Right now I don't have the time available to suggest other options - damn this thesis of mine

With regards to porting a Web browser, I was not demanding that it be done or anything, but merely suggesting that it would be one of the most useful things to do!

Now AcornICQ doesn't work

Works fine here. You have to get your PC ICQ-using friends to tick the "allow connections to older versions of the ICQ client", but then it seems fine. This is with ethernet, though - over Easter it didn't work at all over a modem; don't know if it was linked.

Right, I'm in. Shall I set up a SourceForge project?

Go on then! - I can't program much in ROS, but I can make the templates/resources files look sweet

Who'd be silly enough to write a browser in an interpreted language?!? They'll be writing them in BASIC next!

There isn't a problem with this really, well unless of course you consider the fact that your average bottom end Intel processor is at least five times faster than a SA.

Regarding Grail, well you need a port of Tk to handle the UI. Also has anyone looked at whether the code assumes pre-emptive multitasking? In addition how does it handle asynchronous network I/O? Is it portable or, as I suspect, does it require facilities that are not available on RISC OS? I'm not that familiar with Python, let alone the RISC OS port, so have the network libraries been ported to RISC OS exactly?

Who'd be silly enough to write a browser in an interpreted language?!? They'll be writing them in BASIC next!

There isn't a problem with this really, well unless of course you consider the fact that your average bottom end Intel processor is at least five times faster than a SA.

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

Regarding Grail, well you need a port of Tk to handle the UI. Also has anyone looked at whether the code assumes pre-emptive multitasking? In addition how does it handle asynchronous network I/O? Is it portable or, as I suspect, does it require facilities that are not available on RISC OS?

Grail uses the select module to achieve asynchronous networking.

I'm not that familiar with Python, let alone the RISC OS port, so have the network libraries been ported to RISC OS exactly?

I don't think that the select module is available on RISC OS. Grail appears to have other issues anyway, so it's not a good candidate for a porting effort.

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

To see an unreasonable web browser (slow and inflexible p@rser[1] and renderer), you could look in the archives at

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~davidb/Software/Python/GUI/

In particular, look in the

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~davidb/Software/Python/GUI/gui-16102001.zip

archive and get all later versions if you want various fixes.

For pictures, look at

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~davidb/Software/Python/GUI/IMG/browser1.png

and

http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~davidb/Software/Python/GUI/IMG/browser2.png

[1] The word "p a r s e r" gets censored on this forum. For fvck's sake...

If I had the network docs (And someway of testing this) then I'd write the mdoule myself, then you can all stop complaining

Since everyone seems to be complaining about multithreading & network comms, how about writing a module to listen out for network messages and stick them in a buffer. The program could then have a pointer to the start of the buffer/some buffer-been-changed indicator, and read the data whenever it wants.

If the application is going to poll like this just create a non-blocking socket.

Then to remove a message from the buffer a SWI could be used, or a status word in the message itself could be edited so the module removes it itself whenever the next network message comes along. WIMP apps could be triggered into action by changing their WIMP poll word thing (Can't remember the proper name)

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.

If I had the network docs (And someway of testing this) then I'd write the mdoule myself, then you can all stop complaining

Go ahead, I still wouldn't be able to port anything I've written in the last 12 months because of the reasons I've outlined several times now.

As for network docs, well the PRMs, StrongHelp, just about any unix network example will all show you how to use the network libraries because the RISC OS stack interface is the BSD interface.

Enough technical chitter-chatter! Is someone going to setup a sourceforge.net thingy and start coding?

I think it should be called ArenaBrowse 'cause it was all my wonderful idea

This has been most interesting reading about the networking side. Personally, I am quite concerned about the HTML pa**er and rendering engine - these seem not to be so capable (or fast) on the ROS browsers I have seen.

More name suggestions, please (sensible ones, if possible ;-) )

[Edit: Hey! Why is p@rser not allowed on this forum I've spent a year writing p@rsers: text p@rsers, XML p@rsers, more text p@rsers]

[Edit2: Ah, I think I've just worked it out ;-)]

[Edited by Hertzsprung at 09:32, 18/4/2002]

More name suggestions, please (sensible ones, if possible ;-) )

Iconbar Explorer.
IE for short

Oh, OK... I'll have a think for you

Phyton, Lynx, PussyCat?

-Faith (as in, have faith, we'll finish it soon - and also a nice sly E.D. ref)

-CROW (cool risc os web) or CROWBAR (cool risc os web browser, ask rich!)

-ARCWB (A Really Cool Web Browswer - hmm, sounds familiar...)

-RWB (RiscOs Web Browser - it could have a Red, White and Blue logo!)

-FishNet (sorry)

-JCB (Javascript Compliant Broswer)

-ROW (RISC OS Web)

-BETHAN (BEtter THAn Netscape)

-!BROWN (Browse RISC OS Web Net)

-ROB (RISC OS Browser)

-!Rib (Riscos Internet Browser)

...more?

Cheers. Its just I need a name for the SourceForge project. I don't think you can rename it once its been created.

LeMAR Broswer?

(Lets Make a RISCOS Browser)

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.

Rich is still sunning himself in <forgot> probably...

!ROWS (RISC OS Web Surfer)

SWiRO (You can guess this one...)

Erm, SCROB (Standards Compliant RISC OS Browser)?

Breasts? (moss will like that one)

I don't know, can't think of anything now.

Rich should be sunning himself in <forgot> with his A4 checking out TIB!

SWiRO, ermm, no dunno

Surf WIth RISC OS!!! Duh!

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.

Yay, someone liked my idea!

"CROWBAR (cool risc os web browser, ask rich!)"

There is a place called Muff, and it has a diving centre. Apparently.

Be aware that *if* you're serious, there is serious effort to be made, you need devotion of people to keep working on a project.
i myself would gladly take part in it, but as a tester (which is my profession ), not so much a developer, since I have no time for that. People should realise once you start a project you should be able to finish it, and not let it end up dead (ref. Rozilla)..

just my £0.02 - you can count me in as tester if you're serious