scrollable, editable, and otherwise reasonably configurable in appearance. Each cell usually displays text, but pixmaps can also be displayed (not editable). The XbaeMatrix looks to some extent like a grid of XmTextField widgets, but is actually implemented with a single XmTextField. This means a big performance improvement due to less overhead.

- XbaeCaption

  XbaeCaption is a simple Motif manager widget used to associate an XmLabel (caption) with it's single child. The label may be either an XmString or Pixmap and can be displayed in any one of twelve positions around the perimeter of the child. XbaeCaption's geometry management technique is to simply "shrink wrap" it's child and display the caption alongside it. By using XbaeCaption with an XmFrame child, groups of related widgets can be labeled similarly to the IBM CUA "Group Box", but with more flexibility. XbaeCaption is also useful for associating labels with individual XmText widgets.

- XbaeInput

  XbaeInput is a subclassed from the XmText widget and allows keystrokes to be validated as well as the final string. It is very handy for restricting user input.

# Download

You can download the Xbae widget set separately from LessTif, or as a part of the LessTif distribution. LessTif binary distributions contain Xbae. With the LessTif source distribution, you need to make sure to pass the right option (--enable-build-Xbae) to configure in order to compile Xbae.

The Xbae widget set sources can be downloaded from the source directory on ftp.lesstif.org . Version 4.8.4 is at ftp://ftp.lesstif.org/pub/hungry/lesstif/srcdist/Xbae-4.8.4.tar.gz. You can also use one of the mirror sites.

# Documentation

The manual pages for the Xbae widgets are in the distributions, but they're also available from the web server :

- XbaeMatrix
- XbaeCaption
- XbaeInput

There's also a FAQ file.

# Licensing

It is important to note that the Xbae widgets carry a different license from LessTif. The Xbae license (shown below) is far more liberal than the LGPL.

We believe it is permitted for us to distribute LessTif and include Xbae in the distribution. We also want to distribute Xbae as a separate source release.

This is the license that Xbae 4.7 shipped with :

Copyright (c) 1991, 1992 Bell Communications Research, Inc. (Bellcore) Copyright (c) 1995-97 Andrew Lister
All Rights Reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this material for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all copies, and that the name of any author not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to this material without the specific, prior written permission of an authorized representative of Bellcore and current maintainer.
BELLCORE AND OTHER CONTRIBUTORS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS AND EXTEND NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND THE WARRANTY AGAINST INFRINGEMENT OF PATENTS OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", AND IN NO EVENT SHALL ANY AUTHOR OR ANY OF THEIR AFFILIATES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES RELATING TO THE INFORMATION.