In Search of the NeXTSTEP Look

GUNTHER asks: "I've fallen in love with the NeXTSTEP style interface. I would love to have a NeXT machine but they are rather hard to come by these days, so I have been looking for programs and libraries to emulate its look and feel. I am familiar with GNUStep, Afterstep, TKStep, and GTKStep but what else is available to emulate the NeXTSTEP look and feel?"

NeXT UI

[ccg]

One question I have to ask is, how did you fall in love with the NeXT interface? Have you ever used it? I'm just asking because I used to follow WindowMaker development, but I got the impression the developers weren't interested in accurately reimplementing the NeXT UI so much as just using NeXT for inspiration but, ultimately, doing pretty much whatever they wanted. Of course, that was a couple years ago, so things may have changed. Anyway, my point is that the NeXTish stuff you can see on Linux does not, IMHO, really give a good idea of the NeXT UI. I think the problem is that many of the linux/afterstep/windowmaker people have never actually used NextStep. (I have OpenStep 4.2/Mach on my Intel box, in case you're wondering.) In my opinion, that's not necessarily a bad thing. NextStep is great for making screenshots that LOOK really good, but I think the actual interface kinda sucks. It's a lot like using a Macintosh actually (that shouldn't be surprising, considering Apple engineers made the NeXT.) The window system doesn't do multiple instances of programs. There is one main menu that is shared between all GUI programs. When a program doesn't have the focus, all its little pop-up windows (or helper windows, or modal windows, or whatever they're called) are hidden. For example, if you're looking at a File Viewer window, and you open the Workspace Help window and the File Inspector panel, when you switch to another application, the Help window and the Inspector panel window are hidden, but the File Viewer window remains visible. When you switch back, those windows reappear. Personally, I find it irritating the way windows are constantly appearing and disappearing.

And the mouse sensitivity under NextStep really sucks.

Okay, enough of my opinions, let me offer some real info. "I would love to have a NeXT machine but they are rather hard to come by these days...." Actually, that's wrong. NeXT machines are easy to get these days, because nobody wants them. Check out these sites:
Spherical Solutions (www.orb.com) [orb.com]
Black Hole Inc. (www.blackholeinc.com) [blackholeinc.com]
Deep Space Tech (www.deepspacetech.com) [deepspacetech.com]

Any of them would be happy to sell you a NeXT box for a few hundred bucks. Also, look at the software at Black Hole, Inc. If you're a student, you can get NextStep for under a hundred bucks, if I remember right.

Here are a couple more links that you might find useful:
http://www3.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/ [pair.com]
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/jkheit [mediaone.net]

I hope something in here was helpful
ccg

chad at glendenin dot org

the mind control lasers...

[jcurbo]

... must have grabbed this from me and forwarded
it to you. :)
Just yesterday I was poking around. I had just
done an apt-get upgrade (I run Debian, unstable)
and noticed that gtk-engines-gtkstep had been
updated. See, before, the theme had been almost-
NeXTish but not quite; the scrollbar buttons were
at the ends instead of both at one end. Well this
new update fixed that, so I was quite happy.
Glowering in my fully NeXTiszed GTK apps I began
to ponder on my environment. I run WindowMaker
(always have.. remember d/ling and compiling it
back in my RH days..) and I've got the mandatory
ASClock running. "How nice it is" I thought.
Then the thought occured to me, to write a page
telling people what they should do to recieve
NeXT enlightenment in X. Then I check /. and see
this. How appropriate :)
I don't know if there are any other pages like
this but I thought I'd write a "How to NeXTify
your X" page. What to get and where, how to set
it up.. mainly the former though :)
If anyone is interested in helping, or has any
information on NeXT apps, please drop me a line.

James

OpenStep on Solaris

[m.n.]

Lighthouse designs released a toolkit for Solaris a few years ago that lets you NeXT-ize your Sun box. It's out in the open now at:

ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/pub/OpenStep/implementatio ns

or something like that.

Cheers,

m

Re:Why not just buy the real thing?

[Improv]

Hi, I've used NeXTStep quite a bit. Windowmaker
acts closer to NeXTStep than any other X WM I've
seen, but it's still not *very* true to the
original. However, many of the differences are
based on the way that Workspace.app was
integrated into NeXTStep, integration that would
be difficult (but not impossible) to achieve
under X on a Linux system without modifications
to both.

One thing I really miss is the built-in
file-manager present in NeXTStep --
FSViewer.app kind of reminds me of it, but
it's not nearly close enough at this point.

Try WindowMaker...

[nekonoir]

It's the 'official' GNUStep window manager.

Design goals are ...

It tries to emulate the elegant look and feel of the NeXTSTEP(tm) GUI. It is relatively fast, feature rich, and easy to configure and use.

At this point I'd like to say thanks to Alfred K.
Kojima and everybody else involved in make Wmaker
so cool.

Just get a NeXTstation or Cube

[Andrew Lockhart]

There's still plenty available out there. I used to frequent the comp.systems.next.marketplace (i think that's it). Also I see many on ebay everyday under the computers:unix section. I haven't gotten one there, but I would recommend deepspacetech.com, especially if your on the east coast. That's where I got my NeXTstation color. As a side note, you can go to the Apple Enterprise Y2K page and download a pdf form to request a y2k copy of NEXTSTEP/OpenSTEP (it depends on the serial no. of your computer). I'm planning on doing this so I can get NS 3.3 Dev (right now I have user). As far as X windows goes I use WindowMaker, and in some ways like it even better than NS. It even has a built in fiend (i.e. the clip).

Bowman

[cloudmaster]

While I wold definately reccomend windowmaker [windowmaker.com], I'd also like to mention bowman as well. I used it before I used windowmaker, and it looks pretty next-ish. After a bit more research, that's apperently what afterstep was based on, so it may not be as useful...

--Danny, not helping much

Why not just buy the real thing?

[daviddennis]

I've noticed quite a few of them on eBay, and they're pretty cheap, so there seems to be no reason not to get the original.

Or you could just wait. MacOS X, supposedly out late this year, has the authentic NeXT genetic code, and I suspect a NeXT-like development environment would be available. You could also buy NeXTStep for the PC, although I believe it's a bit pricey.

I haven't actually used a real NeXT, so I can't really comment on how good the various Linux-based imitations are.

D

----

Re:the mind control lasers...

[bergie]

... must have grabbed this from me and forwarded it to you. :)

...or they might also have grabbed the question from my mind. It is one of the problems I am still struggling with on my Linux desktop.

While I haven't ever used a proper NeXT workstation, from what I've seen and heard of it, it sounds extremely nice. Of course, Linux with WindowMaker and GTKstepped GNOME apps is also nice, but still doesn't quite come close enough.

And judging from the amount of NeXT-related projects going on in the Free Software community, this is a thing very many are interested in.

I don't know if there are any other pages like this but I thought I'd write a "How to NeXTify your X" page.

I haven't seen one, either. But I would surely love to have one around.

So if you are going to put one up, please let me know, and we'll see if I can help.

/Bergie

--

Correct URL for WindowMaker...

[bergie]

...is http://www.windowmaker.org [windowmaker.org]

/Bergie

--

NeXTStep look on Windoze

[leiz]

About an year ago I used an "alternative windows manager" for windoze called litestep. It's customizable, open source, and relatively stable. Litestepe runs on 95/98/NT, http://www.litestep.org

Re:the mind control lasers...

[WillAdams]

I use a NeXT Cube as my main machine, and've been investigating this somewhat.

The NeXT user experience goes beyond mere aesthetics to an overall synergy between the Dock, Browser, windowing system, drag and drop protocols and Services/multiple pasteboards which has to be experienced to be believed. Moreover, there's a consistency between NeXT apps which doesn't exist on any other platform, save perhaps PenPoint or the Newton.

Here are the links which I've put together covering both appearance and an attempt at the interface:
GTKStep
http://www-info2.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/mit arbeiter/ulli/gtkstep/

NEdit
http://www-pat.fnal.gov/nirvana/nedit.html

neXTaw
http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/~kojima/nextaw/index.htm l

WindowMaker
http://www.windowmaker.org

Postilion
http://www.postilion.org

GNUstep
http://www.gnustep.org

TkStep
http://www.fga.de/~ograf/TkStep.shtml

I'll end by simply noting that NeXT's icons seem the most frequently illicitly pirated of any OS and that if you think the look of the OS is nice, one should try the feel of it sometime. I doubt that Mac OS X is going to live up to it---too much being left out (like built-in PostScript faxing), but we'll see.

William

Lettering Art in Modern Use
http://members.aol.com/willadams

enlightenment's step theme

[lubricated]

enlightenment comes with two step themes. To it add GTKStep. Start up Gnome. Put the panel in the upper right hand corner. Now with all the gnome and GTK stuff all your applications will have a step theme. If you wan't a word processor, Get abiword. For ftp (wxftp, gftp, IglooFTP) These will all load up the Step theme. Web browser: Mozilla. Just about any application you need you can get done with gtk and therefore looking Stepish. Window Maker is also a good Step like Window manager.

LiteStep

[FreebytesTech]

Litestep is a explorer.exe replacement for Windows 9x that looks & acts like AfterStep. It's freeware ... some Windows apps (mostly installers that create desktop icons) hate it, but I've had very few issues with it.
Try http://www.litestep.net for information