Software : : AmiZilla Update 9/12/05
Posted By: Ants. on 2005/12/9 16:02:05
After many months of little activity, the AmiZilla project has had a kick of adrenaline- news on the GTK->MUI project, and some unexpected help!

AmiZilla Update 9/12/05


Right, it' s been awhile since we had an update- as we didn't have much time free, things were quiet there for awhile. But recently it's been quite exciting!


Firstly, oli has finished his GTK->MUI AROS Bounty- though not actually part of the AmiZilla project it will be of great help! To get the GUI working, there may be some extra GTK and GLib functions needed, and GDK will need porting. Some GDK Functions can be ported as is, but many will need porting to Cybergraphics/Picasso96 and possibly MUI. GDK accesses many X11 calls, so these will need to be converted or possibly the code copied from the X11 source.


GTK->MUI Screenshots


GTK->MUI Demo code and compiled exes (68k)


Also, OS4 people have ported the the GTK->MUI emulation layer from AmigaOS3.1 to AmigaOS4:
GTK->MUI layer screenshots (OS4)


Max has done some initial work in getting the NSPR (low-level OS abstraction layer) working under AmigaOS4, which looks promising.


But the real exciting bit is Piyush Khengar (Captain Moo Moo on AW), who is a lecturer at King's College London, is getting five of his 3rd year Electronic Engineering students who have covered C/C++ in their 1st two years of study, to help on the AmiZilla project as the practical part of their coursework!
Now, great as this is, just remember that these students aren't that experienced in programming, or familiar with the Amiga OS. They may take awhile to get to grips with such a big project like this, so don't expect too much from them for a few months- they're meant to be spending 5-10 hours a week for 6 months on their projects.
AmiZilla has been split up into individual projects for them- as we have five students, we have added in creating a GTK->Reaction layer to AmigaOS4, and maybe porting AmiZilla to MorphOS and AROS, as well as the AmigaOS 3.1 target:


Project Number: 1
Port the GDK library from Linux to AmigaOS3.1. The GDK library is a medium level video abstraction layer for the GTK Library on Linux.


Project Number: 2
Help with the GTK->Reaction project (AmigaOS3.9 and AmigaOS4).


Project Number: 3
Create a GTK emulation layer for the Reaction GUI on AmigaOS3.9 and AmigaOS4.
Port the GDK emulation layer (Project #1) to Amiga OS3.9 and AmigaOS4.


Project Number: 4
Create a GTK and GLib emulation layer for the Reaction GUI on AmigaOS3.9 and AmigaOS4.


Project Number: 5
Finish off programming the XPCOM, and NSPR layer, and get it all working, and get AmiZilla compiling and running. Also put an Arexx port on AmiZilla.


Project Number: 6
Finish off programming the NSPR, and get it all working, and get AmiZilla compiling and running.
Get an X11 Server running on AmigaOS3.1, and compile the GTK, GLib and GDK sources (Linux ones) directly into libs, and get an AmiZilla Window up.
Port AmiZilla to AROS and MorphOS (using the MUI GUI).


For those interested, the full specs for these projects are here:

Amizilla Project Specifications (LZX)

Amizilla Project Specifications (Text)


And a Resource List has been started here: Amizilla Resource List


Note: some of these may yet be adjusted (especially as there are 6 projects and only 5 programmers- we had a couple of programmers drop out). And I realise that we can't use the C++ lib in Mozilla, and we won't use it in the GTK emulation layers either.


As we have five students, we would appreciate it if some developers could come and help the students! We only have about 3 developers active in AmiZilla, and none of us have much free time, so we're concerned we may not be able to help them enough- especially in the early stages, until they get more experience and can work more on their own. Note: they would only have to provide advice, and help the students if they get stuck- they don't have to actually spend time doing any coding if they don't want to! Note: at the moment the students will only be researching over the holidays, they won't actually be coding until they come back next year.
Also, as we're doing ports to AmigaOS4, MorphOS and AROS, it'd be good if devs from those platforms, could help the students with any OS specific problems they may face on those platforms. :)
And again, remember, there is the AmiZilla bounty, which goes to people who help in the project (when finished of course).


To join the AmiZilla list, either send an email to amizilla-subscribe@yahoogroups.com , or go to the AmiZilla Yahoo Groups website (but you need to create a Yahoo account, to do it this way). Also, donations to help encourage more developers, are most welcome too! :) - AmiZilla- DiscreetFX


- Ants


AmiZilla Team

 
  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Joined: 2003/2/24
    Posts: 72
    From: Auckland New Z...
    Oops, slight change- GTK->MUI has been ported from AROS to OS4, not from WB3.1- it doesn't currently run on WB3.1 (but it wouldn't take long)!

    [ Edited by Ants On 2005/12/10 18:34 ]
    - Ants
  • »2005/12/9 22:29
    Profile Visit Website
  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Tronman
    Joined: 2003/3/3
    Posts: 209
    From: Preston, Wa
    These efforts are to be applauded for sure!

    But, I notice a heckuva lot of time being put into Amiga OS 3.1-3.9.
    I guess this would be cool for Amithlon people but I have to ask..
    since 'Zilla is way too processor intensive to run on any real 68K in
    a usable way, especially with all those emulation layers, and frankly
    the situation for Amiga OS 4.0 capable hardware looks grim..

    Why is all this effort being put into porting the code to essentially
    dead platforms? OS 4 and MorphOS are the only really active
    codebases, and even with OS 4, unfortunately, whats it gonna run on?
    I know this will get taken as flamebait (especially given who its
    from..) but thats not why I ask. It seems that work on the active
    platforms is almost a sideline. I don't notice a burgeoning
    number of OS 3.x machines around these days.. Were this my project,
    I'd worry about the MUI part first and foremost-MUI GUI apps are
    supposed to run on any MUI capable system, right? You could argue
    that Reaction is a little more mature, but I have a feeling that will
    change with the next MOS release. Also, there are several thousand
    more MOS boxes running than OS4 boxes. Maybe Hyperion will see the
    light and port OS 4 to the Pegasos?

    I get a kick out of seeing PPC expanded Classics running modern OSes
    that they were never meant to; hell, the right new school A1200 PPC
    accel would make me buy one, but frankly the only real, solid OS
    prospect I see is MorphOS. Like it or not, the company behind it has
    the history of delivering products which you can then buy, on a
    regular basis. These products also tend to work rather well, and
    Genesi stands behind them when they don't.

    I just don't get that on the hardware side from the other camp :-(
  • »2005/12/10 3:40
    Profile Visit Website
  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    discreetfx
    Joined: 2003/7/26
    Posts: 392
    From: Chicago, IL
    Well said Tronman, welcome back we missed you.

    :)
    DiscreetFX
    Making your
    Digital Films
    More Effective!
  • »2005/12/10 7:47
    Profile Visit Website
  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    pixie
    Joined: 2003/9/5
    Posts: 147
    From: Am*ga
    Quote:

    Why is all this effort being put into porting the code to essentially

    Two words, efficiency my friend, efficiency... after al if it can be made to run on AOS3.1... don't forguet AROS which has it's API close to AOS3.1, beside it would turn to be a proof of concept
    pixie - writing from a paradise called Portugal
  • »2005/12/11 0:17
    Profile
  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Joined: 2003/2/24
    Posts: 72
    From: Auckland New Z...
    Tronman:

    >Why is all this effort being put into porting the code to essentially
    dead platforms? OS 4 and MorphOS are the only really active

    As pixie said, firstly for efficiency, if we get it running on Amiga OS3.1, then the 68k exe should immediately run on AmigaOS4 and MorphOS, and with a little work re-compile on AROS. That way people can test it, and hopefully use it on all platforms, early on! Then we can work on MorphOS and AmigaOS4 native versions (including a Reaction version on AmigaOS4), or worst-case- devs from those platforms can tweak it to get it running native.

    And again pixie is correct about proof of concept- AmiZilla is 200 Megs of source code, and it's not that well documented- it's rather scary! So it's easier and less complicated to get it running on OS3.1- especially as a lot of work has already been done to get it to run on 3.1. Later we intend to use the SDI headers and macros, so it will transparently compile on any Amiga-alike platform.

    Thirdly, AmigaOS3.1 is politically neutral- we can then hopefully get help from all camps, and maybe even encourage them to work together to everyone's benefit (bugger, my evil plan has been uncovered! ;).

    As for MUI- the first version of AmiZilla is almost certain to use the GTK->MUI layer, and we'll only add in Reaction support when the MUI->Reaction projects are complete enough. (Note: the MUI-Reaction projects were added in, because of the number of students, which needed independant projects for their courses).

    [ Edited by Ants On 2005/12/12 19:20 ]
    - Ants
  • »2005/12/11 7:55
    Profile Visit Website
  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Tronman
    Joined: 2003/3/3
    Posts: 209
    From: Preston, Wa
    MorphOS is efficient, so is OS 4. Back in the day, several groups of
    coders tried to do what you are doing with 3.1, it just didn't have
    what it took to port Netscape, and that was back in the 4.x days when
    it was simpler. I don't get the impression that 'Zilla is simpler
    than Netscape 4.x in any way. I"d prove my concept on MorphOS or
    maybe AROS, but here again both platforms have more going on than OS
    3.1 did/does. I'd be stoked to see Mozilla running on 3.1, don't get
    me wrong, but were I in a production type environment I would not
    waste the time to get it there if more modern alternatives were
    available, as they now are.

    But who cares, right? Mozilla on Amiga and its clones!!! How cool is
    that?!
  • »2005/12/12 7:26
    Profile Visit Website
  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Joined: 2003/2/24
    Posts: 72
    From: Auckland New Z...
    @Tronman

    Well actually when Netscape was open-sourced the devs who started playing with it were horrified- the Netscape code was awful- horribly structured spaghetti code, and bloated to hell! The Mozilla team, spent a large amount of time untangling and improvinmg the huge mess that it was! :/
    - Ants
  • »2005/12/12 23:46
    Profile Visit Website