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[News] Free AWeb development hosting OfferANN.lu
Posted on 08-Jun-2002 22:02 GMT by Henrik Mikael Kristensen54 comments
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Sunsite.dk (a non-profit open source hosting site) are willing to host the development site of AWeb for free as long as it's kept open source.
We just need to hear from those of you who want to continue the development of AWeb... I can't help with development myself (time restraints), but I can help with setting up the site and organize developers. If anyone wishes to participate, they are welcome. This is a good opportunity to get an Amiga browser up to speed with todays internet standards (CSS, XML, etc.) as well as native versions of this browser on OS4, AROS and MorphOS if you want.
It's also a good thing to have an open Amiga browser to which YOU can contribute, if there's something you don't like or want to change.

Sunsite.dk is able to provide us with CVS, space for a website with PHP4 or JSP/Servlets and a MySQL database, mailinglists, newsgroups, anonymous FTP for downloads, tape backup, UPS and fire-proof serverroom etc. They are rather flexible if we need other things...
PLUS: We get personal service around the clock (which we probably won't get with SourceForge).

There is more information available on http://sunsite.dk/

I think that it would be wise to take advantage of it and use it to make a better and fully featured, modern browser out of AWeb.

The site would be at http://aweb.sunsite.dk if we want to.

Send me an E-mail, if you want to participate and make this happen.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 1 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Hooligan/DCS on 08-Jun-2002 21:10 GMT
OK. Now we're talking.. only programmers needed.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 2 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 08-Jun-2002 22:23 GMT
Sounds like fun to me. AWeb has always been my favorite Amiga web browser.
So what's the story with AWeb? I guess the original developer decided to release the source code?
Well, I'm interested. What can you tell us about the source. Does it look clean? I assume it's written in SAS C?
- Mike
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 3 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Me on 08-Jun-2002 22:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Mike Veroukis):
> Well, I'm interested. What can you tell us about the source. Does it look
> clean? I assume it's written in SAS C?
Fairly clean. I'd be able to compile it in two seconds if I could find out where you get classact.h and classact_author.h from.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 4 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by StAn on 09-Jun-2002 00:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Me):
Try Reaction.h.. for the author thing, I don't know.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 5 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Tbone on 09-Jun-2002 00:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Me):
ClassAct developer kit?
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 6 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Me on 09-Jun-2002 01:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Tbone):
They look like custom includes, not official ones. Then I can't say for sure, since I've never seen the ClassAct developer kit, let alone even find it. Anyway, Reaction replaces ClassAct so it'd probably be easier to adapt the sources to that.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 7 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Nicolas Sallin on 09-Jun-2002 01:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Me):
"Fairly clean" ?
Please look again :)
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 8 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by amigo on 09-Jun-2002 02:10 GMT
class act has been unavailbale for a great while now, theers some info spread around, but nothing much, i havent even been able to get a hold of the authors.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 9 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by John on 09-Jun-2002 04:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Nicolas Sallin):
> "Fairly clean" ?
> Please look again :)
OK, Mr "Expert". Tell me what you consider "clean" source to be.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 10 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Nicolas Sallin on 09-Jun-2002 05:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (John):
Something not using bad hacks from sas/c.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 11 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by John on 09-Jun-2002 06:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Nicolas Sallin):
> Something not using bad hacks from sas/c.
Oh I see. I bet you're not an SAS/C user then. Which would explain your whinging. I'd hardly call using SAS/C features "bad hacks". Yes, they are non-standard and they do prove problematic for porting to other compilers, but up until yesterday this was personal source code. Tweaked for a personal development environment. The author probably never intended this source to be compiled on any alternative compiler other than his own. Which would explain the use of SAS/C keywords like __asm, __saveds, __stdargs and so on.
What did you expect, f*cking perfection?
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 12 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Nicolas Sallin on 09-Jun-2002 06:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (John):
You don't know what you are talking about.
Try to understand the source instead of being insulting.
Hint: look how the structures are handled.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 13 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 09-Jun-2002 07:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Nicolas Sallin):
Right... Making it compile with gcc is giving me headaches... It took me hours to make only 3 files compile, with a lot of warnings yet... :/
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 14 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 09-Jun-2002 08:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (Nicolas Sallin):
I agree. It's a hideous piece of coding. Any thoughts of
continuing this project should be dismissed out of hand.
It would be far easier to port Gecko and wrap MUI
or Reaction around it.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 15 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous Coward on 09-Jun-2002 10:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Anonymous):
Then, go do it!
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 16 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Graham on 09-Jun-2002 11:45 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Fabio Alemagna):
Don't bother with the GUI stuff at the moment, just try and get the HTML viewing widget to compile completely with gcc (javascript, plugins, etc), then write a new interface for the AROS version using Zune :)
Unfortunately, this looks like it will still take quite some time...
Still, it is better to have the code open source and difficult to work with than not open source and dead.
The alternative is to work on the GUI code to get it to compile, and port the Gecko rendering component from Mozilla to work with it, and viola, entire up-to-date web browser with Amiga GUI... I don't see this happening anytime soon though either.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 17 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Targhan on 09-Jun-2002 22:45 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Me):
>Fairly clean. I'd be able to compile it in two seconds if I could find out >where you get classact.h and classact_author.h from.
IIRC, at one time the ClassAct was shareware; however, it went the opposite route of MUI. The developer had to register, and recieved some development kit. I'm fairly certain that the files you need will be on the OS35 devCD or the OS3.9 downloadable. I can *try* to contact the original author of ClassAct, but I haven't spoken with him for almost a year... (or at least it seems).
Now for my two-cents... I would like to see WebCruiser open sourced if at all possible! (Anyone even remember the advert for that browser?!!?) Anyway, it was based on ClassAct too...
--
targhan_aga[at]yahoo.com
Join AmigaZone! www.amigazone.com
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 18 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Anders Kjeldsen on 10-Jun-2002 04:12 GMT
How about, for someone, to agree on a (technical) project leader who can take decisions etc?
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 19 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by John Block on 10-Jun-2002 07:12 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Fabio Alemagna):
If the source is open, why are the existing binaries not open?
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 20 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Hoggett on 10-Jun-2002 07:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (John Block):
Because they still contain proprietary software which does not fall under the APL, namely ClassAct.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 21 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by alan buxey on 10-Jun-2002 08:35 GMT
after downloading the source and having a play with SAS/C I'd
say the first thing we do is convert is from CA to ReAction
a.s.a.p.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 22 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Nicholai Benalal on 10-Jun-2002 10:34 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (alan buxey):
I don't see how that would improve anything at all. The only effect would be to lock out people who don't run os3.5 or higher. Convert it to a MUI
application or keep the classact gui!
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 23 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 10-Jun-2002 10:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Anders Kjeldsen):
I've had 4 people contacting me, that they want to participate in further development, one of which is already working with getting the source to work with GCC. Another wants to translate documents to spanish via ATO.
(I mention this just so we won't get two people doing the same thing. :-)
Currently I'm signing developers up and as soon as http://aweb.sunsite.dk is up and running with a mailinglist and some kind of feature plan, we can move on and get some direction on this.
I'd say the first stage is to get the source to compile under GCC.
If someone other than me would like to be technical director, step up please. :-)
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 24 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 10-Jun-2002 11:04 GMT
I was given these articles by one of the administrators at sunsite.dk. They describe how we should startup and run this open source project wisely.
http://lgdc.sunsite.dk/articles/1.html
http://lgdc.sunsite.dk/articles/2.html
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 25 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Hoggett on 10-Jun-2002 11:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Nicholai Benalal):
Keeping ClassAct is not an option as the includes are proprietary and don't lend themselves to use with an open source project, not to mention the fact that they're just not available any more.
The options are either to use ReAction or MUI. ReAction is probably the quickest and most straightforward solution, but will lock out pre AOS 3.5 users, while MUI would open it up to more users, but the conversion would be a considerable task in itself.
I think conversion to ReAction should come first, with cleaning up the code so it compiles with GCC a close second. When that's done, assuming there is enough demand and the code lend itself to the task, an MUI version should be attempted.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 26 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henning Lund on 10-Jun-2002 13:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
That sounds great :o)
I look forward to to see the GCC version running :o)
I can't help now, because my Amiga is not good enough for developing :o(
But I would like to help with something when I get my AmigaOne-XE ;o)
----------------------
Henning Lund [Denmark]
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 27 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Cluke on 10-Jun-2002 13:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Bill Hoggett):
Converting to MUI might be rather against the spirit of the program anyway, as it's very raison d'etre was to provide a non-MUI alternative browser! Yvon listed on his site a detailed critique of why he didn't like MUI.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 28 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Jan-Erik Karlsson on 10-Jun-2002 14:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Nicholai Benalal):
Reaction IS classact if one uses reaction it should still run under classact prior to OS 3.5 (and doesn't add any really major stuff that needs something
that is only available in reaction)
just as all classact using programs runs under reaction in OS 3.9
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 29 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 10-Jun-2002 14:19 GMT
I think converting from ClassAct to Reaction would be the most straight forward approach. From what I can tell ClassAct and Reaction are very similar in how they look and feel, and I hope the API is similar as well. Converting to MUI should be done at a later time, perhaps supporting several GUIs like Miami does. This would require splitting the GUI from the program logic, but that's how a good design should be done anyway.
Forget about the pre-3.5 users. I know that sucks but they can always use the old AWeb if they want. The idea is that the Amiga community needs to move forward. We have to set our sights on Amiga OS 4.0 which ReAction is a part of. We know ReAction works and the API will be standard and supported. Using 3rd part GUIs is fine, but it should at least work with the standard GUI. Like I said before, we can add other GUI systems later.
Here's what I think needs to be done:
- We need to formally declare an AWeb project.
- Set up an AWeb web site explaining the project
- Setup some form of CVS archive on line, possibly source forge
- Get the source to compile on GCC as is, with class act
- Once it compiles with GCC then port it to ReAction
- Test and make stable
- Release a basic version for OS3.5 - OS 4.0
- Go back and add new functionailty, fix major bugs and flaws and split GUI from program logic
- Possibly make another release
- Add an MUI/BGUI or whatever else you might like GUI
- release and then go back to development step, repeat as necessary
How does that sound?
- Mike
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 30 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 10-Jun-2002 14:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Mike Veroukis):
Seeing as how you can't spread an open source version with the ClassAct includes, I say you should port it to ReAction BEFORE getting it to build in GCC.
Other than that, your plan is a sound one.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 31 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 10-Jun-2002 14:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Peter Gordon):
And before anyone says that you can't spread the ReActions includes either, they are part of the AmigaOS SDK, so you don't have to :)
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 32 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 10-Jun-2002 14:41 GMT
According to Jan-Erik Karlsson ClassAct IS ReAction, so it's possible that simply including the ReAction includes might be all that's needed to port it. I hope that's true.
- Mike
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 33 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henning Nielsen Lund on 10-Jun-2002 16:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 32 (Mike Veroukis):
Unofficial AmigaOS 3.5 FAQ: Miscellaneous
Q: ClassAct was already installed on my system. What happened to "CAPrefs" and the "ClassAct" prefs editor?
A: They are replaced with dummy files by the OS 3.5 installer and are no longer needed. OS 3.5's "ReAction" is the successor of ClassAct, and the prefs are initialized via the normal "IPrefs" command that is in your S-Sanyway. You can safely remove the "CAPrefs" command from your S-S or U-S and delete the "ClassAct" prefs editor.
Taken from http://www.gregdonner.org/os35faq/miscellaneous.html#4
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 34 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Targhan on 10-Jun-2002 17:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 32 (Mike Veroukis):
Yes, ReAction is Classact--just with some updates.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 35 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 10-Jun-2002 19:58 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Mike Veroukis):
>Here's what I think needs to be done:
>- We need to formally declare an AWeb project.
I'm doing that with aweb.sunsite.dk :-) I'm writing a document which AWeb developers should read and discuss, because it will hold important information on how to create rules and procedures for AWeb development. I expect it to be up within the end of the week.
>- Set up an AWeb web site explaining the project
This is going to be my job for now.
>- Setup some form of CVS archive on line, possibly source forge
Is being done on aweb.sunsite.dk as I speak. :-)
>- Get the source to compile on GCC as is, with class act
Already have a guy working on that
>- Once it compiles with GCC then port it to ReAction
Reasonable move, yes.
>- Test and make stable
>- Release a basic version for OS3.5 - OS 4.0
>- Go back and add new functionailty, fix major bugs and flaws and split GUI from program logic
>- Possibly make another release
>- Add an MUI/BGUI or whatever else you might like GUI
>- release and then go back to development step, repeat as necessary
Also reasonable. This will be determined, when first GCC compile is successful.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 36 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by coldfire on 10-Jun-2002 20:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Nicholai Benalal):
Don't convert it to MUI. The only real attraction to Aweb was that it didn't run MUI making it usable on lower spec machines.
coldfire
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 37 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 10-Jun-2002 22:04 GMT
Although I'm no real fan of MUI I feel it is important that we make AWeb work with a selection of GUI systems. Since this is an open source project, if we don't provide an MUI user interface we face the risk that someone else will and therefore cause a fork in development. The best way to keep it all together is to seperate the program logic (stuff like parser and all network control) from the GUI itself. This may not be easy of course as the GUI often dictates how input will be received. However, we should at least look into this.
Does anyone have actual development experience with both ClassAct/ReAction and MUI? How feasable is this?
We definetly need a discussion forum for this. Could we use the Amiga.org forums for this until something is formally established?
- Mike
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 38 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Frank213 on 10-Jun-2002 22:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (coldfire):
Well with today's standards "low spec" means a 1200/030 which can definitely run MUI and MUI apps. If you're talking about 020@14 without any Fast RAM, that's not "low spec" (it was in 1996)... it's "joke spec"...
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 39 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 10-Jun-2002 22:52 GMT
Just an update on the status: The site won't be open until Tuesday or Wednesday at least.
Currently a total of 9 people have contacted me with an original AWeb betatester and maybe we can also get in contact with the original author of ClassAct/ReAction.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 40 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by MIKE on 11-Jun-2002 00:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 39 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
I'm still in contact with most of the classact *authors*, what information are you looking to obtain from them, registering as a dev gets you the link libs/includes/docs for it, you can distribute the classes freely with your app, of course everyone who wishes to compile it will need the necessary link libs only available with registration.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 41 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by MIKE on 11-Jun-2002 00:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 40 (MIKE):
The 3.9 NDK should probably work as well (with some simple changes to reference the Reaction includes, as opposed to the CA includes), and apparently it's free for download http://www.amiga.com/3.9/download/NDK3.9.lha
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 42 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Jan-Erik Karlsson on 11-Jun-2002 07:22 GMT
well here's my two pence worth
1) there's no need to even begin to discuss a possible switch from
ReAction/classact to MUI, first the gui has to isolated and moved into it's
own source separate from the main AWeb source. and this will probably
take some time, and after that one could try to isolate other parts
to 'possibly' try to either implement from gecko or rewriting from scratch
the html-engine.
2)as for a forum why not start a mailing list on yahoogroups called...
well let's see... .... ... awebml-dev or aweb-dev
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 43 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by AF21 on 11-Jun-2002 09:11 GMT
IMHO the first thing to do is allow the code to compile under GCC with the 3.9NDK,
this will allow the browser to be compiled for OS3.5/3.9, OS4 and perhaps even MOS.
During this phase people could add some comments to the code they encounter making
it easier for outsiders or people who later on join the group to understand the code.
Once this has been done a beta version could be released which would
make it much easier to track down bugs (afterall I don't think the
group will have much time for CE Graphing, boundry value analysis and scary stuff
like that). All outstanding bugs should be fixed, this will give a
stable basis for further development.
Once all known bugs have been fixed it will be time to add new
features (HTML4, CSS support, flash etc..) and improve existing
features (ie javascript).
I don't think a move to MUI would be a good idea as it will take up a
lot of time and will probably require major parts of the code to be
rewritten, imho it would be better to spend that time on
improving/adding features (granted adding features might also
require major rewrites of code).
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 44 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by kjetil on 11-Jun-2002 09:35 GMT
Hemm.... I’m doing an otter project nothing to do with this Aweb, or any otter browser,
How ever there looks like to be some one there with experience with CVS, my web page at publicpaint.sourceforge.net is working I can logon with SSH, even so I have no idea how to use CVS, watt is the “so module” part of the
“CVS –z3 username@cvs.projectname.sorceforge.net co module”
I allow have an idea that I can setup an ftp sever on local computer and download them to the server, how ever I have problems finding the way true the gateway.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 45 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 11-Jun-2002 11:59 GMT
I havent looked at the source yet, but is the page renderer implemented as a ClassAct/ReAction gadget? If so, it might be an interesting idea to try and put a cut-down version into a public HTML-viewing gadget so that other reaction programs can easily incorperate HTML panels. It wouldn't have to support everything that AWeb does, it could just incorperate the basic HTML renderer (with tables, fonts and pictures).
Just an idea..
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 46 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Mike Veroukis on 11-Jun-2002 13:05 GMT
I would like to just look through the source code to get an idea of what is involved here. Where can I get my hands on the source? Is it on aminet?
- Mike
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 47 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henning Nielsen Lund on 11-Jun-2002 13:10 GMT
In reply to Comment 46 (Mike Veroukis):
You can get i here:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~yrozijn/aweb/index.html
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 48 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 11-Jun-2002 20:22 GMT
Why don`t you guys use sourceforge.net ? I think it will be the better way for an opne source project.
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 49 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henning Nielsen Lund on 11-Jun-2002 20:27 GMT
In reply to Comment 48 (Anonymous):
I like sunsite.dk , why don't you think that sunsite would fit AWEB?
And about SourceForge, try to read this:
http://ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1023533899&category=news&start=51#message71
Free AWeb development hosting Offer : Comment 50 of 54ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 12-Jun-2002 23:25 GMT
The website is up (no content yet, though). The mailinglist is also up:
aweb@sunsite.dk
To subscribe:
aweb-subscribe@sunsite.dk
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