X based HyperCard like application! Finally found one 8-)

[Chin Fang]

A while back, there was a thread about apps available to various 386 Unices. 
There were quite a few people posted their opinions.  I did too and I mentioned
that many people could get by using PD apps and an inexpansive OS like ESIX.

At that time, I thought for 386 Unices, there were no good database available.
WRONG was I!  Here is what I found out in the last few days and I have ported
it to our IBM RISC 6000s with just one line hack, easy indeed!  

Tremendous pkg by Pei Y. Wei (wei at xcf.Berkeley.EDU), highly recommanded.

Thomas Roell just released his fantastic X386 v1.1b, and I imagine building 
(not porting! As the two mean different level of effort) Viola using Thomas'
shared libs should be easy if I can get it working on RISC 6000s so easily. 
(BTW, I used X11R4 libs/includes that I "built" for our RISC 6000s for linking 
as IBM only provides X11R3 and it sucks :-(

Regards,

Chin Fang
Mechanical Engineering Department
Stanford Unversity
fangchin at leland.stanford.edu


Original README attached.

********************************************************************************* 

VIOLA VERSION 0.8 (pre-release version)

	Copyright (c) 1991, All rights reserved by Pei Y. Wei
	wei at xcf.Berkeley.EDU
	Experimental Computing Facility (XCF)
	University of California, Berkeley

CONTENT OVERVIEW OF THIS FILE
 
	- What is Viola
	- Copyright notice
	- Development status
	- Where to get Viola source and binaries
	- How to compile Viola
	- Running Viola
	- Where is the documentation
	- Viola mailing list

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT IS VIOLA

	Viola is basically a graphical user interface toolkit with an
	embedded command language. The interpretive nature of Viola enables
	it to be highly interactive.

COPYRIGHT

	Viola is available for the free public use. You may copy and use 
	Viola for any purpose, as long as the copyright notice and permission 
	in the sources are retained in all sources of derived works. Fees
	for distribution or use of this software or derived works may only
	be charged with express written permission of the copyright holder.

DEVELOPMENT STATUS

	Viola is unofficially supported only by me, not by the Experimental
	Computing Facility. Also, since I'm graduating next month (May'91),
	Viola's future development is uncertain. I will, however, certainly
	continue to make efforts to maintain it. 

WHERE TO GET VIOLA

	Freely distributable source and binaries are available at ftp site
	scam.berkeley.edu (Internet 128.32.138.1).
	Look in directory "src/local/viola".

	Currently supported binaries were compiled on:
		DECstation 3100		(Ultrix T4.0-1)
		SparcStation		(SunOS Release 4.0.3c)

HOW TO COMPILE VIOLA

	Try using the binary before diving into a compile frenzy.
	Viola is written in plain C, uses X11R4 and has an mkmf Makefile.
	Make sure the LIB_DIR variable is correct.
	Viola can be installed anywhere in your path.

RUNNING VIOLA

	You need to tell viola where to find the stack files. Also, since
	some stacks make use of man pages, you should set the MANPATH
	accordingly. Ie:

	% setenv MANPATH "${MANPATH}:/usr/local/lib/viola/man1"
	% setenv VIOLA "/usr/local/lib/viola/stacks"
	% /usr/local/bin/viola

	If viola executes and is able to find the default startup stacks,
	you should see a small icon-like window with two pull-down menus 
	on it.

MAILING LIST

	I am very interested in your comments regarding all aspects of 
	Viola -- bugs, design issues, application ideas, and stacks that
	you build.

	You can send comments to me by mailing to "wei at ic.berkeley.edu".

	There is a Viola mailing list "viola-users at ic.berkeley.edu".
	You can mail directly to the list, and if you wish to be on, or off,
	the list, let me know.