NetSurf packaging in Gobolinux
by Rob Kendrick
Hi,
I am the one of the developers of NetSurf's GTK port from RISC OS, and I
noticed this today:
http://lists.gobolinux.org/pipermail/gobolinux-recipes/2007-February/0013...
I thought you might like some constructive criticism, so here goes:
+ GrepReplace "I.. -g -O0" "I.. -O0" makefile
Why not just strip after building, rather than risking damaging the
Makefile if it changes in a way that this might destroy?
+ GrepReplace "^#ifdef NDEBUG" "#if 1" utils/log.h
Why not just add -DNDEBUG? We find that the logging information is
extremely useful for tracking bugs when it does crash. Vincent Sanders,
who is doing Debian packages, has submitted a patch to add a -v flag so
this can be turned on/off at run time. You might want to update your
recipe to handle that. It is now in the trunk. (It's quiet by
default.)
+pre_install() {
+ cp nsgtk $target
+ mkdir -p $target/gtk/res
etc.
You should look at gtk/gtk_gui.c and look at the function find_resource().
The starter script that is included in svn is simply there to make it
easier to launch NetSurf from the dev tree without installing it. In
gtk_gui.c is a #define that defines a location from which to read resources
by default if not overridden by the NETSURFRES environment variable or
files in ~/.netsurf/ - this defaults to /usr/share/netsurf/ in Subversion,
but is easily changed. If you just put the contents of gtk/res/ in there
(dereferencing symlinks as you copy), then you don't need to starter
script and you can use nsgtk directly, perhaps symlinking netsurf to nsgtk.
+Xorg 7.1
I don't know how your packages are split up etc, but NetSurf does not
depend on Xorg. It uses GTK and Cairo for all graphics output etc, and
does not directly talk to X or xlib. You do not need a local X server to
run NetSurf.
If you have any other questions about packaging NetSurf, or if you ever
want to submit patches, you can ask on our developers' mailing list, which
you can find here:
http://www.netsurf-browser.org/lists
Note the difference between netsurf-dev and netsurf-develop. The later is
the old developers' list that users hijacked and is now a users list.
B.
16 years, 6 months
Post 1.0 development
by Michael Drake
Hi,
I think we should work out some sort of plan for development now that 1.0
has been released. I realise the actual development that gets done will
often depend on what people are most keen to do, but I think it would be
well worth making a list of all the things that could be done. Once we
have a list of all the improvements and new features we can think of, they
can be more easily prioritised and some form of plan generated.
John-Mark made a suggested plan which sort of boiled down to:
+ New HTML parser
+ New CSS parser
+ DOM stuff
+ Layout engine for dynamic content changes
+ JavaScript
While I think all that is defiantly worthwhile, it is not the only
worthwhile stuff.
I don't think any feature is too trivial for discussion here; I think some
form of plan is needed and everything may as well be discussed here and
now. I'll start with some of my (unordered) thoughts:
+ Content type detection for images.
+ Only decode the bits of the image which are needed for display and keep
some decompressed stuff in a cache.
+ A special dynamic area for images has been mentioned. I think it's a
special kind that allows the dynamic area to shrink as images become
obsolete.
+ Take as much of the RISC OS GUI code as possible out of NetSurf and make
NetSurf GUI library. Preferably one that is really simple to use and
better than the alternatives.
+ Sort out dragging, which I'm led to believe is really nasty.
+ Text selection is still a bit hit and miss. Copying text from a web page
often produces lots of returns before the start of the copied text.
+ After saving any file from NetSurf, the path that the file was saved to
should become a default. Future saves can go to the same place by
clicking "OK".
+ Richer degree of user feedback from status bar
+ Progress bar?
+ Secure site indicator?
+ Less numbers updated faster than they can be read?
+ More clear final status bar text after completion?
Such as: Page complete (X.Xs, 2 objects failed)
Instead of: OK (X.Xs) 4/4 stylesheets 35/37 objects
We only need show the status code if it's not OK, I think.
+ Main menu structure needs revisited.
+ Page submenu doesn't really suit fames
+ Page submenu is used instead of Object submenu for images
+ Session memory / recovery? When NS is quit / crashes it saves a list of
open URLs and there is the option to launch them next session? Maybe an
iconbar menu lets you launch them all or launch them selectively?
+ Multiple home pages? Some people load Firefox with several home pages in
different tabs. We could do something similar in different windows.
+ Tabs? I don't personally think they're required on RISC OS, but they
may be more desirable for nsgtk.
+ Launch current page with Uniprint? Could be a key shortcut so it needn't
make any visible appearance in the NetSurf GUI.
+ NetSurf as HTML rendering plug in?
+ Maybe useful for e-mail clients.
+ Make the treeview code use the plotters and multi-platform?
+ Make the treeview things like history and hotlist sortable by different
fields (date, name, etc).
+ New multi-platform theme format.
+ New NSTheme.
+ New theme (use colour).
+ Redesigned and reorganised web site.
+ Printing problems on RO4
+ PostScript export?
+ Nicer interface for printing?
+ Preview?
+ Print style sheets?
+ Page reading? (Maybe using eSpeak?)
External stuff that causes problems for NetSurf:
+ Printing Unicode stuff. (Maybe prod some ROOL stuff?)
+ Font manager blows up over duff fonts. (ROOL stuff?)
That's all off the top of my head, but it should be enough to start. I'm
sure I'll think of more. I don't really know what the nsgtk user interface
needs.
Best regards,
--
Michael Drake (tlsa)
http://www.smoothartist.com/
16 years, 6 months
Task-specific front-desk addresses for netsurf-browser.org
by Rob Kendrick
James asked me to set up some front-desk type addresses in our domain.
I have set them up thus:
bugs: james jmb rjek rjw
security: james jmb rjek rjw
help: james jmb rjek rjw tlsa
Others that were already set up:
webmaster: rjek tlsa
hostmaster: rjek
postmaster: dsilvers
If people want any of these mappings changed, email me.
B.
16 years, 6 months
Re: r3302 rjek - in /trunk/netsurfbuild: autobuild.pl slotsize2.c
by James Bursa
> +my $version = "2.0 TEST r$revno";
We agreed on IRC and this list that it would be 2.0 (Development), and that
there would be both the date and revision to keep everyone happy.
I already announced on the other list that it would be 2.0 (Development).
James
16 years, 6 months
Bug trackers
by James Bursa
If we're going to change bug tracker, what features are most important?
I think we need:
- really easy adding bugs without setting up an account
- some way to transfer the bugs from SourceForge
- a way for users to ask "website x renders wrong / doesn't work, is this
known / is there a workaround?"; maybe this needs to be a separate database
Some possibilities here:
http://producingoss.com/html-chunk/bug-trackers.html
James
--
James Bursa, NetSurf developer http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
16 years, 6 months
General email addresses
by James Bursa
I think we need some general email addresses to make it easier to contact the
team when people prefer to use email:
bugs(a)netsurf-browser.org
- for reporting bugs
security(a)netsurf-browser.org
- for reporting security issues
and some kind of general address like help@ or team@ for other questions.
We should still encourage use of the mailing lists, but there are cases where
people want to communicate with us privately (e.g. media, commercial, legal).
Each should go to 2 or more of us.
Probably we need a dedicated "Contact us" page on the website describing all
the methods (lists, irc, email, bug tracker).
James
--
James Bursa, NetSurf developer http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
16 years, 6 months
NetSurf Version Numbering Scheme
by Michael Drake
Hi,
The following is the result of an IRC discussion.
NetSurf Version Numbering Scheme
--------------------------------
NetSurf releases have version numbers of the form:
[major].[minor]
Development builds after release n are versioned as follows:
[n+1].0 (Development)
Pre 1.0
-------
All versions: 0.0 (Development)
Post 1.0, Pre 2.0
-----------------
Releases: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, ... 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, ...
Development: 2.0 (Development)
Post 2.0, Pre 3.0
-----------------
Releases: 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, ... 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, ...
Development: 3.0 (Development)
--
Michael Drake (tlsa) http://www.netsurf-browser.org/
16 years, 6 months
Re: NetSurf 1.0 released
by Rob Kendrick
John Cartmell wrote:
> On 21 May in comp.sys.acorn.apps, Rob Kendrick <nntp(a)rjek.com> wrote:
>> Sandy Morton wrote:
>
>>> Where do I send my donation?
>
>> We are for the moment quite happy with our level of funds, thanks to the
>> people who bought CDs and donated at the Wakefield show. At some point
>> in the future we may set up some online donations system. This needs to
>> be discussed with the developers.
>
> Is that a formal statement from the group? I may include that in the report of
> the show if that's OK wit you.
It is a statement from me. A formal point of view from the project as a
whole might come into existence once the situation has been discussed
more by the developers.
I'll keep you apprised if this happens any time soon.
B.
16 years, 6 months
NetSurf Version Numbering Scheme
by Michael Drake
Hi,
The following is the result of an IRC discussion.
NetSurf Version Numbering Scheme
--------------------------------
NetSurf releases have version numbers of the form:
[major].[minor]
Development builds after release n are versioned as follows:
[n+1].0 (Development)
Pre 1.0
-------
All versions: 0.0 (Development)
Post 1.0, Pre 2.0
-----------------
Releases: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, ... 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, ...
Development: 2.0 (Development)
Post 2.0, Pre 3.0
-----------------
Releases: 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, ... 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, ...
Development: 3.0 (Development)
--
Michael Drake (tlsa)
http://www.smoothartist.com/
16 years, 6 months
