Timberwolf Alpha 1 released

[hooligan]

Everyone knows it's Firefox.



http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/06/09/2031216/Timberwolf-aka-Firefox-Alpha-1-For-AmigaOS?art_pos=10

http://www.osnews.com/story/23431/Firefox_on_Amiga_Timberwolf_Goes_Alpha

Did a quick test. I asked five IT-people what is Timberwolf.. none of them couldn't tell ;-)

[Pyromania]

@hooligan

Pretty sure since the changes to the code that make this work on Amiga OS 4.1 are being kept close source they can't call it Firefox. Mozilla Foundation would not allow it.

Move = MorphOS 2.5 comes out.

Move = Timberwolf beta for Amiga OS 4.1.

Move = MorphOS Team, your move.

[Golem!dk]

@Pyromania

So how do you think the browsing experience of Timberwolf compares to OWB on MorphOS?

[Karlos]

Lazy port. Eg. the toolbar imagery should be using AISS or similar. It doesn't really look like an Amiga app at all.

Firefox doesn't really look like a native app on any OS. And with good reason. You are aware that firefox uses it's own user interface library code on each supported platform and as such has it's own OS independent look-and-feel, right?

[Karlos]

[Karlos]

@Pyromania

So how do you think the browsing experience of Timberwolf compares to OWB on MorphOS?

I realise that was aimed at someone else, but I can tell you right now that OWB on OS4.1 is faster and less buggy. Of course, I wouldn't expect anything less; OWB isn't an early alpha release and Timberwolf is.

[Daedalus]

Firefox doesn't really look like a native app on any OS. And with good reason. You are aware that firefox uses it's own user interface library code on each supported platform and as such has it's own OS independent look-and-feel, right?

This is true, however it normally feels a little more native than it currently does on the Amiga. For example, the menus at the top of the window will feel right at home on Windows or Linux, but the Mac port uses the OSX native menu system (i.e. at the top of the screen) and the preference window etc. use native GUI elements. Maybe it's on the way some time in the future, which is fine. I'd much rather it was running fast and stable before they start doing OS integration like that...

[jorkany]

This is true, however it normally feels a little more native than it currently does on the Amiga. For example, the menus at the top of the window will feel right at home on Windows or Linux, but the Mac port uses the OSX native menu system (i.e. at the top of the screen) and the preference window etc. use native GUI elements. Maybe it's on the way some time in the future, which is fine. I'd much rather it was running fast and stable before they start doing OS integration like that...

http://www.amigabounty.net/?function=viewproject&projectid=44
"the goal is to make a real port that has as many AmigaOS specific features as possible. "

[Daedalus]

Yep, and for now, as I said, I'm sure the priority is to get it actually working reliably before they need to bother with superficial stuff like that. I'm sure it'll happen, but I'd prefer a fully working version with Linux-type menus than a non-working version with Amiga menus.

Anyway, I think I read somewhere that the Amiga menu system didn't support enough features to do the Firefox menus properly... Maybe we'll get new menus in OS4.2

[Nlandas]

http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=network/browser/timberwolf_install.lha

News item via  tfrieden from amigans.net

We're happy to announce the availability of  the first Alpha release of Timberwolf, the AmigaOS port of the popular  Firefox browser.

This is amazing news and makes me want an X1000 even more. Now, once Firefox is in the can, how about someone start on OpenOffice?

I mean - OpenOffice, Firefox and a good email client and you have a machine that does the majority of what users need a machine to do.

[Golem!dk]

I mean - OpenOffice, Firefox and a good email client and you have a machine that does the majority of what users need a machine to do.

Now you could just go dumpster diving to find a machine capable of doing that now.

[Pyromania]

@Pyromania

So how do you think the browsing experience of Timberwolf compares to OWB on MorphOS?

OWB on MorphOS is a great browser. I even played HTML5 YouTube videos with it. Since Timberwolf is still in Alpha form not really fair to compare it with OWB jut yet but I will once it is further along. You must admit having Firefox on a modern Amiga OS is quite an achievement.

[Norway]

This is amazing news and makes me want an X1000 even more. Now, once Firefox is in the can, how about someone start on OpenOffice?

I mean - OpenOffice, Firefox and a good email client and you have a machine that does the majority of what users need a machine to do.

Someone is working on it

http://wiki.ooo4kids.org/index.php/EnvironmentSetup/AmigaOS

[dreamcast270mhz]

reminds me of the blue BeOS theme I had on ZETA last year

[Amiga_Nut]

This is amazing news and makes me want an X1000 even more. Now, once Firefox is in the can, how about someone start on OpenOffice?

I mean - OpenOffice, Firefox and a good email client and you have a machine that does the majority of what users need a machine to do.

All you need to sell a machine to 95% of users worldwide is the following...

Something like MS Office (even though nobody actually uses it more than once a decade except students and office workers...most of which have to use Windows for one reason or another)

Full featured browser that does everything Google chrome does and just as fast (facebook/youtube HD/Java/JS/Flash/HTML 5.0 etc).

Media player that can fully utilise every component of the 'Vista Codec Pack' or VLC

Torrent client....goes hand in hand with above.

Windows Live Messenger client

That's about it really as people play games on Consoles,which is why full price PC games market is in the toilet and EA will probably give up on it soon at this rate, and the other CPU intensive tasks like rendering complex animations in Maya cover the tiny minority of oct/quad core PC builders.

Trouble is price, x1000 is not a mass market machine, not even close when an xbox 360 PPC Xenon + x1900 motherboard chimes in at $200 or something. People expect 5x the performance for 5x the cost, fact of life.

So the OS alone won't make Amiga come back to life no matter how awesome it is, the hardware worth laying down cash for by 95% of the world hasn't been made yet.

I hope there is an x500 in development for $500 and a built in GPU onboard

[jorkany]

You must admit having Firefox on a modern Amiga OS is quite an achievement.

I still remember when Amiga was a leader, not a follower.

(yes I know it's OS4 we're talking about here, but even I will acede that it is Amiga-like)