Graphical User Interface Management

Motif applications are generally used on Unix based platforms. The limitation to a specific platform and complexities of development environments makes the porting of Motif application to different platforms difficult and expensive. Although Motif still has a large customer base, the toolkit is no longer being actively supported. This is the main driver for replacing the Motif toolkit.

Qt framework is used for developing applications that can be run on different platforms. Compared to the mature Motif framework, Qt has a lot to offer to the demanding industry. It is an easy to use toolkit that is fully object-oriented, and is faster than Motif. On top of that Qt has extensive internationalization support and its abstractive architecture simplifies many programming tasks.

The main reason why companies lean towards porting their application to Qt is to allow them work on different platforms and by that, give them value added features. Similarities in the anatomy of Motif and Qt, together with common widget sets, make the porting process relatively easy.

PSA is currently engaged in project activities aimed at helping the customer replace their current graphical toolkit with another framework. Due to the scale of the porting effort which will involve modification of all windows, forms, pop-up menus within the product, PSA is taking a structured approach for project execution. PSA plans to perform an engineering cycle that includes the execution of all development processes, from screen layout through testing, and tracking the baseline of these activities against the estimates. In addition to the Motif replacement, PSA will perform internationalization and automated interface testing. As a result of this conversion, the customer will get an application with a cleaner architecture and a richer user interface.

If you are looking for help in switching your frameworks, please contact us.