Should we really crack IBrowse 2.4???

[whabang]

Sounds about as useful as IBrowse 2.4 is today?

Pretty much - with the major exception being that Dillo is an active project and that porting it would be legal and benificial for the entire community.

[chris]

Interesting, but I always heard you needed a really fast/lots of RAM Amiga to run [NetSurf]?

OK..  So, what's your definition of "low spec?"

From what I can see on Aminet:
[blah, blah, snipped]

Netsurf is nice, but needs a GFX card, very much RAM and a fast CPU.

*sigh*

This is what happens when somebody ports the Framebuffer frontend (designed for debugging or no-GUI systems) to something it isn't really designed or appropriate for.  Forget about "NetSurf-68k" and only pay attention to what utri007 has written.

I have been trying to distance the OS4 version from the 68k version because the two are barely comparable, and FWIW the NetSurf core developers aren't keen on the 68k version either.

There are currently three different versions of NetSurf available for the Amiga (four if you include the old MorphOS version).  The 68k one is the worst of the lot, and has the highest requirements.  (The third one is the gtk version under AmiCygnix, which I also try to distinguish the OS4 native-GUI version from, but for different reasons)

[chris]

When I last spoke to Chris about porting to 68k he said that Netsurf renders internally in 16bit, converting that to 8bit for AGA would kill performance.

Actually that's old news now.  In 3.0 I have added 8-bit plotters, and the performance hit from dithering bitmaps down doesn't notice, probably because it is offset by the speed gained by not anti-aliasing text.  It's done via DataTypes so could surely be optimised should somebody have the inclination to do so.

OS4 users can try it out on the newly-available development builds by telling it to run on an 8-bit screen: http://ci.netsurf-browser.org/builds/

[NovaCoder]

Hiya Chris,

We'll if it's rendering to 8bit that will make an AGA port more practical.   I don't want to commit to doing a port as I've already got 3 big AGA projects occupying my limited 'hobby coding time'

If you can give me a link to the source code etc I'll take a quick look at it to see what I think the chances of an AGA port are.

[wawrzon]

@novacoder
i dont know why chris cannot do 68k adjustments himself, as best familiar with the code instead seeking to encourage others since years, which as we see leads to nothing. lets assume its just additional work and maintenance involved he doesnt want to be doomed to. alright.

im not a coder, but ive looked at the source once and think that it is not trivial to make it run on 68k, since there is a lot of os4 functional dependency afair. however if youd succeed id push your contribution upstreem. perhaps it would hold some time without breaking and without the need of big adjustments.

the other possibility is to check into aros owb on aros68k. it has compiled and started already to certain extent, but jason has gave it up due to more essential tasks. owb is far more functional than netsurf as it seems.

[utri007]

99% sure that Netsurf would have much more use tnah OWB with 68k amigas, because it really shoul run faster/less memory.

We can't have modern browser with all features, just not possible. Netsurf would be nearest thing to that.

NovaCoder: With all the respect to you current projects, but could you consider this? Are there any of those for 68k already? Netsurf would be great benefit for all, not just gamers.

Chris : Could you consider to take a part of job? That way it wouldn't require so much time? And if you could do it co-work with experienced coder like novacoder, it could materialice quite fast? Did you say that you don't have 68k amiga any more, novacoder has, so problem solved.

[desiv]

im not a coder, but ive looked at the source once and think....

No offense but...

That's a great quote right there...  ;-)

My guess is that Chris is pretty busy, and might welcome some assistance in porting it to 68k, as long as that port is in line with what he is doing and doesn't cut corners just to get it ported..

desiv

[chris]

We'll if it's rendering to 8bit that will make an AGA port more practical.   I don't want to commit to doing a port as I've already got 3 big AGA projects occupying my limited 'hobby coding time'

If you can give me a link to the source code etc I'll take a quick look at it to see what I think the chances of an AGA port are.

http://git.netsurf-browser.org or, more specifically, http://git.netsurf-browser.org/?p=netsurf.git;a=tree
ALL the Amiga specific code is in the "amiga" directory, it shouldn't be necessary to touch anything else.

lets assume its just additional work and maintenance involved he doesnt want to be doomed to. alright.

You assume correctly.

im not a coder, but ive looked at the source once and think that it is not trivial to make it run on 68k, since there is a lot of os4 functional dependency afair. however if youd succeed id push your contribution upstreem. perhaps it would hold some time without breaking and without the need of big adjustments.

Most of the OS4 functions used could be wrapped into compatibility functions quite easily.  The most troublesome bit is probably getting the window scrollbars working (AIUI the older window.class won't do scrollbars for you),  Personally I'd leave that until I have a working web browser that won't scroll

And, yes, if the port is done properly it will be pushed upstream and I won't seek to break it.  It would be beneficial to have somebody else working on the Amiga side of things beyond the initial port anyway, as currently it's just me.

Chris : Could you consider to take a part of job? That way it wouldn't require so much time? And if you could do it co-work with experienced coder like novacoder, it could materialice quite fast?

I already do bits where it benefits OS4 too (such as the recent 8-bit plotter work).  The majority of backporting to OS3 is going to be mundane things like changing functions to older equivalents, which doesn't need two people, but obviously I'll help out where I can.

It's a bit more of a pain these days though due to the code being in a git repository, I end up cross-compiling everything and copying it across for testing.

Did you say that you don't have 68k amiga any more, novacoder has, so problem solved.

No, I never said that.

My guess is that Chris is pretty busy, and might welcome some assistance in porting it to 68k, as long as that port is in line with what he is doing and doesn't cut corners just to get it ported..

That's pretty much it, yes.  If some of the bugs get fixed or other areas get improved along the way that's a bonus.

Basically if the OS3 side involves compatibility versions of OS4 functions where possible, and #ifndef __amigaos4__ in all other cases, I'll be quite happy.  If it involves replacing existing code with OS3 compatible versions (eg. ending up using functions when built for OS4 that are no longer recommended to use), then I'll be much less happy.

When it works (or mostly works) I'll get it into git and try not to break it. Ideally whoever takes this on will stick around to look after it and help out generally, in which case they'll get their own access to the repo.

btw, this is the updated OS3 todo list: http://wiki.netsurf-browser.org/Todo/AmigaOS_frontend#OS3_Support

[takemehomegrandma]

We can't have modern browser with all features, just not possible. Netsurf would be nearest thing to that.

Could be that Netsurf would be the best option. But there is no way "around" the increasing complexity of normal, "every-day" websites and the HW requirements in order to display them properly, though.

I kind of admire any effort to update the "browsing experience" on classic Amigas. It has some nerdy kind of coolness over it that I like. Taking the HW way past what people commonly thinks would be possible. And that was my point of bringing up web browsing on the C64 above, I never meant to say that Amiga classic HW and the C64 HW would be the same or has the same capabilities, or anything like that.

But no browser on any classic Amiga can bring you a *proper* (read: *seriously useful*) browsing experience today. The penalties, compromises and sacrifices will be too big to make it meaningful. It won't come close. So what's the point, really? I mean, other than the "geek factor"? If you want to browse Aminet from your classic Amiga, you can do that already from IBrowse. You want more? Well, with some work, you could indeed get some more. But you could never get as far as to 2012. You would miss it by a decade. Or thereabout.

The C64, and the classic Amiga HW, is really cool HW. I have 3 C64's, 1 C128, 2 A1200 and 1 A600. They are in my garage, but sometimes I dream of rigging them up and spend a couple of days going through all the disks, all the games, read all the magazines I have saved, etc. Someday I know I will do that, just haven't had enough time yet. But they are museum objects, retro gear, and I would never use them to "surf the web" in 2012. It would be for retro reasons alone.

I like the Amiga environment though, and I always fancied the idea of having an Amiga with modern capabilities. I think my MorphOS MacMini fully qualifies there. And Odyssey (not "MUI-OWB", quit saying that please) actually does a better job with HTML5/CSS3 than Microsoft's latest publicly available version of Internet Explorer, and it outperforms Firefox by a magnitude, and it does it in a true IBrowse fassion.

That I like!

[NovaCoder]

Ok I've download the NetSurf sources and started to compile a few classes to see how it hangs together on OS3.

The Amiga code that I've seen so far looks nicely put together, good job Chris.   What do you use to compile it Chris, I use AmiDevCpp myself.

Anyone know if the 68k SDL port's sources have been published?  I might be able to use them for reference.

Also I agree with the above post, an Amiga 68k browser is never going to be good enough to use for most sites but I also think it's a bit sad that the current 68k browsers are so far behind the times.

Like I said before, I'm way too busy with my other 68k ports to commit to this project at the moment.

[Thorham]

Meynaf's fast high quality HAM8 renderer could be a viable alternative to error diffusion for 8 bit AGA screens. This algorithm produces very good results, and uses around 120 cycles per pixel on a 68030, which shouldn't be much different from error diffusion (unless it's very highly optimized).

[magnetic]

which as I've said before means that 2.4 keyfiles have effectively been on sale for 10 years (minus the HiSoft->IOSPIRIT transition period), so not only 4 months strictly speaking.

.

Thanks for posting on the thread. It would be great to hear from Stephan as well. By the above quote do you mean that if you have an original Ibrowse 1.x software that you can use that key for Ib2?   If so, there is an NOS copy on us ebay right now! I'm lucky and have my IB 2.x key I purchased.

Also as an intersting note in regards to Holger and MiamiDX. Unbeliavably Holger told me personally at a USA Amiga show in Stlouis years ago that the reason there were no more keyfiles and why some people who ordered a keyfile never got one (me being one of those ppl and forced to use a *crack* even though I purchased DX key online through holger's system) is that he was actually using a real amiga 1200 for his database and the hard drive failed and there it went! Believe it or not, but thats what he told me. Then he just dropped out of the amiga scene! How strange

Netsurf 68k would be the future for classic browsing IMHO even though IB is the KING of classic browsing!

[danbeaver]

I'm sorry but how does MorphOS fix the abandoned software issue?   I have Amiga hardware that runs Amiga software, not Apple hardware that emulates Amiga hardware to run SOME Amiga software. IBrowse 2.4 runs well, yeah it is out of date, but it runs on old hardware.  As a 68K program (with JavaScript.library blacklisted) it runs fast and tight on OS 4.1

[haywirepc]

My vote is that we get a HUGE bounty together so novacoder can buy all the pizza, beer, meth, crack, pot,coke and asian hookers he will need to keep himself happy while coding on this project.

If anyone can do it, he can!

If you don't like asian hookers, we can get you another kind.

[utri007]

I'll participate, who has experienced to setup boynty? Somebody with native English, so it wouldn't be full of spelling mistakes

Wich leads to question : NovaCoder could you consider this if you could get some money of it?

[wawrzon]

Anyone know if the 68k SDL port's sources have been published?  I might be able to use them for reference.

http://aminet.net/comm/www/netsurf-m68k-sources.lha

a bit old, but updates were not essential i think and the new versions seem to contain some bug that crashes them on aros68k, maybe not worth to reproduce.