IBrowse (2.5) installation fails with the default Installer program on MorphOS. I took a look at its installer script and tried to fix it. I don't have any prior experience with installer scripts, but I think I got it right :)


The problems I found:

1) MorphOS Installer doesn't seem to handle If clauses between "askchoice" and "choices", apparently some other installer programs can do that, but I don't know if it's correct according the specs or not (Geit?). I separated such an occurrence to two different "askchoices".

2) The IBrowse installer script assumes MUI classes being in the MUI:Libs/MUI directory, but this isn't the case with MorphOS, they reside in the SYS:Classes/MUI directory. I changed the hardcoded paths to a variable and set that if the detected system is MorphOS or not. Newstring.mcc was handled separately, and changed that too. But think twice before letting it to install the MUI classes, because it installs 68k versions and you might want to use MorphOS native versions!

3) PNG images in the IBrowse GUI appear with a pink background for some reason. 32 color IFF images seem to work better, so I changed it to default to 32 color ones instead of 256 color PNG images.


Here's the updated installer script: Install-IBrowse
And here's a diff output: diff.txt

Hope it works, and please report if it doesn't :)

(The author accepts no liability for any damage caused to your system, other connected peripherals, or data files in any way by using this unofficially modified script.)

Thanks for this. Regarding your points:

1) The aging official Installer V43 (from Aminet) supports this construct - i.e. conditional (choices). I have already added a workaround for next IBrowse release.

2) This didn't change from IBrowse 2.4 to 2.5, and I don't remember any reports back when 2.4 was released about this. I don't have my BlizzardPPC system up and running currently, but perhaps I tested it there - can't remember if that still used the MUI: assign (I seem to recall there were two locations anyway). Anyway, I've fixed this issue for the next release.

3) All the images, including the toolbar? This could indicate a number of things. Basically, the pink background is the transparent colour, so somewhere in the system this is not handled correctly. First place to look is which PNG datatype are you using? WarpPNG, for example, will set bmh_Masking to mskHasTransparentColor and bmh_Transparent to the pink colour index, as do most other PNG datatypes on AmigaOS. It sounds like maybe this is not implemented in the MorphOS system supplied png.datatype.

> I don't remember any reports back when 2.4 was released about this.

At least here on MorphZone there were reports back then:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4991&forum=9&start=7

> the pink background is the transparent colour, so somewhere in the system this is not handled correctly.

The above-linked thread also has discussion and workarounds of this.

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You could try InstallerLG from Aminet (http://aminet.net/package/util/sys/InstallerLG.ppc-morphos). It should support everything that the original Installer can do. It's alpha software though, it's not complete yet, but it's solid.

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Ok - noted. I either never saw this or completely forgot. I don't remember
any mentions on the IBrowse mailing list, but there have been for 2.5.

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This is interesting. With IBrowse 2.4, the images were 5-bit ILBM, exactly
the same as the 32 colour default image set in IBrowse 2.5. Seeing
as jPV isn't having problems with these now would indicate that it was
fixed in ilbm.datatype.

The 256 colour imageset are all PNG images, which were only ever released
before on the OS4 OEM IBrowse 2.4. I suspect MorphOS's png.datatype can't
handle transparent colours in 8-bit images. Trying WarpPNG.datatype instead
would confirm this.

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I'm not interested to guess each time which installer I'd need to use with each program. It's better to solve these things with the built-in installer.

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I don't have time to try other datatypes today, but I quickly tried that transparcency in these images do work, for example, with Multiview and Showcase, and if I load these images as a MUI background, they do work too.... so I'm not sure if it's about datatypes either... or could it be somehow in MUI's button code or so..... funnily Ambient's image preview shows transparency in the PNG image, but not in the IFF image... so it's vice versa :) Have to test more later...

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MUI shouldn't be involved, I think. IBrowse itself renders the images using BltMaskBitMapRastPort() where transparency is involved, using a mask generated by IBrowse when mskHasTransparentColor is set in the image returned by datatypes.

MorphOS png.datatype expands indexed transparent PNGs to ARGB. When this happens bmh_Depth is 32 and bmh_Masking is mskHasAlpha. PDTA_AlphaChannel is also set to true.

IBrowse code doesn't expect this I think.

[ Edited by Piru 08.09.2019 - 02:40 ]

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As usual, jPV to the rescue ... Yours is the Kudos for the MorphOS 'fixed' install of IBrowse - What's more ... Thanks for taking so much trouble for fixing the IBrowse v2.5 Install script - before the author(s) have released their 'fix' for MorphOS. Frankly I'd have expected this issue, and the PNG issue you've come across, to have been addressed prior to it being released, especially as it's already such a long way behind OWB for our MorphOS systems.

As it now runs I'll probably buy an upgrade key for it - to support Oliver Roberts, Stefan & David Burström, Dave Fisher and others for their efforts in getting this IB v2.5 released, even though it's fallen way behind the current internet expectations/engines.

@Futaura:

Slightly off-topic, but thank you very much for your readiness to answer the questions of our editor Daniel Reimann! The interview is online now, both the original english version as well as our german translation.

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Thanks - that would explain it. And presumably, the MorphOS ilbm.datatype doesn't expand to ARGB and sets mskHasTransparentColor instead?

You're right, the full alpha handling is disabled in 68K IBrowse, seeing as OS3 doesn't support it. However, I'll see if we can get away with enabling it somehow, so alpha handling works when running on MorphOS.

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...or we need a better built-in installer.

The installer should now be working in 2.5.1, released today. You can also use the 256 colour imageset too, as IBrowse now supports alpha channels on MorphOS (the MorphOS supplied png.datatype expands 8-bit + transparent colour images to 32-bit RGBA). Fortunately, I am now able to test IBrowse on MorphOS via qemu.