From intelhf!ichips!sousa.intel.com!jreece Fri Jul 24 16:44:54 PDT 1992 Article: 480 of intel.general Newsgroups: intel.general Path: intelhf!ichips!sousa.intel.com!jreece From: jreece@sousa.intel.com (John Reece) Subject: Re: Need Xwindows/UNIX based groupware Message-ID: <1992Jul24.224826.4850@ichips.intel.com> Sender: news@ichips.intel.com (News Account) Reply-To: jreece@sousa.intel.com Organization: Intel - Information Technologies References: <1992Jul24.162646.7094@intelhf.hf.intel.com> <1992Jul24.204044.1177@ichips.intel.com> Distribution: intel Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 22:48:26 GMT My group uses a multi-media mail product from BBN called Slate. A Slate document can include Lotus-like spreadsheet objects, MacPaint-like and MacDraw-like graphics objects as well as text. Users on different hosts can conference by sharing a common editor window, which is about as close as it gets to "groupware". Last I heard it was $995 per user. Their sales number is (617) 873-5115. A few hassles. Right now it doesn't support a lot of the common PC scanner image file formats, so you may have to run them through a succession of conversion programs to get them into a format it does understand. Also, BBN just couldn't settle for using the standard MIT fonts, they had to come up with their own. Unfortunately they only supply compiled fonts for a few X servers, NCD not being one of them, and their .BDF files didn't compile right. So I aliased the BBN font names to the standard MIT fonts, but then text in some dialog boxes doesn't come out quite right. There's a new release out, and I'm in the process of finding out if it deals with these two issues. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ John Reece Not an Intel spokesman From intelhf!ichips!iWarp.intel.com|eff!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!sunic!hagbard!loglule!peter Thu Jul 30 10:39:47 PDT 1992 Article: 1307 of comp.groupware Path: intelhf!ichips!iWarp.intel.com|eff!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!sunic!hagbard!loglule!peter From: peter@lulea.trab.se (Peter Cigehn) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: [SUMMARY] PD programs for synchronous CSCW Keywords: CSCW, PD program, summary Message-ID: <4742@emmerick.lulea.trab.se> Date: 30 Jul 92 11:45:30 GMT Organization: Telia Research AB, Aurorum 6, 951 75 Lulea, Sweden Lines: 145 X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4 About a month ago I posted a request for public domain programs that could be used in a shared desktop system. A quick remainder for those of you who missed it: >I'm about to write a MSc thesis in Computer Science. The subject of >the thesis is synchronous CSCW and one of the goals with the thesis >work is to make a prototype of simple shared desktop system. > >So far I'm aware of a few programs in the public domain which I've >found interesting: > > XTV: X Terminal View from Old Dominion University and University of > North Carolina at Chapel Hill. > > shX: Shared X from Digital Equipment Corporation. > > XMX: An X Protocol Multiplexor from The Computer Science Department > at Brown University. >I wonder if there are other similar programs in the public domain which >are available via anonymous ftp. Please email me any hints and directions >of where I can find such programs and I'll post a summary of the replies. So far I've received 6 replies, but none of them has given me anything new. 2 of them pointed out 'wscrawl' and 1 mentioned 'shdr', both of them are shared drawing programs and I already knew about both these system. This is what have come to my knowledge so far: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- XTV: X Terminal View Description: "XTV, or X Terminal View, is a system by which single- user applications using the MIT X11R4 windowing protocol may be shared among many users. It allows users at multiple sites to view and manipulate (via a floor- passing system) the output from a single X application. XTV requires no special hardware and no special coding techniques to distribute the use of X applications, including those using graphics." Author: Hussein M. Abdel-Wahab, Dept of CS, Old Dominion University e-mail: wahab@cs.odu.edu Author: Kevin Jeffay, Dept of CS, Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill e-mail: jeffay@cs.unc.edu ftp: ftp.cs.odu.edu: pub/wahab/XTV.r2.tar.Z pub/wahab/xtv.r1.tar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- shX: Shared X Description: "Shared X - a modified X library to give dynamic multi-display support. It provides "naive" X applications with the capability to work with several displays simultaneously, dynamically add and remove new displays and hand input control from display to display." Author: Michael P. Altenhofen, CEC Karlsruhe e-mail: Altenhofen@kampus.enet.dec.com ftp: gatekeeper.dec.com: pub/X11/contrib/shX.tar.Z Modifications to colour mapping and private colour allocation by Author: Mark J. Handley, UCL Computer Science e-mail: M.Handley@cs.ucl.ac.uk ftp: cs.ucl.ac.uk: car/shX.car.tar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- wscrawl: Window-scrawl Description: "The user may think of wscrawl as a paint program shared by any number of people at the same time. When wscrawl is run, it opens up a separate window on each participant's display. Any individual may exit out of the session at any time without affecting the other participants." Author: Brian K. Wilson e-mail: brianw@apple.com ftp: sax.stanford.edu: wscrawl.shar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- xmx: An X Protocol Multiplexor Description: "XMX is an X protocol multiplexor. It is a standalone utility for displaying an X Windows session on multiple displays. XMX takes advantage of the networked nature of the X Window System by tapping the communication link between an X client and an X server. In this way, XMX works with any X clients and any X servers, without the need to modify either." Author: John Bazik, Dept of CS, Brown University e-mail: jsb@cs.brown.edu ftp: wilma.cs.brown.edu: pub/xmx.tar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- shdr: Shared Drawing Tool Description: "Shdr implements a simple shared whiteboard, with scribble-style drawing and text only. It features continuous telepointing to both sides, so there's no mode switch between marking, pointing and entering text. There's no chalk-passing mechanism; both sides can make/ erase marks at once. The drawing object is replicated on both sides, so that the network traffic is reduced." Author: Paul Dourish, Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK e-mail: dourish@europarc.xerox.com ftp: parcftp.xerox.com: pub/europarc/shdr.tar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- GroupSketch: Description: "Groupsketch is a design tool where multiple users, each on their own Sun workstation, can draw simultaneously on the screen. All users see the same resulting image. Through the use of multiple cursors, the conference participants can all draw, erase, or gesture around the work surface. Although Groupsketch should run on any Sun workstation, it does not run within the window system." Author: Saul Greenberg, Dept of CS, University of Calgary e-mail: saul@cpsc.ucalgary.ca ftp: cpsc.ucalgary.ca: pub/GroupSketch.tar.Z ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm still interested in more replies, regarding both general shared desktop systems and more specialized programs that can be used for synchronous CSCW, e.g. shared drawings programs and shared editors. I've also have come across three names of system that I would like to know more about, and that's Musk, Xmedia and Matrix. Anybody has some information abouts these system, then please e-mail me, so they eventually also can be included in the list. Hopefully I can post a longer summary next time... Thanks in advance, Peter Cigehn, Telia Research and Lulea University, Sweden e-mail: peter@lulea.trab.se