SDL web browser

SDL Development
1

Daniel wrote:

Actually I have been seriously thinking about writing a web broser for
some time. The reason is that all I want in a browser is HTML and
images.

Java is unnecessary, really. JavaScript might be more useful, since people
tend to require JavaScript compatibility to even be able to navigate
their site (grumble).

I’d love to see a new, extremely small and fast graphical browser for
Linux. I imagine countless user-definable options (more than Netscape’s
lame, and poorly implemented “use MY colors?” and “use MY fonts?”…
I mean turn on and off EVERYTHING).

We would need to use our own SDL-based widget set, to be the most
compatible (and most efficient). My question is, since I haven’t looked
into it much, being a game coder… how is SDL’s capabilities when it
comes to rendering text? (Sure, we could create bitmaps with each
character if we really wanted to be lame and get it done quick, but…)

The most I’ve seen that I can recall is the strange “fonttest” example and
"gui" example which do the lame bitmap-based font rendering described above.

Does or will SDL support some kind of TrueType or PostScript based font
rendering? (Ooh, just thing, smooth, alphablended antialiasing ).

While I’d like to apologize for ever complaining about websites (remember,
it was in a PS under my .sig, so I only sparked the thread, I didn’t
actually start it :slight_smile: ), I’m glad that it’s evolved into something SDL based
and interesting.

Who else has any vague interest in going against Opera, Netscape and MS? >:^)

-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/

2

William Kendrick wrote:

Thank you! :slight_smile: Seriously, though, I wonder if that wouldn’t be a bad idea?
Another option as a platform independant browser?! It’d look the same
on all systems! Hmm! :slight_smile:

Actually I have been seriously thinking about writing a web broser for
some time. The reason is that all I want in a browser is HTML and
images. Perhaps java -not sure. I want to have my entire screen
dedicated to veiwing the page, I don’t want any menus, buttons or bars.
It could work like most X window managers in that a middle click could
bring up a box to enter a url (+ bookmarks), left click to activate
links, right click to bring up other options (copy, paste etc.)…

It would be faster and more reliable (the main reaseons : less things to
go wrong and hog processor time, perhaps read ahead caching).

Daniel.

3

William Kendrick wrote:

Daniel wrote:

Actually I have been seriously thinking about writing a web broser for
some time. The reason is that all I want in a browser is HTML and
images.

Java is unnecessary, really. JavaScript might be more useful, since people
tend to require JavaScript compatibility to even be able to navigate
their site (grumble).

I’d love to see a new, extremely small and fast graphical browser for
Linux. I imagine countless user-definable options (more than Netscape’s
lame, and poorly implemented “use MY colors?” and “use MY fonts?”…
I mean turn on and off EVERYTHING).

We would need to use our own SDL-based widget set, to be the most
compatible (and most efficient). My question is, since I haven’t looked
into it much, being a game coder… how is SDL’s capabilities when it
comes to rendering text? (Sure, we could create bitmaps with each
character if we really wanted to be lame and get it done quick, but…)

The most I’ve seen that I can recall is the strange “fonttest” example and
"gui" example which do the lame bitmap-based font rendering described above.

Does or will SDL support some kind of TrueType or PostScript based font
rendering? (Ooh, just thing, smooth, alphablended antialiasing ).

I can’t remember now, but isn’t thier an example for using some library for
rendering TrueType fonts on the SDL web site?
Also alpahblending and antialiasing would be more of a graphics algorithm thing
than an SDL thing wouldn’t it? I mean SDL is rather low-level, we can’t expect
Sam to do all the work for us. :slight_smile: (Needless to say I really appreciate all
Sam’s help as I was trying to learn his API, I’ve never gotten that kind of
support from even commercial products.)

While I’d like to apologize for ever complaining about websites (remember,
it was in a PS under my .sig, so I only sparked the thread, I didn’t
actually start it :slight_smile: ), I’m glad that it’s evolved into something SDL based
and interesting.

See, All things run in circles. An SDL-List topic that gets of topic will soon
get back on topic. And if a web browser comes from getting of topic than we
should be glad that we got off topic because it was beneficial not only to the
topic but to Linux as a whole. ( Basically what I am saying is that
conversations often go in different directions and that is never a bad thing)

Who else has any vague interest in going against Opera, Netscape and MS? >:^)

I would love to go against Netscape. If KFM would support Javascript I would use
it exclusively. I didn’t know MS was even in the running for Linux web
browsers, but as far as thier position in the total web browser market I would
love to see someone compete with them. As a DOS user a year or so ago, I
LOVED arachne and dr. webspyder. They meant I never had to boot into that
horrible Windows thing.
I have alot of repect for Opera though, I have heard good things about them and
big companies like Netscape and MS can afford to give their browsers away, which
all but gaurantees them a spot. Opera Software doesn’t have the same advantage.
They need to charge for it to stay out of the red and I think people need to
support that and help them. ( I will probably buy Opera whent it comes out. It
would be my first commercial Linux purchase, but I think I am going to buy
Civiliztion:CTP and Myth2 as well as Quakes 2 and 3, maybe Hopkin’s FBI and
definetly “Mellinium Madness”, I have been waiting sooooo long for a good racing
game for Linux.)
But anyhow I am all for more choice of web browsers. If somebody decides to do
this and my non-talented (Programming wise anyhow.) self can help let me know.>

-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/bill/

4

Actually I have been seriously thinking about writing a web broser for
some time. The reason is that all I want in a browser is HTML and
images.

Java is unnecessary, really. JavaScript might be more useful, since people
tend to require JavaScript compatibility to even be able to navigate
their site (grumble).

I’d love to see a new, extremely small and fast graphical browser for
Linux. I imagine countless user-definable options (more than Netscape’s
lame, and poorly implemented “use MY colors?” and “use MY fonts?”…
I mean turn on and off EVERYTHING).

I thought about that, too… But I came to the conclusion, that a Browser can
only be totaly overloaded or very hard to use… The overloaded thing gets
it very slow, but it can handle every site. I tried to use only the
kfm-browser, but sometimes I need Netscape, too. So I need two browsers.
The idea would be to create a single browser, wich you can switch into
"Mega-Resourcing-Java-Mode" or into “Fast-Internet-Access-Mode”.
That should be possible on the fly, so the program should be very well
designed to free its fonts, graphics and stuff while running.
It should start in one second into the fast-mode and if it likes, it can load
a few seconds when I switch it into killer-mode (like netscape)…
I dont think that it is possible to create a useable “in-between”-solution,
but thats only my humble opinion

see ya,
Manuel

5

Manuel Klimek wrote:

Actually I have been seriously thinking about writing a web broser for
some time. The reason is that all I want in a browser is HTML and
images.

Java is unnecessary, really. JavaScript might be more useful, since people
tend to require JavaScript compatibility to even be able to navigate
their site (grumble).

I’d love to see a new, extremely small and fast graphical browser for
Linux. I imagine countless user-definable options (more than Netscape’s
lame, and poorly implemented “use MY colors?” and “use MY fonts?”…
I mean turn on and off EVERYTHING).

I thought about that, too… But I came to the conclusion, that a Browser can
only be totaly overloaded or very hard to use… The overloaded thing gets
it very slow, but it can handle every site. I tried to use only the
kfm-browser, but sometimes I need Netscape, too. So I need two browsers.
The idea would be to create a single browser, wich you can switch into
"Mega-Resourcing-Java-Mode" or into “Fast-Internet-Access-Mode”.
That should be possible on the fly, so the program should be very well
designed to free its fonts, graphics and stuff while running.
It should start in one second into the fast-mode and if it likes, it can load
a few seconds when I switch it into killer-mode (like netscape)…
I dont think that it is possible to create a useable “in-between”-solution,
but thats only my humble opinion

Actually if KFM would support Java-script and do a little more inlining such as
not opening up and external viewer when you click on a text or image link, then
it would be pretty much all I would need. Then again if it did that it wouldn’t
be a very good file browser. The point is that a good free web browser could
easily be made by the open source community. Why it hasn’t been done already,
considering how bad Netscape is, is a mystery to me.>

see ya,
Manuel

6

Manuel Klimek wrote:

It should start in one second into the fast-mode and if it likes, it can load
a few seconds when I switch it into killer-mode (like netscape)…

yeah, cool. That’s a great idea. I was thinking more along the lines of
having to use two browsers for those rare occasions when I need to use
javascript or something…

Daniel.

7

We would need to use our own SDL-based widget set, to be the most
compatible (and most efficient). My question is, since I haven’t looked
into it much, being a game coder… how is SDL’s capabilities when it
comes to rendering text? (Sure, we could create bitmaps with each
character if we really wanted to be lame and get it done quick, but…)

They’re pretty hot, if you use the FreeType rendering engine. :slight_smile:
See the ttflib example in the demos archive.

And, I suppose I’ll get off topic here for a second too…
Did netscape really remove the “turn off image loading” option?
I’m running netscape 4.08 on a 28.8 modem and finding web browsing
almost unbearable.

Anyway, back on topic…
There are a fair few free web browser projects that got started and
didn’t go anywhere. I think it would be really cool to see an SDL
web browser (silly, but cool. :slight_smile: It’s a lot of work to write a
compliant HTML browser, as somebody noted, even the "official"
implementation isn’t prime-time. BUT … you go guys! :slight_smile:

BTW, if there is a lot of interest, I’ll consider making a separate
mailing list for the web browser project.

-Sam Lantinga				(slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software–
“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

8

They’re pretty hot, if you use the FreeType rendering engine. :slight_smile:
See the ttflib example in the demos archive.

Oh! Heh, whoops, I missed that one. Of course, I’ve converted ALL of
my TTF files to PS Type 1’s, so I can’t actually run it yet. :slight_smile:

And, I suppose I’ll get off topic here for a second too…
Did netscape really remove the “turn off image loading” option?
I’m running netscape 4.08 on a 28.8 modem and finding web browsing
almost unbearable.

Actually, this option should be there. Of course, many 4.0x versions
seem to ignore your settings. For example, uncheck JavaScript and most
of the time, JavaScript crap will still run. (!?!) They seem to be
fixed in more recent versions. I just upgraded to 4.6 (Navigator… ie,
no e-mail, news or authoring crap that I never use).

-bill!

9

There seems to be a lot of interest in the browser idea. Should we start
another list (so we don’t worry about bandwidth abuse) and get cracking
on the idea?

Daniel.

10

Hello!

I did not mean to start a huge discussion about
web-browsers with my accouncement of
BillyTheKid :slight_smile:

But now that you are discussing it so much,
you might want to have a look at my
C++ implementation of W3C’s Document
Object Model (DOM):
http://www.HardcoreProcessing.com/Products/DOMImplementation.html

It is not complete yet and I don’t really
know when / if it will be… but it
should never the less be usable and
it’s LGPL’ed.

DOM is a storage model for an HTML-like or
XML-like document in memory - and
nothing more. No parsers or anything.
And again: The implementation is not complete…

It is actually part of the Berlin
project, and if you make your
browser portable from SDL to Berlin,
some folks might be really happy :slight_smile:
http://www.berlin-consortium.org

Cheers–
http://www.HardcoreProcessing.com

11

Daniel wrote:

There seems to be a lot of interest in the browser idea. Should we start
another list (so we don’t worry about bandwidth abuse) and get cracking
on the idea?

Daniel.

Actually what I have been working on for SDL is a high-level GSDK. (Right
now all I have is some slow graphics primitives and some wrapper functions
for setting the video mode and stuff, about 45 functions in all)
I had originally wanted to dive head first into sprite rendering functions
or font support and probably write some screen transition routines in the
background, but I think a routine (along with a bunch of neccesary <I
didn’t spell that even remotely right did I> internal routines) to draw an
HTML doc onto a surface would be great. I am by no means the world greatest
coder, and the HTML routine I want for my GSDK will be purely graphical.
ie, no cut and paste, but even as such HTML has alot of posibilities in
gaming (espcially if we let the coder choose the font. RPG games can have
an old english font throught, etc. ) and I think I will get to work on such
a beast when I finish my webpage (which should be tommorow).
As I said, I am not nor do I make claims to be the greatest coder, nor do
I expect anyone else to do the work for me. Part of the reason I am doing
this SDK is because I want to learn (although if somebody wants to write a
routine that inputs a jpeg, png, pcx, tga, tiff or any other graphics
format exept for gif (unfortunatly the greed of the copyright owners would
conflict with my SDK’s LGPL license ) that returns an SDL_Surface I would
certainly accept the help. HeHe. Heck I’d settle for a pointer to a
GOOD tutorial on how to use libjpeg and libpng and such)
Anyhow my point is that I am going to embark upon such an undertaking. I
doubt that I will be much help to anyone else who would want to try, but my
progress will be on my website for all to look at. I would really
appreciate and arena so to speak for anybody serious about this to talk in.

12

Sam Lantinga wrote:

Hey John, check out the imglib library in the example archives.
It might be what you are looking for, as far as image loaders. :slight_smile:

    -Sam Lantinga                           (slouken at devolution.com)

Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software

“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec

Woah, thanks! I didn’t realize there were libraries in the examples
directory. I hadn’t really looked through it.

13

John Garrison wrote:
snip

As I said, I am not nor do I make claims to be the greatest coder, nor do
I expect anyone else to do the work for me. Part of the reason I am doing
this SDK is because I want to learn (although if somebody wants to write a
routine that inputs a jpeg, png, pcx, tga, tiff or any other graphics
format exept for gif (unfortunatly the greed of the copyright owners would
conflict with my SDK’s LGPL license ) that returns an SDL_Surface I would
certainly accept the help. HeHe. Heck I’d settle for a pointer to a
GOOD tutorial on how to use libjpeg and libpng and such)

-----GIF correction:
Actually, I think it is just a matter of asking permission to do it,
no money involved and the permission probably goes back to the problem
that “they” used LZW without previous permission.

(this may be a bit dated, but it should help you find out where to get
permission and it’s “out of the horse’s mouth”)-----------------------------------
The Graphics Interchange Format © protocol is the Copyright
property of CompuServe Incorporated.

GIF (sm) and the Graphics Interchange Format (sm) are the Service
Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.

In order to implement and use GIF, You must obtain a license from:

CompuServe, Incorporated.
5000 Arlington Centre Blvd.
Columbus, Ohio 43220
614-457-8600
800-848-8199

You will probably find running GIF code under Linux all over the place if
you look for it, for example William Kendrick wrote:

JPEG and GIF shouldn’t be a problem,

GIF has been done… see Sam’s “Alien” example (the game with the bugs)…
every graphic was saved as GIF.

14

John Garrison wrote:
snip

I have alot of repect for Opera though, I have heard good things about
them and
big companies like Netscape and MS can afford to give their browsers away,
which
all but gaurantees them a spot. Opera Software doesn’t have the same
advantage.
They need to charge for it to stay out of the red and I think people need to
support that and help them. ( I will probably buy Opera whent it comes
out. It
would be my first commercial Linux purchase, but I think I am going to buy
Civiliztion:CTP and Myth2 as well as Quakes 2 and 3, maybe Hopkin’s FBI and
definetly “Mellinium Madness”, I have been waiting sooooo long for a good
racing
game for Linux.)
But anyhow I am all for more choice of web browsers. If somebody decides
to do
this and my non-talented (Programming wise anyhow.) self can help let me
know.

-----Yeah, I know, sounds like a Plug:
I use Opera under Win3.1 right now and think it’s worth every penny.
(I’m locked into having to use a DOS/Win3.1 machine due to some software that
expects 100% compatibility so there’s no point in flaming me on this issue).

My last version of Netscape was 3.x and when you compare Netscape’s 5meg
download versus Opera’s 1.4meg download sizes, you know that the programmer(s)
put a bit of effort into efficient code. Opera runs fast.

At work we use WinNT’s IE5 (company decision/not mine), it’s a Large
program and
a CPU hogging pig, basically, it’s an experiment in
patience…wait…wait…wait.

IE5 and Netscape Aren’t free, M$ want’s global domination and Netscape
"home" is
"netscape.com" which AOL will load with whatever advertising they will please.
Like John mentions above, paying for software when requested encourages little
operations like this to continue, otherwise they would be running in the
red and
there’s really no point to making something good even better if you’re
going to
starve in the process. In my opinion: This is one reason that I believe
makes
people hesitate on porting their apps to Linux. This you’ll find echoed in
Sam’s message below…

-----SDL Browser Suggestion:
Sam Lantinga wrote:

Anyway, back on topic…
There are a fair few free web browser projects that got started and
didn’t go anywhere. I think it would be really cool to see an SDL
web browser (silly, but cool. :slight_smile: It’s a lot of work to write a
compliant HTML browser, as somebody noted, even the "official"
implementation isn’t prime-time. BUT … you go guys! :slight_smile:

I have to agree that there is a lot of work involved here, probably might be
better to start with an existing free browser and build from there for those
who want to build a browser, that-way you already give yourselves a bit of a
headstart since some of the framework has already been thought out for you.

BTW what and where is the “official” implementation? (hint, hint)

-----Keep making SDL better & faster & tighter
I’d like to see more happening on Linux, only way that’s going to happen is
if it’s Better and Easier to use than Windoze. That means it has to get to
the point where mom and pop with no computer skills can figure out how to use
it, for example, stick a floppy disk in the drive, click & run. You know :slight_smile:

One way of doing it is by making easy to use tools and libraries that work on
both Linux and Windoze that programmers can use (this way a programmer doesn’t
have to re-learn a new set of tools to program in Linux, and the more
programmers you have tinkering in Linux, the better it gets).
I think Sam deserves a pat on the back for SDL, it’s a lot of work I’m sure.
Same goes for everyone who’s helped make SDL better in whatever way they did.

The point is…If you build it, they will come…