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[News] AWeb source conversion to GCC going wellANN.lu
Posted on 11-Feb-2004 03:06 GMT by James Carroll38 comments
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In other news, the GCC conversion of AWeb APL Lite is progressing very well, as the first tests shows a fairly stable internal release of the full program. All parts have been converted now, which means in theory, it should be possible to create a native AmigaOS4 version. If anyone wants to do that, contact us. http://aweb.sunsite.dk/
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 1 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Piru on 11-Feb-2004 02:15 GMT
AWebPPC-src.lha 16-Jun-2002 07:53 1.5M

GCC conversion. Available at http://80.197.46.38/~bigfoot/files/ since 2002.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 2 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by James Carroll on 11-Feb-2004 02:16 GMT
oops, I thought this was new news.. it was dated 10th january, I forgot it was february. sorry guys.

btw I theres a guy working on an OS4 version already.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 3 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 02:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (James Carroll):
Yes, there is an OS4 guy on it. Can't say when we'll see the port done yet though.

Check out the Work Overview page here:

http://hmk.naff.dk/overview.php

for a complete list of what has been done and what needs to be done.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 4 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Raffaele on 11-Feb-2004 02:49 GMT
Yes, so it seems.

I keep myself informed on the developing of this good software by reading almost every day the developers discussion thread.

But what I don't understand is the difference between AWeb 3.4 and 3.5.

3.4 seems finished (no further development) but it is only a BETA, not a complete version as previous ones.


While 3.5 is both developed into SASC and [NOW] GCC?

i.e. the AWeb 3.5 SASC is finished and it is now converted step by step into GCC?

I am a bit confused...

-----

Previous news (if I understood it well) said that 3.4 (the last version SASC) must became:

***AWeb lite***

and its development will continue for the benefit of old Amigas...
[if there will be some pityful person who want continuing to develop it]

While AWeb 3.5 must be a 3.4 version recomplied GCC.


AWeb 3.5 then, it will became a milestone on which to built the KHTML engine (as a module) and on which it will be added the CSS support.

I hope that one of the developers will enlighten us for the benefit of the community...
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 5 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 03:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Raffaele):
> Yes, so it seems.

> I keep myself informed on the developing of this good software by reading almost every day the developers discussion thread.

> But what I don't understand is the difference between AWeb 3.4 and 3.5.

> 3.4 seems finished (no further development) but it is only a BETA, not a complete version as previous ones.

Right. 3.4 APL was bit of a humpty-dumpty release. :-) It didn't reference properly that this was an APL release, it still has links to Amitrix and basically has one bugfix (I think). 3.5 should have better online documentation, many more bugfixes, and generally feel more complete. It will only have a couple of new features though.

> While 3.5 is both developed into SASC and [NOW] GCC?
> i.e. the AWeb 3.5 SASC is finished and it is now converted step by step into GCC?
>I am a bit confused...

Hmm... I should update the news page on that.

A bit of chronology:

A long time ago (on a website, far, far away) AWeb 3.4 APL was released. We then decided that converting it to GCC was a smart move, because it means native ports to AmigaOS4, AROS and MorphOS would be possible. The binary executable was then converted, but the plugins and other things were left behind and things stood almost still for a long time due to technical obstacles in porting the rest.

People submitted patches, but were then only applicable to the SAS/C source branch in CVS.

Then we decided on a final SAS/C version, because the GCC conversion was going very slowly. At that speed it would have been far from done now, thus a final SAS/C version seemed reasonable at the time. We had a person to do an internal SAS/C release with a few patches (Tim Ocock) and he did a good job on that.

We then got a developer aboard (Andy Broad), who completed the GCC version in a few weeks together with Fabio Alemagna and many thanks to them on that! Following this completion the SAS/C version has been dropped again and now SAS/C is completely out of the loop. Keeping SAS/C around means maintaining twice the amount of source. Not good. :-)

We are now completely focusing on fixing bugs and adding features.

> -----

> Previous news (if I understood it well) said that 3.4 (the last version SASC) must became:

> ***AWeb lite***

> and its development will continue for the benefit of old Amigas...
> [if there will be some pityful person who want continuing to develop it]

> While AWeb 3.5 must be a 3.4 version recomplied GCC.

AWeb 3.5 is really called AWeb APL Lite 3.5. "Lite" is the browser we all know. The same browser has been converted to GCC. That means when 3.5 comes out it will fully replace 3.4.

Maybe some screenshots will help:

The one you have now:
http://aweb.sunsite.dk/images/screenshots/aweb34apl.png

The first alpha GCC version:
http://aweb.sunsite.dk/images/screenshots/aweb35alpha1.png

The first beta GCC version:
http://aweb.sunsite.dk/images/screenshots/aweb35beta1.png

> AWeb 3.5 then, it will became a milestone on which to built the KHTML engine (as a module) and on which it will be added the CSS support.

No, that one will be named AWeb 4.0 APL. :-) It won't have the Lite name in it. It won't replace 3.5, because it'll be a different browser, much like we have Mozilla and Phoenix... no Firebi.. sorry, Firefox. :-)

So the product line will be:

AWeb APL Lite 3.5+
AWeb APL 4.0+

That's it.

It's of course debatable whether it's wise to use version numbers to distinct between two completely different browsers, and even if it's wise to call the new one AWeb also, but we've settled on that now, and I think changing it will only lead to more confusion.

AWeb APL 4.x is still completely vaporware, because no one has (disappointingly!) yet started the KHTML porting process. A couple of people have stated they would take a look at it, when they get their OS4 beta CD. We'll see. :-)

> I hope that one of the developers will enlighten us for the benefit of the community...

I hope that helped a bit. :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 6 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 03:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
> No, that one will be named AWeb 4.0 APL. :-) It won't have the Lite name in it. It won't replace 3.5, because it'll be a different browser, much like we have Mozilla and Phoenix... no Firebi.. sorry, Firefox. :-)

I should add that we thought about building KHTML into AWeb, and about using it as a plugin in the current browser, but the current source code is very much built so if you change one thing, something else breaks.

So we figured it would be easier to simply build a new browser from the ground up, around KHTML.

Also read this for more info:

http://aweb.sunsite.dk/dev/howdoesitwork.html
Regards
Henrik Mikael Kristensen
AWeb Development Team
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 7 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 05:35 GMT
Is this going to be anything close to a Modern browser? HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.01, CSS...
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 8 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 05:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Mr. Anonymous):
> Is this going to be anything close to a Modern browser? HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.01, CSS...

I don't think AWeb APL Lite will ever reach that state. Lite is really only for users who love the original AWeb and for low-end Amigas. However if coders are willing, they may want to try to get limited CSS support in there.

But with KHTML we automatically gain access to XHTML, CSS2 and Javascript 1.5 capabilities. It also supports Java (requires a JVM, which we don't have) and has a complete Documentation Object Model.

More details here: http://www.konqueror.org/features/browser.php

In other words, leaps and bounds ahead of what we have now. :-)

KHTML won't run that well on lowend Amigas and will probably as minimum require a 68060 and 32 MB RAM.

KHTML is used in Apple's Safari for MacOSX and in Konqueror for KDE and is maintained by both Apple and KDE people, so we won't have to do that.

That's the route we want to follow in order to get modern webbrowsing onto the Amiga.
Regards,
Henrik Mikael Kristensen
AWeb Development Team
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 9 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 11-Feb-2004 06:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
And it is a very smart route :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 10 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 06:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
Uh, so No! but it could if the team wanted to. Though it will not as you don't think it will run at a usable speed on the targeted low end Amigas. That's what I got from your answer. If that's correct then we are screwed and you guy are the worst developers I've ever heard of.
You know, I would be nice to bring a modern browser to those that can run it and you might be surprise at what you can do with those low end machines if you code well.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 11 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by fransexy on 11-Feb-2004 06:55 GMT
could it be compiled for AROS now that is gcc converted?
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 12 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by James Carroll on 11-Feb-2004 07:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Mr. Anonymous):
Would you rather they did nothing at all? I feel sorry for amiga developers that have to put up with lunatics like yourself.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 13 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 11-Feb-2004 08:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (fransexy):
It could, I personally took care of making it portable on every amiga-like system, however it requires ClassAct/Reaction right now, and unless that changes or unless we implement the needed classes in AROS (might be a good idea, if they're just a few), AWeb lite won't be able to run on AROS.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 14 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 11-Feb-2004 08:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Mr. Anonymous):
> Uh, so No! but it could if the team wanted to.

Actually, no, that's not what he said. He said that you can get _something_ of the latest standard implemented in AWeb, but to get all bells and whistles you'd basically have to refactor everything, even better, write everything from scratch, but since there's already something that does what you need, and that is mantained by hundreed of people, rather than just a few, we've decided that it's wiser to go for that "something", that is khtml, rather than our own personal path.

Of course everyone is welcome to provide us with patches that could make AWeb lite better.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 15 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 08:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Mr. Anonymous):
> Uh, so No! but it could if the team wanted to. Though it will not as you don't think it will run at a usable speed on the targeted low end Amigas. That's what I got from your answer.

Well, you misunderstood, then. Sorry, if I wasn't clear enough. KHTML is a demanding HTML engine, seen from a 68k perspective. It could probably run on a 14 MHz 68020, but it wouldn't be much fun to parse intensive sites with CSS2 effects and it'll eat up a lot of RAM. Rendering a modern webpage is a very complex process, much more than simply parsing some HTML and putting the letters on the screen.

Could we build our own HTML engine, capable of CSS2, XHTML and all the modern stuff? Probably. But it would probably also take about 2-3 years to get a stable engine that adheres to various standards. Much better to use something that exists and is proven fairly stable. KHTML has been under development for about 5 years.
That's also the reason Apple chose KHTML for a browser engine. They're a big company and they didn't want to spend time building a HTML engine, so they took something that already works. So should we.

It would of course only make sense to get it running on lower end machines, but there is no guarantee it will happen. If it does, then that's fine! :-)

> If that's correct then we are screwed and you guy are the worst developers I've ever heard of.

Why, thank you... *blush* :-)

> You know, I would be nice to bring a modern browser to those that can run it and you might be surprise at what you can do with those low end machines if you code well.

I gather you have a low-end machine. The system requirements for AWeb APL Lite are set to 8 MB RAM and a 68030 for a reasonable browsing experience. That specification means: "Satisfactory browsing experience". It doesn't mean: "Will just barely run".
One requirement for future development of the Lite version is that system requirements must not go up. If it's possible to squeeze in CSS for Lite and keep the system requirements, then it could be done if someone is willing to do it. It should then also be possible to turn it off, so people can enjoy faster browsing, similar to not loading images.

If it means that the browser eats twice the amount of RAM and becomes much slower, then it should be made optional or not used at all. Better to use the high end browser.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 16 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Megol on 11-Feb-2004 09:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Mr. Anonymous):
Troll.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 17 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Ole-Egil on 11-Feb-2004 12:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Megol):
Which makes you "food".

Stop feeding the trolls :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 18 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Jupp3 on 11-Feb-2004 12:31 GMT
just an idea...

Would it be a good idea to have 2 different versions in the future?

A-Web 3.5 lite (or something like that):
Mostly like A-Web we all know. Mainly only bugfixes applied, and "small enhancements". Lightweight, no support for CSS or other "modern" stuff.

A-Web 4.0:
Modernized, heavier version of A-Web with support for modern stuff, such as CSS.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 19 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 12:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jupp3):
If you read this link:

http://aweb.sunsite.dk/dev/howdoesitwork.html

You'll see it's almost what we want to do. :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 20 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 12:52 GMT
> Keeping SAS/C around means maintaining twice the amount of source. Not good. :-)

Are the differences between SAS/C and gcc so drastic that you can't deal with them on the basis of #ifdefs? SAS/C is much more pleasant than GCC for development, last but not least because it is much faster and has a good source level debugger.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 21 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 11-Feb-2004 13:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (Anonymous):
> Are the differences between SAS/C and gcc so drastic that you can't deal with
> them on the basis of #ifdefs?

We can deal with everything, right now the code is still compilable with SAS/C, in fact, however the majority of us does not use SAS/C, hence we cannot guarantee that something will not break for SAS/C in the future.

Whoever is interested in using SAS/C can provide us patches to make AWeb compile with SAS/C, in case, at some point in the future, it doesn't anymore.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 22 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 14:12 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
Have you considered to use gtkhtml instead?
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkhtml/
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 23 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Raffaele on 11-Feb-2004 14:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Anonymous):
Mr. Anonymous wrote:

>Have you considered to use gtkhtml instead?
>ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkhtml/

AFAIK, people at AWeb team preferred KHTML because ithas a built in rendering engine...

while gtkhtml must refer to GTK graphical environment which is sloooow...

-----

At least we have a porting of GTK onto Amiga made by Geek Gadgets
(if I remember well).

It is (again) slooooow (and more than the same environment on a X86)


***BUT***

Maybe it deserves to be checked by some good coder to see if gtk for Amiga could be optimized...

...because...


***MAYBE***

on a strong PPC-CPU the GTK for old Amigas could be used easily while maintain a reasonable speed!

Hummmm... must be performed a verify about this.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 24 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Gregg on 11-Feb-2004 14:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
> So we figured it would be easier to simply build a new browser from the
> ground up, around KHTML.

My compliments on your ambition - I hope the team manages to maintain its enthusiasm through to completion of this project.

Are you planning to include an Arexx port and funcitons in AWeb 4? I ask because that is a particularly strong feature of AWeb 3, in my humble opinion.

Gregg
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 25 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 11-Feb-2004 15:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Gregg):
> Are you planning to include an Arexx port and funcitons in AWeb 4? I ask because
> that is a particularly strong feature of AWeb 3, in my humble opinion.

The idea is to reimplement the same AREXX interface it has now, yes.

Fabio Alemagna
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 26 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Henrik Mikael Kristensen on 11-Feb-2004 15:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Gregg):
> Are you planning to include an Arexx port and functions in AWeb 4?

We haven't decided anything on the browser design yet, but there will most likely be an ARexx port. It has to feel and act like a real Amiga application, and not have the slap-on nature that for example ixemul.library based programs often have.

We might use the command set from AWeb 3.4 APL Lite to keep compatibility.

Regards,
Henrik Mikael Kristensen
AWeb Development Team
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 27 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (James Carroll):
Well, I'd rather not have a developer say that they are going to base a lite version on a modern browser engine like KHTML then mention that they are going to gut it of most of the modern feature so that it will run on low end machines.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 28 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Henrik Mikael Kristensen):
I see CSS as a must. Most modern pages will not render correctly with out that formatting information.

Commodore Amiga 1200/030@40 w/FPU
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 29 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Megol):
Why, thank you... *blush* :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 30 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Megol):
Why, thank you... *blush* :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 31 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jupp3):
Now that's a sensable plan.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 32 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 11-Feb-2004 15:27 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Raffaele):
Nope, Not me and an insult!
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 33 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by hnl_dk on 11-Feb-2004 15:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Raffaele):
Hi' Raffaele

I'm not sure that you are right about the rendering engine part ... I just tried to download the newest sourcecode ...

Here a quote from the readme file:
[quote]
What is GtkHTML?
----------------

GtkHTML is a lightweight HTML rendering/printing/editing engine. It
was originally based on KHTMLW, part of the KDE project, but is now
being developed independently.
[/quote]
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 34 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 12-Feb-2004 12:41 GMT
I assume you will be retaining full SAS/C compilability or version, of course? Otherwise I will be sticking with the original open source version.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 35 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 12-Feb-2004 12:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Anonymous):
> I assume you will be retaining full SAS/C compilability or version, of course?

This topic has already been discussed in one of the comments above.

> otherwise I will be sticking with the original open source version.

Your loss :-)
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 36 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 12-Feb-2004 18:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Mr. Anonymous):
"I see CSS as a must. Most modern pages will not render correctly with out that formatting information."

Any properly designed page should display all the text and pictures, even if it doesn't look pretty.

I'm not sure that "modern" pages are any more worth visiting than simple ones.
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 37 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Raffaele on 12-Feb-2004 19:20 GMT
Oh Fabio, just because you are here...

Can you say us if new AWeb has the feature for HTML alignment "Justified" (at least for the first time ever on an Amiga Browser)???

Because all Amiga browsers align HTML sections of the page only "Banner left" or "right" or "centered"...

Sure this must be not a difficult feature to implement...
AWeb source conversion to GCC going well : Comment 38 of 38ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymous on 13-Feb-2004 04:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (Don Cox):
"Any properly designed page should display all the text and pictures, even if it doesn't look pretty."

Well, yeah. The text and pictures will still be displayed, but with no formatting it will make pages really hard to read.
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