Even though I couldn't be there, thanks to Druck and co for organising the show, and Druck for being able to demonstrate Firefox on my behalf. Anyone care to comment on the show in general?
Also, if anyone has any feedback after trying out Firefox 2, I'd appreicate it - both good and bad. I'm not going to endlessly defend obvious flaws it has; I have better things to do. I'd prefer comments here in order to avoid repetition, rather than emailing me.
I think also the NetSurf developers would appreciate something similar, if you haven't seen that in action in a while.
-- Peter Naulls - pe...@chocky.org | http://www.chocky.org/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- - RISC OS Community Wiki - add your own content | http://www.riscos.info/
On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 16:50:28 +0000, Peter Naulls wrote:
> Even though I couldn't be there, thanks to Druck and co for organising > the show, and Druck for being able to demonstrate Firefox on my behalf. > Anyone care to comment on the show in general?
To be honest, at the glance I had of it, it didn't appear to be significantly or obviously different from the 1.5 port. It crashed several times while doing something trivial, too. But this is not surprising considering it appears to be a very early effort. I suspect that Dave showing it was a somewhat last-minute arrangement as he freely admitted that he wasn't too sure about anything about it. It was still too slow IMO to be usable, although Dave also said that his Iyonix did appear to be running slowly today.
> I think also the NetSurf developers would appreciate something similar, > if you haven't seen that in action in a while.
I was manning the NetSurf stand for quite a while, and what routinely surprised me was the number of people who were surprised that NetSurf was free of charge. There were also several people interested in upgrading from Webster XL, asking if we do a competitive upgrade :) I'm sure they were quite thoroughly shocked when they learnt that it was free, and just how much faster it is than WebsterXL.
On 25 Nov 2006 Peter Naulls <pe...@chocky.org> wrote:
> Even though I couldn't be there, thanks to Druck and co for organising > the show, and Druck for being able to demonstrate Firefox on my behalf. > Anyone care to comment on the show in general?
Full credit should go to The ARM Club's Ralph Sillett who single handled arranged the show, and the members of the Midlands User Group that helped out on the day.
Despite the atrocious weather in the morning and various road accidents slowing progress, there was a good flow of people through all day. The venue was an ideal size and very pleasant. To all accounts it was enjoyed equally by visitors and exhibitors alike.
> Also, if anyone has any feedback after trying out Firefox 2, I'd > appreicate it - both good and bad.
Sorry I was not able to give a better demo, but without and internet connection at the show, I was only able to show a few pages saved with NetSurf's full save option. (I do know about the --mirror flag to wget now).
People did seem to be impressed that FireFox 2 port was already up to, if not slightly beyond the state that 1.5 reached, rather than being a less complete port of the new code. So the good news is all the work from now on will be improving the usability, stability, and implementing missing features from the versions running on other platforms.
I'm sure Peter will want to pass his thanks on to those who donated cash towards future development at the show, and the fund will be another £200 up after I get to the bank on Monday.
> I'm not going to endlessly defend obvious flaws it has; I have better > things to do. I'd prefer comments here in order to avoid repetition, > rather than emailing me.
Well the observations so far are:-
* It needs the spelling mistake highlighting (well I need it!) * The picture of the keyboard on www.drobe.co.uk isn't displayed correctly and wiping a window over it results in partial redraws and then a crash. * Closing a window before its fully drawn causes a crash. * Some of the graphics at the top of www.iyonix.com not show.
> I think also the NetSurf developers would appreciate something similar, > if you haven't seen that in action in a while.
Well a couple came up for that, which I'm sure will be put in the NetSurf bug tracker by those who mentioned them.
* The history window is blank on the Iyonix, but apparently works on the A9 * Sexed quotes aren't displayed unless the page character set is strictly correct. This should be relaxed so they are show for pages in the standard Windows encoding.
> On Nov 25, 8:31 pm, Rob Kendrick <n...@rjek.com> wrote:
>> ... although Dave also said that his Iyonix did >> appear to be running slowly today.
> No, it just looked slow compared to VirtualRPC :-)
Well, I did wonder how it might be "slow" some days :) Out of interest Aaron, now we have RO6 which has abstracted video hardware access, can we look forward to a VideoHWVARPC module or similar, that gets DirectX to accelerate RISC OS's video? That might make it even faster.
Of course, the point is moot for me, as you can't actually sell me a product that'll run on my computer. :)
On a similar note, I was thinking the other day that should ROOL actually get most of the OS out of the door (which is looking less and less likely every day) then it wouldn't be too difficult I'd image to port RO5 to a machine that QEMU emulates, giving a bit of competition for you to lower your prices. :)
On 26 Nov 2006 Rob Kendrick <n...@rjek.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 04:44:36 -0800, Aaron wrote: > > On Nov 25, 8:31 pm, Rob Kendrick <n...@rjek.com> wrote:
> >> ... although Dave also said that his Iyonix did > >> appear to be running slowly today.
> > No, it just looked slow compared to VirtualRPC :-)
> Well, I did wonder how it might be "slow" some days :)
It was slow because in all the saved webpages there were still external links which FireFox attempted to resolve and had to wait for timedouts. Now its back on an internet connection it works much faster.
Unlike Aaron I was unable to cheat by using a version which benefited from graphics accelaration on VRPC and a different version on the Iyonix which rendered entirely in software.
On Nov 26, 3:30 pm, Rob Kendrick <n...@rjek.com> wrote:
>Well, I did wonder how it might be "slow" some days :) Out of interest > Aaron, now we have RO6 which has abstracted video hardware access, can we > look forward to a VideoHWVARPC module or similar, that gets DirectX to > accelerate RISC OS's video? That might make it even faster.
We will try and see if we can oblige in the next few weeks.
> Of course, the point is moot for me, as you can't actually sell me a > product that'll run on my computer. :)
Oh well...
> On a similar note, I was thinking the other day that should ROOL actually > get most of the OS out of the door (which is looking less and less likely > every day) then it wouldn't be too difficult I'd image to port RO5 to a > machine that QEMU emulates, giving a bit of competition for you to lower > your prices. :)
It would be nice if ROOL actually got anything out :-( As for the QEMU idea, that sounds good.
On Nov 26, 4:11 pm, druck <n...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> Unlike Aaron I was unable to cheat by using a version which benefited from > graphics accelaration on VRPC and a different version on the Iyonix which > rendered entirely in software.
But I wasn't ruuning FireFox....or were you trying to say something else....ah...I know. You've got the hump because we showed you a standard Artworks 1 renderer running on a standard VRPC on a Core 2 Duo machine, which was quicker than ArtWorks2 on an Iyonix....that must be it.
In message <1164565732.429677.27...@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com> "Aaron" <atimbr...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Nov 26, 4:11 pm, druck <n...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
> > Unlike Aaron I was unable to cheat by using a version which benefited from > > graphics accelaration on VRPC and a different version on the Iyonix which > > rendered entirely in software.
> But I wasn't ruuning FireFox....or were you trying to say something > else....ah...I know. You've got the hump because we showed you > a standard Artworks 1 renderer running on a standard VRPC on > a Core 2 Duo machine, which was quicker than ArtWorks2 on > an Iyonix....that must be it.
Windows advocacy should be discussed in the appropriate forum.
This appears to be posted to comp.sys.acorn.apps Regards Stan [snip] -- http://mistymornings.net
In message <1164565732.429677.27...@45g2000cws.googlegroups.com> "Aaron" <atimbr...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Nov 26, 4:11 pm, druck <n...@druck.freeuk.com> wrote:
>> Unlike Aaron I was unable to cheat by using a version which benefited from >> graphics accelaration on VRPC and a different version on the Iyonix which >> rendered entirely in software.
> But I wasn't ruuning FireFox....or were you trying to say something > else....ah...I know. You've got the hump because we showed you > a standard Artworks 1 renderer running on a standard VRPC on > a Core 2 Duo machine, which was quicker than ArtWorks2 on > an Iyonix....that must be it.
As I said at the show, it is pretty pointless to compare entirely different pieces of software. If you want to do a test, I suggest using the same piece of software on both machines (needless to say, you also need to make sure that the other relevant conditions like screen mode etc. are the same).
If you found that program A on machine 1 was faster for a particular task than program B on machine 2, what would that tell you? Nothing.
I would not be surprised to see VirtualRPC on a very fast PC outperforming an Iyonix, but the point is that if you want to find out, you need to do it properly.
Martin -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Wuerthner MW Software http://www.mw-software.com/ ArtWorks 2 -- Designing stunning graphics has never been easier spamt...@mw-software.com [replace "spamtrap" by "info" to reply]
