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The Icon Bar: General: Web browsers
 
  Web browsers
  This is a long thread. Click here to view the threaded list.
 
arenaman Message #3931, posted at 13:56, 12/4/2002
Unregistered user I think I read somewhere that Lynx now supports images etc. Does this mean that someone nice could port this new version of Lynx and we'd have a nice, modern browser?

Why is it that Web browsers seem to be one of the things that are just not ported whereas they are one of the most needed items of software? Are they technically very difficult to port?

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Phlamethrower Message #3932, posted at 14:48, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3931
Unregistered user I'm guessing the difficulty in porting a web browser is pretty much the same as with any other multitasking app - getting it to work under a different windowing system.
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mfrissen Message #3933, posted at 15:00, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3931
Unregistered user afaik, lynx is a text-only browser, my guess is that images are supported by having the name of the image being a link or something.
However, on lynx.bwosers.org there's nothing about it.

i'm perfectly happy with !Oregano. Porting is *very* difficult, usually, most people give up soon (I vaguely rmember something called Rozilla???)

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johnstlr Message #3935, posted at 15:13, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3931
Unregistered user
Why is it that Web browsers seem to be one of the things that are just not ported whereas they are one of the most needed items of software? Are they technically very difficult to port?

The vast majority of them rely on features such as pre-emptive multitasking and multithreading to help with network management. Porting to RISC OS would probably involve significant reworking of the browser's structure, either that or writing a threading implementation which, I believe, was the route that Rozilla was going to try.

In terms of difficulty they probably represent some of the more difficult things to port. Some idea of the effort that would probably be involved must be seen in Oregano 2 which supposedly builds some kind of abstraction layer to get around this. How this works where the features simply aren't available I've no idea. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Oregano2 is taking so long.

Getting a browser working under a different windowing system is probably one of the smaller concerns. All window systems tend to have similar features, although it will be difficult if the code to manage the UI is tightly integrated to the main browser code.

[Edited by johnstlr at 16:15, 12/4/2002]

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I don't have tourettes you're just a cun Message #3939, posted by [mentat] at 16:48, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3938
[mentat]Fear is the mind-killer
Posts: 6266
What's the trouble with aICQ at the moment?
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johnstlr Message #3940, posted at 17:08, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3939
Unregistered user I believe the ICQ protocol has changed and the author needs help to update the code to cope.

Actually I think the author wants to do a complete rewrite to structure the code in such a way as to make dealing with this in future easier than it is now.

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TheDoctor Message #3942, posted at 23:29, 12/4/2002, in reply to message #3941
Unregistered user Just a quick thought on this, Has anyone offered to help Andrew Pullan with WXL?
I've no idea if he actually wants any, he may not, but he is rewriting WXL in C (C+?) and /might/ appreciate some help.
Cheers!
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Hertzsprung Message #3945, posted at 21:34, 14/4/2002, in reply to message #3944
Unregistered user Couldn't we collaborate to make our own web browser? I'd enjoy doing that. We could probably port the HTML parsing code and get that working on RISC OS? Or am I being too optimistic?
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arenaman Message #3946, posted at 22:08, 14/4/2002, in reply to message #3945
Unregistered user I am quite sure it can be done without too much trouble. When I see eight people working on AcornICQ, I wonder why no-one has grouped together like this and written or ported a browser. It must be the biggest complaint about RISC OS - no modern browser!! Such a project would benefit everyone.
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Hertzsprung Message #3950, posted at 13:56, 15/4/2002, in reply to message #3949
Unregistered user I think if we got enough people together with enough combined skills, we might actually be able to do this. I can do plenty of BASIC, and bits of ARM assembler and C/C++ as well as Python (probably not suitable for a web browser!)

(Ooh heck, what have I gotten myself into here?!)

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davidb Message #3951, posted at 15:06, 15/4/2002, in reply to message #3950
Unregistered user
I think if we got enough people together with enough combined skills, we might actually be able to do this. I can do plenty of BASIC, and bits of ARM assembler and C/C++ as well as Python (probably not suitable for a web browser!)

http://grail.sourceforge.net/

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monkeyson Message #3952, posted at 15:14, 15/4/2002, in reply to message #3951
Unregistered user I'll provide my C/C++/Basic/Assembler services too.
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Hertzsprung Message #3953, posted at 15:59, 15/4/2002, in reply to message #3951
Unregistered user Ouch! A browser in Python. God, that's gotta be slllllooooowww!
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johnstlr Message #3958, posted at 11:46, 16/4/2002, in reply to message #3957
Unregistered user Thanks for the corrections.

It seems that BASIC has given interpreted languages a bad reputation.

Hardly surprising given that most flavours of BASIC were / are terrible


Grail uses the select module to achieve asynchronous networking.

I guess the select module maps down onto a standard socket select call. It's not truly asynchronous, rather it allows a single thread to monitor a set of sockets for activity rather than just one.

In any case calling it will block RISC OS. In fact I'm pretty convinced that the only realistic way to achieve multitasking networking on RISC OS is the method I outlined in another thread which would probably mean alterations to the network management of any application. Sad to think that, in this respect, RISC OS is on a level with Windows 3.1 eh? Actually what's worse is the fact that the development tools don't even support this way of working as standard - you have to write the module yourself (or find a 3rd party one, I know of at least one).


I wasn't seriously suggesting that someone port Grail, just pointing out that one can write a reasonable web browser in Python.

Fair comment - sorry I took it a bit too literally.

Thanks for the links BTW.

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davidb Message #3960, posted at 13:24, 16/4/2002, in reply to message #3958
Unregistered user
Thanks for the corrections.

No problem.


Grail uses the select module to achieve asynchronous networking.

I guess the select module maps down onto a standard socket select call. It's not truly asynchronous, rather it allows a single thread to monitor a set of sockets for activity rather than just one.

In the absence of multithreading, it's the best you can expect, I'm afraid.


In any case calling it will block RISC OS. In fact I'm pretty convinced that the only realistic way to achieve multitasking networking on RISC OS is the method I outlined in another thread which would probably mean alterations to the network management of any application. Sad to think that, in this respect, RISC OS is on a level with Windows 3.1 eh? Actually what's worse is the fact that the development tools don't even support this way of working as standard - you have to write the module yourself (or find a 3rd party one, I know of at least one).

SocketW@tch[1], I presume.

I wasn't seriously suggesting that someone port Grail, just pointing out that one can write a reasonable web browser in Python.

Fair comment - sorry I took it a bit too literally.

No problem. I wasn't aiming the comment at you in particular.

[1] The method used to catch offensive language on this forum just draws attention to places where they are inadvertently contained within other words.

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johnstlr Message #3961, posted at 14:07, 16/4/2002, in reply to message #3960
Unregistered user
In the absence of multithreading, it's the best you can expect, I'm afraid.

Not entirely. On unix, AIUI, it has always been possible to get an asynchronous callback from the OS when there was activity on the socket. The same calls are available in RISC OS but can only be exploited (in C at least) if you write a module. Of course this still leaves the problem of how you get the network event to the application.


SocketW@tch[1], I presume.

That's the one.

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Max Message #3963, posted at 06:16, 17/4/2002, in reply to message #3962
Unregistered user Could Wimp2 be used as the basis for a 'better' OS with multithreading, or is that already pushing things to their limits (on top of a creaky kernel) ?
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Phlamethrower Message #3965, posted at 15:33, 17/4/2002, in reply to message #3964
Unregistered user
This is what socket**tch does. The point I am trying to make is that this is not how most network applications on other platforms are structured and thus porting them requires, probably significant, changes to the application's internal architecture.

Is that explicit enough? Sheesh.

Ah, I understand now.

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Hertzsprung Message #3969, posted at 08:33, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3968
Unregistered user How about TIBBrowse
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Hertzsprung Message #3972, posted at 11:01, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3971
Unregistered user Sensible ones, please! And does it have to be ..... Explorer? Sounds a bit too Microsofty to me.
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Hertzsprung Message #3974, posted at 11:59, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3973
Unregistered user Cheers. Its just I need a name for the SourceForge project. I don't think you can rename it once its been created.
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flounder Message #3975, posted at 12:01, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3974
Unregistered user Wibble
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bmsh Message #3978, posted at 12:15, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3974
Unregistered user How about "Surfer"?
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Hertzsprung Message #3979, posted at 12:16, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3977
Unregistered user Ah. Excellent stuff. Perhaps we should vote on this. Rich, could we have a poll on the front-page with vote-o-matic thing on it? That Omega poll has been there since the dawn of time, it seems.
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Hertzsprung Message #3981, posted at 12:56, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3980
Unregistered user Rich should be sunning himself in <forgot> with his A4 checking out TIB!

SWiRO, ermm, no dunno

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Loris Message #3984, posted at 14:27, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3983
Unregistered user Does it have to be an acronym?
I suggest @rse (with the ampersat)
just to indicate its origins.
if it could have plugins or components with names like f&k and g!rls then so much the better.
and sockeTw@t, of course.

of course generating an acronym would probably be trivial.

or muff diver, heh.

but crowbar sounds good to me, crows being cool and black n'all.

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Hertzsprung Message #3986, posted at 14:51, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3985
Unregistered user I think we should ask Cerilica - they have cool names for everything
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andypoole Message #3988, posted at 15:55, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3987
Unregistered user RIE - RISC OS Internet Explorer
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ninj Message #3989, posted at 19:47, 18/4/2002, in reply to message #3988
Unregistered user Gah! I hate acronyms for names (yes, okay, I know they're not proper acronyms). Ah well, at least it's not ARM/Arc puns any more.

How about naming it after what you do with it? Draw, Paint, Edit, uh, Surf? Some thoughtless swine has already used 'Browse'.

Hmm. 'Net' and 'Internet' have already been used up and I can't think of anything decent using Web, WWW, or Network. Interscape? Net explorer? Anyone?

Vector was named after the basic unit of vector drawing. How about !Link? Erm. !P? !Marquee?

Or Web Anchor. WAnchor for short. Urr, then again...

How about a web browser as a window or guide to the internet? Noone suggest Internet Navigator! Ancilla? What's a posh word for window?

[Edited by ninj at 20:48, 18/4/2002]

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Hertzsprung Message #3992, posted at 08:19, 19/4/2002, in reply to message #3990
Unregistered user I am concerned, like you are, that this is a big project. Perhaps, to begin with, we should not aim to make a complete web browser - if we do this we could end up with a half-baked piece of software which performs none of the tasks it has to perform well.

One major concern I have is that the rendering and graphical features of RISC OS browsers is behind Opera, Netscape and Internet Explorer. I would be very interested in developing this side of the browser.

There has also been much discussion on this thread about networking (something in which I do not have much experience). Several individuals have suggested it might be hard to get that side of the browser working. One of my ideas (this may be completely useless - I don't know) is that we could use existing modules to retrieve the pages from the internet - so allow us to concentrate on the HTML p@rser and rendering engine.

People-wise, I think we have:
Me: Coding
MarcoF: Testing
Monkeyson: Coding
Andrew Poole: GUI Templates
Moss: Testing, Docs

So, to conclude, yes, I am serious, but think we ought to concentrate one thing at a time - a web browser is a big project.

[Edited by Hertzsprung at 09:20, 19/4/2002]

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The Icon Bar: General: Web browsers