From: Bill.Kayser@delft.SGp.slb.COM (Bill Kayser)
Subject: Re: gadgets vs widgets
Article-I.D.: parsival.199304060609.AA00309
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 38
NNTP-Posting-Host: enterpoop.mit.edu
To: xpert@expo.lcs.mit.edu


> 
> > Motif managers take a very simplistic approach to the way they handle events 
> > for gadgets: they track for all events(such as Motion Notify) wether or not 
> > the gadget expresses interest in the events. As a result, gadgets typically
> > generate a great deal more network traffic.  Those with X terminals might find 
> > a noticable network performance drop as a result.
> > 
> > Really?  What's the point using Gadgets then?
> 
> It is a case of memory vs. network performance tradeoff.  Gadgets
> save both client and server memory.  But memory is easily expandable while
> network performance is not, so if I were designing Motif I would
> at least make it *possible* to avoid using gadgets.  At present you
> really don't have a choice because Motif forces you to use gadgets
> in menus and in various other places.
> 
> Adrian Nye
> O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.


I've been using the XmGraph widget that's been floating around and I
noticed the performance is significantly better using Gadgets, perhaps
even 100% faster.  I had heard in an old programming course that gadgets
were no longer any benefit to performance, and that it's just as well
to use widgets everywhere.  So why would ~50 pushbutton gadgets be a lot
quicker than 50 pushbuttons in the graph?  Should I start putting gadgets
back into my long pulldown menus? 

XmGraph manages children connected by XmArc widgets in a directed network
type graph with automatic layout capability.


Bill

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                         Schlumberger Geco-Prakla
                                         Internet : kayser@delft.sgp.slb.com
