Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: SysAdmin on February 16, 2012, 10:22:54 PM
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Timberwolf (AmigaOS 4.x port of Firefox) reaches Beta release aka 4.0.1
Amiga OS 4.x depot link (http://www.os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=network/browser/timberwolf.lha)
Amiga Bounty news (http://www.amigabounty.net/?function=viewhistory&projectid=44&historyid=57)
Full Press Release Below
New Timberwolf release
The Timberwolf team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the first beta version of Timberwolf 4.0.1. Timberwolf is an AmigaOS web browser based on Firefox/Mozilla technology. This technology is more than just a browser, it is an enabling technology, bringing powerful tools such as html5, WebM, JavaScript, XUL, and more to AmigaOS 4.x. These are the building blocks for other applications as well, such as the email client "Thunderbird" or the media center "Songbird".
*
This first beta release includes almost the full functionality of the browser, allowing style-sheet enabled web browsing, secure connections, use of Firefox® add-on and more.
Of course, being a beta, there are some limitations, such as missing support for printing, sound, WebGL, and drag&drop. Most importantly, no support for hardware accelerated rendering is implemented yet. We are working on getting all those features implemented over time. Current focus is on stability and completeness.
Minimum Requirements:
AmigaOS 4.1 (Update 4) is required to run this version of Timberwolf.
Feedback
For feedback, suggestions, and questions, please write to either
thomas@friedenhq.net
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hans-joerg@friedenhq.net .
Download
Timberwolf can be downloaded at OS4Depot.net
About Timberwolf.
Timberwolf is an AmigaBounty.net project. For more information on the project, updates and donnations, check Timberwolf Project Page
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Video I shot earlier this evening.
Timberwolf (beta) for AmigaOS running on AmigaOne 500:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10H2xwmit9k
(AudioSwap maybe in progress)
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Very nice. Looking forward to running it on a X1000.
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It's working great here (on the X1000). It's a huge improvement over the initial Alpha release - feeling robust, and is ever-improving. :-)
Cheers to the Frieden brothers!
Steve
(posted using Timberwolf)
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Timberwolf (AmigaOS 4.x port of Firefox) reaches Beta release aka 4.0.1
Amiga OS 4.x depot link (http://www.os4depot.net/?function=showfile&file=network/browser/timberwolf.lha)
Amiga Bounty news (http://www.amigabounty.net/?function=viewhistory&projectid=44&historyid=57)
Great News for the OS 4.X camp, would be nice to see some youtube videos playing on TW even if it is Software Rendered ;)
But hey Mesa is right around the corner right ??
TY all those at Hyperion for all the hard work :D
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What is the advantage of firefox 4.0 over origin web browser?
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First post at amiga.org using Timberwolf 4.0.1 Beta.
It uses up most of my RAM, but appears to be usable so far.
Currently down to 18MB available RAM after visiting some other amiga websites.
Startup seems faster than the earlier alpha version and menu items appear to work.
redfox
MicroA1 with 256MB RAM
AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
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How fast does it run compared to the previous release? (Still at work so can't try it out until I get home).
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How does this run on a Pegasos2/G4 machine with OS41?
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What is the advantage of firefox 4.0 over origin web browser?
OWB is, at the time, certainly faster than Timberwolf. If you are content with OWB, there isn't much point to switch over now.
However, Timberwolf/Firefox is a more complete browser than anything else on the Amiga so far. It can use all the add-ons from the PC/Linux/MAC version (minus those that require specific platform support). AdBlock is one that I use, but also things like Web Developer Toolbar are very useful.
Also, Mozilla offers a technology, not only a web browser. Other programs like Thunderbird (E-Mail), Songbird (Media Player), And Sunbird (now Calender for Thunderbird, a calender/reminder) use the same tech.
Once we're finished with it, it will also have things like WebM (HTML5 video) replay (it can do that now but slow), WebGL, and a few other nifty features.
~~ Rogue
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Just for information, OWB (mui) comes with a builtin content blocker manager (which can reuse adblock rules) and WebInspector for inspection/debugging purposes.
And many extensions from userscripts.org are usable, too, like the ones that add direct links to youtube pages and so on.
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I'm SO looking forward for a future songbird release at some point!
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Great news and another step forward for OS4.
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Does this use Reaction or MUI ?
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Does this use Reaction or MUI ?
Not Mui atleast :-)
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Does this use Reaction or MUI ?
It uses non of them.
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:hammer:
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Does this use Reaction or MUI ?
AFAIK, it uses its own alien GUI, not Reaction, not MUI, not anything else native on Amiga...
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AFAIK, it uses its own alien GUI, not Reaction, not MUI, not anything else native on Amiga...
Where was that said?
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AFAIK, it uses its own alien GUI, not Reaction, not MUI, not anything else native on any desktop platform...
There, I fixed it for you ;) Mozilla has had it's own abstract UI components since, well, forever. On some systems, these can be wrapped around the native GUI and improve the sense of integration (more often than not, it's just themed that way). BOOPSI, with it's slightly unusual dispatch engine and support for runtime-defined classes etc. isn't always the easiest UI to wrap around.
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There, I fixed it for you ;)
So *IT IS* using an Amiga Native UI, and not its own?
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Works very well, was pleasantly surprised - a massive step in my books in general day to day usability for this wee little SAM 440ep machine I have.
Very good work, many thanks!
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So *IT IS* using an Amiga Native UI, and not its own?
Not quite sure how you interpreted my post that way. It is using its own UI components (someone please correct me if that's not the case). I simply pointed out the simple fact that it does this on most, if not all, platforms. On some systems, the system-dependent layer may implement the UI components using those provided by the OS. I doubt if that would be the case here as BOOPSI based gadgets can be awkward to wrap.
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So *IT IS* using an Amiga Native UI, and not its own?
Depends. Please define "native"... :-) In principle it uses the Amiga native port of XUL - which was btw one of the reasons for makiing this port, 'cos with a native running XUL enviroment it is possible to port other stuff more easy. In itself it utilizes of course native API like graphics.library, intuition.library, BOOPSI, maybe cairo etc. - so it doesn't depend on a specific GUI *toolkit* like MUI or Reaction. Just plain, unwrapped OS functions (this is all AFAIK and might be partly wrong...) which translate the GUI descriptions from XUL into a user interface.
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Not quite sure how you interpreted my post that way.
Jose asked if it used MUI or Reaction, and I answered neither, it's using its own, alien GUI that's not native to Amiga. You felt the need to correct this for some reason (by basicly just repeating what I just said, which is strange), but looking at the screenshot (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stevieu83/timberwolfbeta.jpg), it seems like the only Amiga UI part is the outer window border, then inside this is like a huge square, filled from left to right, up to down, where the content and GUI of an alien kind is rendered, not looking one bit like Amiga. Even the scroll bar to the right is inside this rendered field, and not part of the Amiga window. It has some "File, Edit, View, etc" menus at the top, just like you would expect on a Windows or Linux system, but not Amiga. The tabs doesn't look Amiga, nothing looks Amiga. Nothing that is rendered inside the outer Amiga window, has anything to do with Amiga UI styles, looks and feel. It's like looking at a remote Windows screen in that Amiga window. That's all I tried to say. So to answer Jose's question once again - No, it's neither using Reaction (the OS4 native UI), nor is it using MUI (the MorphOS native UI), it's using its own custom, non-Amiga UI. Hope that clarifies it a bit! :)
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not looking one bit like Amiga...has anything to do with Amiga UI styles, looks and feel.
Ah - ok, this is your definition of "native" GUI (in regards of my post above). Yes, then it's not native - I have the same feeling when I fire up Imagine or Vista Pro every now and then - totally un-Amiga... :-)
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timberwolf needs as far as i understood own, non-amiga, so objects. i wonder if the solution to port it wasnt simply an linux emulator, simple virtual machine running eventually on another core. is the window dynamically resizeable at all?
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is the window dynamically resizeable at all?
You haven't read my post, didn't you? Of course it's resizable like any other AmigaOS window - it's plane graphics. and intuition.library stuff - so what did you expect?
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It's like looking at a remote Windows screen in that Amiga window.
Best you get skinning then. Then again, why do you care? Your a MOS man are you not.
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Jose asked if it used MUI or Reaction, and I answered neither, it's using its own, alien GUI that's not native to Amiga. You felt the need to correct this for some reaso...n
I clarified it. You make it sound as if the "alien" non-amiga GUI is somehow a (negative) feature only of the OS4 port. It isn't. It uses it's own UI components no matter which platform it is running on. There is an underlying, cross-platform portability layer upon which the browser and other mozilla products are built. Firefox's UI may look more "native" on other operating systems, but more often than not, that's just appropriate skinning.
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Of course it's resizable
That's a good then! :) I tried Netsurf on Amikit a few weeks ago, which *also* has its own custom, non-Amiga UI rendered inside an Amiga window, and in that case the "rendered content" *didn't* resize when the Amiga window it resided in was resized. It was a horrible user experience...
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The default Amiga GUI is ugly; it took about 2-3 months of using Windows back in the 90s to realize that. It hasn't gotten any better, tbh. That Firefox brings it's "own look" to things is fine by me. The elements and layout in FF in Windows are identical to what you're getting on TW in AOS4. Be glad for it, trust me, you'll all come to love it.
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windows gui is better than amiga? depends which. 3.9 is not very butilul thats for sure. but magicwb is quite nice. and original themes even though simplistic are alright for the time. compare it to win3.x.. even 95, microsoft were and still are complete losers when it comes to aesthetics and elegant design.
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Update...
I cannot save Bookmarks or Show Bookmarks. I don't know if this feature is disabled or if I simply don't have enough RAM available to manipulate the files.
Other than that, Timberwolf seems to display the websites I normally visit. I have not tried you-tube or anything fancy, just my normal "amiga" related haunts.
As far as GUI goes, Timberwolf seems to open a normal looking "amiga" window frame with title at the top and close, zoom, depth and sizing gadget. There are no menus attached to the actual window. Everything inside the window, including menus appears to be generated by the browser application and look like they would with Mozilla Firefox. Not sure if every menu entry is the same, but they are arranged in a similar fashion. Colour scheme for the menu bar is different than Firefox on our XP system at home.
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redfox
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That's a good then! :) I tried Netsurf on Amikit a few weeks ago, which *also* has its own custom, non-Amiga UI rendered inside an Amiga window, and in that case the "rendered content" *didn't* resize when the Amiga window it resided in was resized. It was a horrible user experience...
I'm way late replying to this, but I just want to point out that NetSurf-m68k is not representative of NetSurf as a whole. It's built around the framebuffer frontend which is intended for devices that don't have their own GUI system.
NetSurf for OS4 of course has a proper GUI with Amiga standard gadgets, and when resized the content reflows as it should.
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I'm way late replying to this
No kidding, bumping a 3 months old thread... :lol:
(Bored, digging through the archives? ;))
I just want to point out that NetSurf-m68k is not representative of NetSurf as a whole. It's built around the framebuffer frontend which is intended for devices that don't have their own GUI system.
NetSurf for OS4 of course has a proper GUI with Amiga standard gadgets, and when resized the content reflows as it should.
Eh, OK... :)
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No kidding, bumping a 3 months old thread... :lol:
(Bored, digging through the archives? ;))
Something like that. 3 months late is quite good for me.
Eh, OK... :)
Some people lump the the NetSurfs in together assuming that the OS4 version is the same as the 68k one. I've also had comments about the AmiCygnix build (which is way old) from people who have somehow missed the native GUI version.
Henceforth I'm contractually obliged to point out that this is incorrect. This is an OS4 related thread after all.