New version of VisualOberon
Quote:
> Tim,
> I'm curious, what is the motivation for doing VO rather *using*
> S3? Why another system?
> (I used S3 on a SUN Machine some years ago and was able to
> put together a very nice interface to an audio record/play
> utility).
While System3 (and System4, too) build an OS on top of a given OS
(Lunix, HP-UX, Amiga, Windows etc.) VisualOberon has a different
aproach. First it uses oo(2)c, an optimizing standalone compiler, which
is capable to run on a rather huge number of OS by generating C source.
The current implementation works on various UNIX platforms, including
Linux, HP and Sun, there is a working port for BeBox and I personally
with the help of some ooc people was able to get a quick and dirty
version to run on Windows using CygWin gcc as backend. As told, ooc is a
standalone compiler. It is not dependend of a partcular OS-SubSystem
like System3. Its libraries are mainly based on POSIX, making it
possible to write real *native* applications on various systems.
VisualOberon uses ooc and its libraries and the compilers interface to
X11 to build a graphical abstraction layer on top of which a powerfull
gadget system is build which features most common gadgets known from
various OSs. Of cause, using true Oberon-2 a port to other compilers
should be possible.
The graphical abstraction layer itself should be portable and should be
able to sit on top of graphic engines different from X11, f.e. Windows.
System3 with gadgets builds it own gadget set with its own look and
feel. VisualOberon tries to be far more configurable and tries to
emulate common GUIs like Windows or Motif. While it builds it own set of
gadgets and not just abstracts native gadgets such immitation may not be
perfect but enough. The current implementation emulates Motif and
Windows look and feel.
To summerize, what you get with VO: You can write a GUI, using powerfull
OO technics, configure the GUI in many ways you like, making its look
and feel like Windows, Motif, Amiga, Mac and that like. And by porting
the core graphics engine, your GUI and thus likely your whole program is
portable to a variety of plattforms, too. By using static linkage you
need only to distribute one executable and the resulting program will be
(very) close to the native look and feel. Howver you could make it look
like Motif on a windows machine, too, if you like ;-)
The current status is:
A rather complete set of gadgets, which need some work on some details.
A full working implementation for X11, that should likely run under all
UNIXes using X11. The OO framework and the idea of maximum configuration
has been proven to work. A number of applications (watch the screenshots
on the homepage) exists. Michael Griebling tries to port the current
system to BeBox, but there is a lot of work to do. A windows port should
be possible, however there is still much work to do to adapt the ooc
compiler to some windows "special features" like file handling.
One last word: VO in its current form is still a "one man" project. It
is the result of neraly a year of free time work. This has worked up to
know, but the work to be done o the various gadgets and the different
look ands feels is enormous, and it likely that I will slow down or even
stop work on it, if there cant be found any contributors :-|
Ok, enough of advertising ;-)
--
Gru?...
Tim Teulings.
