common denominator for X Programming ?

[mmccue]

I work on an AIX box at work using CDE, and I am working on a FreeBSD box at home with XFree86. I want to write a small chat program at home that I can use at work. My question : is there a common denominator for X ? So that I can program this at home and use it at work ? Or are the systems too different for me to do this ?

Thanks,
Mike

[Stuka]

Check the info available for GTK+ and Qt. These are GUI toolkits for C (GTK+) and C++(Qt). I'm not sure, but one or both might work on both machines. I guess the biggest thing is language choice. As I am a C/C++ fan, I'd suggest these. jemfinch will probably post something about Python if this topic stays near the top, and others may weigh in w/other suggestions. Just look into the available options, and GTK+ and Qt are solid options, if they work on both machines (and I think at least one of them will). Of course you will need to be able to install the libs at work....

[Sterling]

I'd suggest avoiding something "new" like GTK+ or QT, as its likely that they won't work with AIX. Look into old, standard X widget sets, and see which both boxes support. Although it'd be good to see if AIX does have the GTK+ and/or QT libraries installed or available...

And remember that a command-line program's also an option.

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-Sterling
-This post made with the Lizard! (http://www.mozilla.org)

[kmj]

If they both use X, then I would think they'd both work with a program written using Xlib; assuming they're both using the same version, or at least compatible versions. It shouldn't be too much of a pain to write a simple chat client for X that doesn't use some external widget set, assuming you can find some decent docs on writing X programs. O'reilly's books are a good start, they're old, but they still give you all the basics.

[mmccue]

I guess the X Widgets is what I was looking for. I wanted the app to be graphical, kinda like an ICQ if you will, that we can use interoffice. I could use talk (I believe) in CLI but thats no fun. I'm not sure what is available on this AIX box as far as extensions, etc... so I was looking for something that was common in X.

I'll look into the X widgets... any other suggestions are welcome as well.

Thanks,
Mike