Author Topic: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation  (Read 42903 times)

Martin Iturbide

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BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« on: November 17, 2014, 01:02:10 pm »
Hi

I want to do some little brainstorm and try to put over the table the needs that we have on the OS2-eCS platform.

- What do you need on the OS/2-eCS platform?
- Which software is on your Wishlist that could run on OS2-eCS?
- Is there any service(s) that we are missing compared to other platforms?
- Anything that you consider cool on other platforms that will be good to implement on OS2-eCS?

Please just through your ideas, not matter if those are too simple, crazy or too complicated. I don't want to discuss the feasibility of the idea (yet), just the content of it.

Note: I just want to brainstorm here and try to consolidate some ideas, if you think it is a waste of time, please don't comment and move to other discussion on the forum.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2014, 03:35:35 pm by Martin Iturbide »
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Andi B.

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2014, 03:05:15 pm »
- SNAP for integrated Intel video with Multihead (3 times 1920x1200 resolution)
- solving the shared mem problem
- new VBOX with clipboard and full network support
- fast Seamonkey (not slower than on other platforms) and where some (java)scripts do not bring down the whole browser
- AOO which does free all mem when closing and with fixed 'sticky window' ticket
- cmd.exe with more than 8k (more than 80x100 char buffer)
- fixed FPE (floating point exception (?) which crashes QT and other apps)
- WLAN adapter drivers
- up to date VisualSlickEdit

Ok enough for now. If I would spend another minute the list would probably 3 times as long :-)

Martin Iturbide

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2014, 03:30:19 pm »
Thanks Andi B.

Just throwing some ideas to the air too:
- Panorama: Resolution change without reboot support.
- Panorama: Support for the external VGA/HDMI port to connect it without reboot.

My user experience wish list is listed on the "Comments and Suggestions about eComStation User Experience" article on the Wiki:
- The "quiet" boot.
- The Boot Logo Animation
- GUI - The Navigator
- GUI – The Desktop Structure
- Installed Apps Shortcuts Reorganization
- GUI – Icon Format
- GUI – eCenter Size / Icon Size
- Directory and File Structure
- The User Files Structure
- Improved GUI Themes.
- Save As / Open file dialog box (Open source)
- Copy/Replace File Dialogs updates
- The tray configuration (very simple)
- Updating the Launchpad.
- Revive "the monster" - XWorkplace.
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David McKenna

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2014, 03:40:35 pm »
 Items not already being worked on:

-Multiple sound streams for UniAud (my pet peeve)
-Updated OpenGL
-Updated VBox
-Updated SNAP
-USB3
-Intel WiFi drivers
-Bluetooth

  I also agree with Andi B's comments on AOO and Seamonkey, but they are in development...

Dave Yeo

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2014, 04:40:34 pm »
- fixed FPE (floating point exception (?) which crashes QT and other apps)

Libc066 has a fix/workaround for this, apps will need rebuilding

Andy Willis

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2014, 05:25:18 pm »
Items not already being worked on:

-Multiple sound streams for UniAud (my pet peeve)
-Updated OpenGL
-Updated VBox
-Updated SNAP
-USB3
-Intel WiFi drivers
-Bluetooth

  I also agree with Andi B's comments on AOO and Seamonkey, but they are in development...
Though still in initial phase, Intel WIFI drivers are being worked on (Arca Noae).
USB3 is still in the design phase as it is fundamentally different from USB2 and how to implement it is still being determined; Lars spoke a bit on this at Warpstock.
Bluetooth, no work on it at this point but Lewis has asked how much interest there would be for Bluetooth and for what functions to determine if there is enough interest for Arca Noae to build these.  He posted on the eCS technical list back in September. 

Alex Taylor

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2014, 05:32:21 pm »
A new text rendering & layout engine for PM, probably based on FreeType + Harbuzz, to replace the out-of-date and no-longer-maintained Innotek Font Engine. Probably only available as a development library, not a runtime replacement like Ft2LIB (which was a cool idea but just not stable enough).  Hopefully this could allow us to finally retire FT2LIB for apps like OpenOffice, for which it is still an anchor around the neck.  (If really ambitious it could be the basis for a new Unicode-capable widget library for PM-based apps like PMMail or ProNews.)  This is one of the big three things that I've long wanted to try tackling myself, but I just don't have the time right now.

UEFI and GPT support.

An IPv6 stack.

Already mentioned by others:
- A solution for the shared memory problem.
- USB3.
- New WiFi drivers for modern adapters.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2014, 05:34:55 pm by Alex Taylor »

Dave Yeo

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2014, 06:30:06 pm »
A new text rendering & layout engine for PM, probably based on FreeType + Harbuzz, to replace the out-of-date and no-longer-maintained Innotek Font Engine. Probably only available as a development library, not a runtime replacement like Ft2LIB (which was a cool idea but just not stable enough).  Hopefully this could allow us to finally retire FT2LIB for apps like OpenOffice, for which it is still an anchor around the neck.  (If really ambitious it could be the basis for a new Unicode-capable widget library for PM-based apps like PMMail or ProNews.)  This is one of the big three things that I've long wanted to try tackling myself, but I just don't have the time right now.

Don't we already have that in Cairo? It works pretty well for Mozilla, pretty sure it can use harbuzz (have to try enabling it in Mozilla) and has even been adapted to the WPS, where unluckily it was somewhat fragile.
For something like OO it would probably be too much of a change but other apps could be converted to use it.

guzzi

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2014, 09:20:37 pm »
Many of the things listed I'd like to see too.
I'll add just one:
Skype

R.M. Klippstein

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2014, 10:39:40 pm »
Virtual Box is being worked on and has been for over 4 months now, with disappointing progress, but yes progress. I've managed to compile 4 different working early versions of VirtualBox sources. But my limited experience and knowledge with GCC is the reason I'm unable to progress, so far, on 5 newer versions that I'm trying to get to compile. Help I've received from  Dave Yeo is the only reason I've been able to get this far.
  I would welcome any person proficient in compiling with GCC, limited knowledge of the internal workings of VirtualBox, and having an abundance of time and patience, willing to put up with my short comings, to help me get a usable more up-to-date version of VirtualBox for the OS/2 community.

klipp
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eirik

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2014, 01:03:48 am »
Hi,

interesting post and many good suggestions.  As OS/2 - eCS developer resources are scarce, we need to prioritize hard.  For those of us running lap tops the priorities are:

(1) Drivers: Wireless (I assume that everybody who buys a computer checks that wired connection is available)
(2) Panorama: Support for the external VGA/HDMI port to connect it without reboot.
(3) ACPI: activate external screen/projector using function keys (related to (2) above)
(4) ACPI: Suspend/resume (for those with laptops)
(5) JAVA update
(6) Updated versions of email clients and browsers (BitWise is doing excellent work on Mozilla clients and browsers - please keep it up)
(7) Updates on Open Office (ver 4 is just around the corner - great work!)

Eirik

Alex Taylor

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #11 on: November 18, 2014, 03:55:52 am »
A new text rendering & layout engine for PM, probably based on FreeType + Harbuzz, to replace the out-of-date and no-longer-maintained Innotek Font Engine. Probably only available as a development library, not a runtime replacement like Ft2LIB (which was a cool idea but just not stable enough).  Hopefully this could allow us to finally retire FT2LIB for apps like OpenOffice, for which it is still an anchor around the neck.  (If really ambitious it could be the basis for a new Unicode-capable widget library for PM-based apps like PMMail or ProNews.)  This is one of the big three things that I've long wanted to try tackling myself, but I just don't have the time right now.

Don't we already have that in Cairo? It works pretty well for Mozilla, pretty sure it can use harbuzz (have to try enabling it in Mozilla) and has even been adapted to the WPS, where unluckily it was somewhat fragile.
For something like OO it would probably be too much of a change but other apps could be converted to use it.

Cairo is available separately from Gecko?

Cairo, though, has its own API – not something that can be used as a drop-in replacement for Gpi*(), which is kind of the point. Hence whatever backend is used, it has to be wrapped inside a PM-like interface, and probably a Win-like interface as well so that OpenOffice could use it.

I did actually think about Cairo as the backend, but AIUI it's a full 2D graphics drawing library. All I'm interested in is text rendering/shaping/layout. So basically that would mean ignoring basically all of Cairo except the Harfbuzz interface and a few peripheral pieces like line breaking. It surely makes more sense just to use Harfbuzz directly (or possibly a Pango/Harfbuzz hybrid), and I think the result would be a lot more lightweight.

The most important things for me are:
(1) Free OpenOffice from the Innotek Font Engine, which is crippling it.
(2) Make PMMail able to directly display Unicode text (a weakness which is rapidly rendering it unusable for modern work).

I originally saw these as unrelated goals, but it's occurred to me lately that some kind of FT2LIB library replacement, if implemented properly, might be the answer to both.

Dave Yeo

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #12 on: November 18, 2014, 05:40:45 am »

Cairo is available separately from Gecko?

Sure, the original port as used by Doodles Screensaver is here, ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/Cairo/ though the version included with our Gecko has more fixes and is mostly complete.
Other example of what can be done with Cairo and the WPS, http://trac.netlabs.org/wps-wizard. No source though, maybe Martin can wheedle it out from Chris.
Quote
Cairo, though, has its own API – not something that can be used as a drop-in replacement for Gpi*(), which is kind of the point. Hence whatever backend is used, it has to be wrapped inside a PM-like interface, and probably a Win-like interface as well so that OpenOffice could use it.

I did actually think about Cairo as the backend, but AIUI it's a full 2D graphics drawing library. All I'm interested in is text rendering/shaping/layout. So basically that would mean ignoring basically all of Cairo except the Harfbuzz interface and a few peripheral pieces like line breaking. It surely makes more sense just to use Harfbuzz directly (or possibly a Pango/Harfbuzz hybrid), and I think the result would be a lot more lightweight.

Yes it would need a wrapper but it does automatically use fontconfig, freetype and I think pango and harfbuzz. Even gets you things like svg hints in OpenType fonts and could have thumbnails of messages in PMMail. For OpenOffice it would be a huge undertaking I'd guess.
I notice that now harfbuzz is enabled in Mozilla for all scripts, haven't really noticed any difference here compared to older versions. The pref is gfx.font_rendering.harfbuzz.scripts, -1 enables for all scripts, 0 disables and various bits for different scripts.
Quote
The most important things for me are:
(1) Free OpenOffice from the Innotek Font Engine, which is crippling it.
(2) Make PMMail able to directly display Unicode text (a weakness which is rapidly rendering it unusable for modern work).

I originally saw these as unrelated goals, but it's occurred to me lately that some kind of FT2LIB library replacement, if implemented properly, might be the answer to both.

Wonder if something like WPSWizard could replace FT2LIB and take care of all text rendering?
edit: Cairo actually recommends using Pango for anything but the simplest text rendering.
edit2: Pango actually recommends using Cairo for rendering, so basically the idea is to use both I guess.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2014, 07:02:02 am by Dave Yeo »

Silvan Scherrer

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #13 on: November 18, 2014, 12:10:14 pm »
Virtual Box is being worked on and has been for over 4 months now, with disappointing progress, but yes progress. I've managed to compile 4 different working early versions of VirtualBox sources. But my limited experience and knowledge with GCC is the reason I'm unable to progress, so far, on 5 newer versions that I'm trying to get to compile. Help I've received from  Dave Yeo is the only reason I've been able to get this far.
  I would welcome any person proficient in compiling with GCC, limited knowledge of the internal workings of VirtualBox, and having an abundance of time and patience, willing to put up with my short comings, to help me get a usable more up-to-date version of VirtualBox for the OS/2 community.

klipp
rklipp@megared.net.mx

klipp,
the problem of a later VBox is not the app and the gui itself. The problem is the driver. And for this there is only one or possible two persons which could update that. As the gui is Qt4 based this is not our concern. And yes the VBox update is since very long on our todo, but the driver dev had still no time to look into it.

regards
Silvan
kind regards
Silvan
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Silvan Scherrer

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Re: BrainStorm: Wish list for OS/2 and eComStation
« Reply #14 on: November 18, 2014, 12:12:19 pm »

(5) JAVA update
(6) Updated versions of email clients and browsers (BitWise is doing excellent work on Mozilla clients and browsers - please keep it up)
(7) Updates on Open Office (ver 4 is just around the corner - great work!)

Eirik
Eirik,

a java update comes after we have done SWT.
Qt will also get an update.
FFox is ongoing, as you wrote and AOO is also very near now.

regards
Silvan
kind regards
Silvan
CTO bww bitwise works GmbH

Please help us with donations, so we can further work on OS/2 based projects. Our Shop is at https://www.bitwiseworks.com/shop/index.php