m0ns00n's blog

2009-01-27T14:49:00.000-08:00

I have been using open source operating systems for a long time. My first meeting with them were in 1997-1998, when I was introduced to Red Hat Linux. Back then, the system was already very advanced, with art and documentation, and the system was very stable. The only thing missing was the user friendliness (which today seems to have replaced the stability). After this, I was introduced to the BSD's by a room mate when I went to university. BSD seemed more primitive in some ways, but I was assured that it was simpler / cleaner than Linux. Also, the system was rock solid - stable as diamond.

Open source systems used to be all about stability. Today, this might still be the case at the core, but how these systems are packaged and distributed somehow ruins it, and the systems come out full of bugs. Seemingly, the bugs only grow in number, as developers seem more keen to develop features than to make the system more stable. It's like the developers aren't using the software themselves.

As a principle, I think a developer should use the software he or she is developing - if not, they are not really equipped to know how to make the program appealing. It is all about good craftsmanship - and not so much about taking advantage of the accessible software repositories (cvn/svn/git etc). Even though it might be trendy to be contributing to a project, mass subscribtions of developers could lead to bugs and unfinished features.

I hope we get back to the age of stable oss projects. Right now I feel I am jumping from distro to distro trying to find a place where progress haven't been replaced by regress and bloat inflation.

2007-01-19T02:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I finally managed to get into AROS OS development again with a new build system working on my AMD64 machine (under i386 ofcourse). I submitted some changes to Wanderer so that the toolbar works properly and the windows refresh better, plus a small fix to Wanderer prefs. But it's just a start of more to come, as it is very comfortable to work with.

As for Lunapaint, v0.3.1 is well underway and has allot of new features, plus improvements. The major benefit of this version is the font functionality to place text on canvas, the dpaint keyboard shortcuts and working style plus added layer functionality (opacity and so on).

AROS is becoming more and more useful. More developers from the outside (also from the outside of the Amiga community) have shown up and gotten their hands dirty with AROS coding :-) - 2007 is gonna be a great year for AROS! The new web server and ftp server that was just released will make it much easier for developers to test their networking code, and also to transfer files to and from AROS. Furthermore, we are getting networking functionality in the linux hosted development enviromnent, so that developers who run AROS hosted on linux can develop and test their networked applications without QEMU/VMWare or AROS native (it's just speedier this way =)).
The AROS SVN is also now continuing to show activity like just before the new year, and bug fixes and improvements is showing up there.

So all in all, it's a great start on 2007!

2006-12-14T04:27:00.000-08:00

Spam is really getting to new heights! It truly is proof of the lowliness of some people. I've had to close the possability of anonymous comments - it just can't be used anymore.

I haven't posted in a while - I've been very busy at the same time as I've worked allot on Lunapaint v0.3 which is due for xmas =) Anyhow, I'm gonna start posting a bit again, to give some progress updates. Stay with me!

2006-11-05T07:13:00.000-08:00

I released a new version of Lunapaint today. My app is now at version 0.2.6. The main features are PNG export and a new GUI rewamp. There haven't been too many bug fixes though, so the bugs that were discovered in 0.2.5 should still be in here, except for the showstoppers which leads to a crash.
Anyway, now that Cristophe has committed himself to Wanderer I thought I'd use some more time on Lunapaint to get it to version 0.3. There aren't that many things left, and it should mostly be about closing some bugs and adding polish. With bugs in mind, I set up a forum at:

http://www.sub-ether.org/phpBB2/

Please use this forum to post your experiences and bug reports. Other than that, paint pretty pictures and have fun!

2006-10-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

With my first small commit yesterday and todays commits, I guess I'm finally a real AROS coder! I've started fixing some identation things in the AROS sources and my first real "work" was to fix the icon listing a bit in Wanderer. I've been annoyed for a long time that the icons have been overlapping (text under icon underneath) - so I've fixed it and cleaned the code a bit. I've started to make some ideas of where to go from here, and I think the first thing will be to perfect the icon listing with graphical list modes and so on.

Traditionally, AmigaOS listed black text on a light background. I really like this and played a bit with different ways of rendering the icon text. Next I want to add some list modes to Wanderer Prefs, like; Outline (from today, only a bit more optimized), Dropshadow, Shadow(old style), Bevelled, Rounded background.... you know what I'm talking about. It could also perhaps be an idea to give all the icons a effect, like in KDE, so you could for example make all icons grayscale, or blue... We'll see.

The big point is that I've finally started on the AROS sources, and it makes me a bit happy and... sentimental and.. :-) You know.

Long live AROS!

2006-09-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

As development goes on on Lunapaint, I've started reading some tutorials on bsd socket programming. The reason is that I want to be able to code some network tools for AROS, for starters, to add to the usability of the OS. I've never programmed any network tools before, so it's gonna be an interesting process. Async coding, which is something you need to understand before doing any serious network coding, is something I'm used to doing with Javascript and AJAX, so there's really nothing new in that area, although C has quite a different mentality. But I think I'll have some fun tools on show in a couple of weeks.

I've often thought about making some kind of Web browser, based on HTTP, but not on HTML. I know about all the accessability issues people are having with badly implemented Flash pages and javascripts which are "misbehaving", but that's not a problem I'm having in mind when I think about my own idea. I'm imagining a new visual browser, for people who aren't impeded, like something out of a hollywood movie - or kinda like a graphical BBS client - with animations, music, sound. Not to strike down at people who are blind or have other disabilities preventing them from using such a browser, I'm aiming this at people who want an audio/visual experience, like a movie, a game and so on. Perhaps I could even call it an online diskmag browser. For this I'd need to develop a simple scripting language, preferably based on Javascript, and then some simple way of downloading content. It could be a nice project to develop... although I dunno how much time I would have for it now... Ideas aren't bad though ;-) We will see if I get anything done on it.

I've not yet committed any changes to AROS' Wanderer desktop. I think me and Craid would have to combine forces and talk about it before I start making any serious effort. The Wanderer code is quite clean, so it shouldn't be too hard to modify it and understand it. AROS is seriously lacking in the Desktop area, so it is high in my thoughs from week to week. I'm juggling allot of projects now, so I'm not making any promises. But I'm gonna keep you updated on what's happening.

2006-09-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd be delayed with Lunapaint v0.2.4 as I had a couple of beers and felt distain from coding. But after three beers I started up and finished the oh so boring canvas scrolling code. And it works perfectly. No more slow, lagging scrolling. Mmmm.

So I think I will be on time anyway. On sunday I'll release v0.2.4 for everyone. And you'll be better off for it :-D

Anyhow, there's been allot of discussion around at Amiga related sites. People seem to miss the fact that AROS has the escape route people have been missing for a long time. Ok, it's hard to install right now, but not for long (I hope). It already enables you to be productive in many ways. Please join #aros and follow the progress, it's much more interactive than any forum site. You'll talk to the developers.

Anyhow, I'm on my 8th. :-D I need to get back to the party on #aros ;-)

2006-09-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

I've been working with the new TeamAros website lately - so there haven't been too much work done on Lunapaint - but I still have a week to get v0.2.4 ready. No worries. Anyhow the new TeamAros website will have allot of new functionality, and I hope to be able to finalize everything so that me and Olivier can fill it with content and play with my CMS api. Features will include:

* Task Groups
* Developer pages with documentation, tutorials and so on
* Bounties (like today), Donors list and for Sponsors
* Indepth features
* Team Aros news (not just bounty news)

Ofcourse it will take time to make all the information available, and it will only be available in english, at first. But you will see it sooner than later. The webserver already has "made room" for the new code and will receive it this weekend.

As for Lunapaint, I'm gonna finish up the animation exporter this weekend and start looking at the layers window. Implementing layer hiding and opacity shouldn't be much work, so I think I'm gonna try to get that in for v0.2.4. Again, please send me some feedback on how your experiencing the app - I would really appreciate it. Long life for AROS!

2006-09-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days I've been fiddling around with the AROS sourcecode for Zune and Wanderer. I haven't added anything yet, but I guess I'm going to soon. There are some tasks there which awaits interested eyes and I will try to do something about it. Now that I released Lunapaint v0.2.3, there's a serious paint app available for AROS, and I'd want more people to be able to install this OS and start using it.
The biggest complaint anybody has when trying out AROS is Wanderer. And I agree, it sucks. In fact, right now it isn't good for anything but doubleclicking folders and running apps. Each time you'd want to use some file operations and so on, you end up in the AROS shell. The Wanderer code is very sweet. It's commented and properly idented. Not like most other AROS code! :-) But it's very incomplete, and I hope to be able to help expand it.
Then there is Zune. Zune has been bugfixed a bit since it was worked on by Reed, the original author. But he's long gone, and the code is really unmaintained. There's no identation, few comments and... well it's just a bloody mess. To be honest, I'm not looking forward trying to understand that code! It's gonna take a while I guess. But Zune needs a cleanup and it needs maintainers. Perhaps when we're done with it, there will be a new theme engine. That's what I hope anyway.
So all in all, in addition to working on Lunapaint v0.2.4, I'm gonna start looking around in the AROS code and see if I can make some modifications. There's allot of work here for all the developers, and any help would not be unwelcome!

2006-08-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Finally things are moving forward in Lunapaint(lp) land. All the basic functionality is now accounted for and I can start to make things a bit more advanced - in short, Lunapaint isn't only experimental anymore but in fact useful. While I am steaming ahead towards version 0.3, I hope that the users now can start making use of the app and send me some images they've made! The image gallery on the lp website is very weak at the moment but that can change with your contribution.

I've updated the CMS system on the lp website and have started thinking about adding an interactive part of the site. We're incidentially gonna use this CMS system on the new Team Aros website we're planning and also on the new Resistance HQ website. The CMS will be LGPL soon but I've yet to decide how I'm gonna manage the source under this license. I know from experience that both berlios and sourceforge are slow as hell, and using them is something I'd rather avoid. Anyone know of any good alternatives to the two, please leave a comment :-)

2006-08-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Lunapaint v0.2.2 is out, and with this, I'm making ready to take on v0.3! There have been some changes in how the release is made; the bugs and todo list is removed. The reason is that since there isn't any real interaction with users yet (this will be made when the Lunapaint website is updated soon), there's no immediate point. Besides, the old buglist doesn't contain any remaining bugs, and new ones aren't show stoppers. As for the TODO, I'll make a status page instead.

I hope you who use AROS, either Native or Hosted, can make some images, and send them to me. I need to populate the gallery section of the website, and I'd rather not only feature my own images...

In other news.. :-) I've made a small command line tool to convert jpeg, png and bmp into .raw64 format, which can be imported into Lunapaint. I'll post this binary, including full source, on the Lunapaint website. Keep an eye out for it.

2006-08-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've decided to release v0.2.2 before v0.3 is out. The reason is that there's enough fixes now and new things that it should be interesting for you people to try it out. v0.3 is still the main release I'm aiming for, but 0.2.2 will be like a showcase of the new painting routines. I've attached a screenshot so you can get an idea.
In addition to the new painting routines, most known mem leaks have been removed, so you'll like that as well!
v0.2.2 should be out by next weekend, so watch this space :-)

2006-08-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

Finally, now all the old paint modes work with Antialiasing too and they vastly improve the painting experience. The line tool only has one small quirk left. Wee! Screenshot time again. Click on it to magnify. Enjoy!

2006-08-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Time for another progress report! I've got antialiasing somewhat complete now, and all painting functionality has been reimplemented to make use of it, together with the new coordinate system. The app is again stable and I am ready to go on with the small polish and new features. So I'm gonna be looking into adding some of the ideas I wrote about earlier, together with the already planned 0.3 stuff. So, here's a screenshot of the current state of antialiasing. Click on the small image for the full version.

2006-07-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

I did some more work on Lunapaint today. I got the painting back online in working order, meaning you can now use it for work. The screenshot to the right shows that it still needs a bit of polishing. On larger brushes, there is a small issue with a bitmap buffer loosing some data leading to artifacts... :-). I'm gonna hunt it down during this week. The antialiased painting is nice now though, specially with an 1x1px brush. Makes it faster to draw smooth gfx as well, no more 1% opacity unantialiased brushes to fake antialiasing.

As you can see in the screenshot, you now get information about which layer you are on and on which frame. Click on the image to see the full version of the screenshot.

Hopefully development will speed up a bit again now that I'm done [for now!] with the most boring parts of the Lunapaint code. After I fix the brush dataloss, I will start working on circles and clip brushes, and the brush editor (for custom brushes).... Yeah, one thing at a time!

2006-07-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Just to make some noise, the antialiasing bit of Lunapaint 0.3 is now finished, although I will need to do some changes to the blending code after a while. But for now it is finished. I'm now working on re-implementing some code which got lost in the rewrite of the drawing, but believe me, it's gonna kick some ass :-) And it's faster than the old method as well, so that will please most of you.

Gonna come back with some screenshots later on. Stay tuned. Smoooth drawing! =)

2006-07-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Looks like development on Lunapaint catches up again. Painting is now restored after a deep rewrite - and the new antialiasing system is soon up too. There are still some small quirks, but I should be able to fix them during this and next week. Having had a little "vacation" has also given me some new ideas to think about. There has long been intrest in an 8-bit mode of Lunapaint. I've thought about this and come up with a solution without messing with the 64-bit nature of Lunapaints guts. Under the palette, I'll have a checkbox; snap colors to palette. When having this checked, all colors are translated to match with the palette, so that you are sure that when you export the image as a 8-bit image, it will not loose any data.
More to come! :-)

2006-07-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it is summer in Norway! Finally! 30 degrees in the shade, and I've been to the beach swimming, the mountains.. swimming! Wonderful! This of course means that I haven't had too much time to spare for Aros, but some work has been done. I've rewritten the coordinate system to use doubles instead of ints, and I've centralized everything so that the coordinates comes from one function alone. This is often a problem when coding a bit too fast :-) Sometimes you end up declaring variables several places to work around design decisions. So now I've taken a few steps back to correct the worst decisions so that the design will be a bit cleaner.
Anyway, I haven't really had any setbacks, just a lack of time. I'm going to make sure I post a bit more often so you people know what's up.
Other things..
I've started making a Dillo compatible version of the Lunapaint website - to prepare for the Dillo port for AROS. Dillo is a web browser with about the same capabilities as AWeb (well, a bit less capabilities, but still) - namely HTML 3. It's a compromize until we get enough developers to take on Mozilla and KHTML. I've also come further on Admin CORE, my CMS system which is used on the Lunapaint website, the soon to be released Sub-Ether website and DEV.aros-exec.org.
Lots have been happening, although not in the same pace as I usually progress in.
Gonna finish this up, I'm going to see the new Omen movie, so I need to run! :-) Later!

2006-06-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

AROS becomes fun! After Marco van den Heuvel fixed the AROS binaries of VICE, the C=64 emulator, I downloaded them and gave them a whirl on my AROS box. The box is just a simple 500mhz Pentium 3, but everything ran sweetly with 50fps. So I went about playing Last Ninja 2, my favourite game, and I must say, this is a great addition to the AROS software library. Now I can finally use my box for something else than coding and making graphics!

There are some small quirks. VICE still leaks some memory (a typical problem when operating without memory protection and proper memory management I would guess), and AROS of course does not yet support joysticks or joypads. But no doubt this will change soon, and using the num pad w/ctrl is no problem in the mean time. I'm having fun already =)

Anyway, AROS continues to become a better OS to use every month, and the software library grows. If any of you want to use an Amiga like OS, and maybe develop for it, now is the time to check it out! And remember to volunteer to implement USB Joypad support when Michal Schulz has finished the USB stack! =)

Go here to download VICE for AROS.

2006-06-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

I've been looking around in Flock the last two days. I really like it! And it's the reason I signed up at blogger.com for my own blog. I've been a bit grumpy at Firefox lately for not supporting amd64 officially, and Flock does support it, with the Flash player included! Wonderful! This means I'll probably link this page up to my sub-ether.org blog page. More to come!