================================= README.FWF ================================= ******************************************************************************* * * * I N F O R M A T I O N A B O U T T H E * * F R E E W I D G E T F O U N D A T I O N * * * ******************************************************************************* The Free Widget Foundation Brian Totty Department of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1304 West Springfield Avenue Urbana, IL 61801 free-widgets-info@let.rug.nl THE FREE WIDGET FOUNDATION The Free Widget Foundation (FWF) was first organized in the summer of 1990, as a grass-roots, all-volunteer effort to generate a publically accessible repository for X widgets. The goal of the FWF was to gather a set of powerful, flexible, freely-accessible widgets, assisting programmers to construct complicated user-interfaces. Furthermore, we wanted to discourage multiple parties from "reinventing the widget" multiple times, and encourage the development of a single, quality object. NOT ENOUGH BUILDING BLOCKS There are several collections of widgets available, including commercial and free libraries. Unfortunately, there is not currently a sufficiently diverse set of widgets available for the wide variety of user-interface needs. Additionally, some widgets have licensing costs and/or distribution restrictions that make them inappropriate for inclusion in certain software projects. The Free Widget Foundation was founded in an attempt to increase the quantity and quality of freely accessible widgets. We have accumulated widgets of varying degrees of complexity, with application across a wide range of program domains. Over time, our organization has grown substantially in size, and has reorganized into a more effective administrative structure. Primarily using electronic mail, we are coordinating volunteer labor from around the world to create our new library of free widgets. This project is exciting because it is created and managed by grass-roots volunteerism. And we are beginning to see the rewards of our efforts, as FWF gains publicity and our products are increasingly being used in projects. The FWF project has been described in several articles, including the X Resource Journal. The widget set is available from several FTP and mail server sites, and a version is available on the ICS Widget Databook CD ROM. WE ARE NOT THE FSF The Free Widget Foundation name is an obvious play on the Free Software Foundation, but we are not related to that organization, apart from sharing the goal of making quality software more accessible to the public. In the legal definition of the word, we are not even a foundation! MAILING LISTS The FWF maintains three electronic mailing lists for discussion related to free-widgets. The names of the three mailing lists are 'free-widgets-announce', 'free-widgets-development', and 'free-widgets-bugs'. The lists are briefly sumamrized below: free-widgets-announce Infrequent FWF announcements free-widgets-development Detailed technical & administrative discussion free-widgets-bugs Discussions about bugs and potential fixes To be added to one of these mailing lists, send mail to the automated list server 'listserv@let.rug.nl' with a command in the message body of the form: subscribe For example, if your name was Ross Perot, and you were interested in FWF announcements (new releases, bug fixes, calls for volunteer help, etc.), you would send mail to listserv@let.rug.nl, with the following line in the body of the letter: subscribe free-widgets-announce Ross Perot For more information about the Free Widget Foundation, send electronic mail to free-widgets-info@let.rug.nl. OBTAINING A LIBRARY COPY The FWF source code release is available via FTP (file transfer protocol) from the machine ftp.let.rug.nl (129.125.8.20) in the file pub/FWF/fwf.tar.Z. First, connect to the machine with anonymous ftp (ftp to ftp.let.rug.nl, login as 'anonymous' or 'ftp', and provide your email address as the password). Once you are connected, change directory to the 'pub' directory. Switch to binary transfer mode, and get the file. Once you receive the file, uncompress it (using 'uncompress'), and then unarchive it by typing 'tar xvf fwf.tar'. This will create a directory called FWF, containing the source files, documentation, test programs, and build instructions. RECEIVING FWF WIDGETS VIA EMAIL Using FTP is the best way to receive the FWF widgets. But, if you cannot access the widgets using FTP, it is possible to obtain them via email. Because the FWF release is large, it must be sent in many pieces. Is is possible for us to send it by hand, but this is labor-intensive and error-prone, and will be done only as a last-resort. The preferable way to obtain widgets by email is to access an email server program. We are currently gathering a list of email servers and searching for volunteers to maintain releases on each site. The servers currently secured are described below. SUNSITE.UNC.EDU One such server is sunsite.unc.edu, run by the University of North Carolina and SUN. FWF volunteer Reed Wade (wade@cs.utk.edu) maintains the FWF software on this site. If the release is out of date, or if you have trouble with the server, send email to Reed. To obtain the FWF release via the SunSite email server, send email to ftpmail@sunsite.unc.edu, with the following commands in the body: open cd pub/X11/fwf get fwf.shar.Z FTP.INFORMATIK.TU-MUENCHEN.DE (131.159.0.198) The FWF widgets have also been available via the FTP mailer at ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de, in Munich, Germany. FWF volunteer Markus Stumpf (markus.stumpf@informatik.tu-muenchen.de) maintains the FWF software on this site. If the release is out of date, or if you have trouble with the server, send email to Markus. To obtain the FWF release via the Munich server, send email to FTP-Mailer@ftp.informatik.tu-muenchen.de with the following command in the body: GET /pub/comp/X11/contrib/lib/fwf/fwf.tar.gz LIBRARY CONTENTS The current FWF release contains approximately 40 widgets of varying degrees of complexity. Several of the widgets are simple, primitive widgets, including buttons and labels. Others are sophisticated, high-level widgets supporting advanced user interface tasks such as hierarchical file selection, statistical data presentation, and image editing. Numerous other widgets are currently under construction, and will be available in the Fall of 1993. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS The FWF is an all-volunteer organization. Our success depends solely on the efforts of our volunteers. It is our happy experience that many people are interested in our project. Many others are actively using FWF widgets in their programs. We hope that people with interest in our success will volunteer a small amount of their time to help us improve our product. There are dozens of volunteer opportunities available, both in technical and non-technical capacities. Technical work includes widget and application design, programming, code improvement, and maintenance. Non-technical work includes administration, testing, documentation, and publicity. If you think you can contribute a small amount of time to our efforts, please send electronic mail to free-widgets-info@let.rug.nl. Furthermore, if you have widgets that you would like to include in the FWF release, we will be happy to tell you about our submission procedure. Again, direct your requests to free-widgets-info@let.rug.nl. Finally, if you like the Free Widgets concept, please tell other people about it. We can't save people any effort if they don't know about us.