World: r3wp

Henrik: "When you fire up R3, you will get what looks like a webbrowser 
and acts like one." - not just that, I want R3 not just to look like 
a webbrowser and act like a webbroser but actually TO BE a webbrowser 
- download R3 (few hunderts kB), run it and be able to browse REBOL 
pages - and if you enter *.html - just show some window that says 
"downloading" and download some REBOL plugin that can display webpages 
(being based on Gecko, Webkit, whatever) - it will be few megs download, 
but people are used to it. This is definitely possible - it's possible 
to display OpenGL etc in View window so I believe there are some 
libraries to do this ("somebody" just needs to make an interface 
to them ;)'


The thing is that R3 browser (and just a R3 browser) will be once 
again a great platform without apps (Be Inc etc...). If R3 browser 
can display classic HTML+JS+CSS+DOM+XML+AJAX+WHATEVER combo it's 
win-win situation. Lots of apps available and we can improve them 
one after one to show it can be done much easier and faster.

yes, I agree

But we also have to realize that REBOL is only the means, not the 
end. I don't know if the REBOL browser should directly go under the 
REBOL name. Perhaps the name should be more inline with what KHTML 
or Gecko means for other browsers.

And simply say "we made a new kind of webbrowser. it's much faster 
than your old webbrowser.". Perhaps market it as a side product of 
REBOL. This would bring up the old discussion again of what REBOL 
is.

Good luck. Firefox receives $57 milion annually from Google alone. 
Go big, or go home.

Well, even the Firefox had not that backup from begining.

It was just an independent brach of Mozilla bloat.

what about the new documentation of vid in rebol3 ?

Making another web browser won't help - new web browsers are made 
every day,and most don't catch on. Google's Chrome is an exception 
mostly because of the reputation of Google, and some nice features, 
but even with that it is unlikely to make much headway against the 
browsers that people are already using. Web browsers are commodities.

Firefox wasn't an independent branch of Mozilla, it was a branch 
of Mozilla (the software) written and supported by Mozilla (the organization 
with corporate sponsors and backing).

Has the API (or header file) for the R3.dll been published anywhere 
yet?

No, nor has any R3 dll.

At least not for a while. We have had only standalone builds for 
almost a year.

The API isn't set at this point, because of the core changes and 
more.

I only have the public alpha which has a dll.

It sounds as though there is still a huge amount of work to be done 
before R3 is going to be ready.

Well the API wasn't finalized even then, and then would have needed 
to change drastically with the Unicode changes. That doesn't even 
include Carl's current rewrites or the unfinished tasking model.

New blog!  http://www.rebol.net/r3blogs/0147.html

Henrik - very good POV ....

Terry - why are you constantly demotivated? You may as well take 
another aproach - use rebol free technologies, you will be safe this 
way. Watch R3, it can only surprise you, or it can fail, but you 
will not be hurt ...

As for FF, they receive money from Google only because Google is 
preset as default search engine. We might do similar if R3 browser 
gets popular :-) At OSNews, I also suggested Google to adopt REBOL, 
as it is THE ONLY small RIA technology along to Flash, SilverLight., 
which is a complete platform ...

terry's cup is always half empty

It is good to have Terry here otoh, or I thought I am the most depressed 
person about REBOL here :-)

After reading Henrik's post, I also think we found RT a good REBOL 
advocate ;-)

Henrik - re new name for REBOL browser. You mentioned "side" effect 
or so .... I think that the best so far is FireSide, even if .com 
domain is chosen ... it suggest Fire as in FireFox, FireBird, and 
we aproach it from side. Of course we could come-up with anything 
else ...

call it WMD browser

Graham, that won't work. USA users wouldn't find it. :-)

LOL

The rest of the world would believe it wasn't real if we claimed 
to find it.  ;-)

Rebol as being 'half empty or half full' .. either way, is a good 
metaphor.

Be serious. There's no way you can pull the necessary resources together 
to build anything like a browser. Just won't happen.  Call that 'half-empty', 
if you want.. I call it 45:1 odds against it every happening.. any 
takers?

Terry - you are starting to be boring with your attitude. Those naysayers 
like you, always claim anything like that before some product becomes 
eventually popular.

If by "like a browser" you mean implement HTML rendering and styling, 
a JavaScript interpreter and all of that, then I agree. If you want 
to implement a REBOL browser, then you are dead wrong. It's not the 
browser part that is the hard part.

I meant the former

I don't see the point to the former.

If the html browser part is seperate from the rebol "bowser" (as 
a plug-in using web kit?) it would not be too tuff.

That is also not what Carl is doing.

I don't see the part to implementing an HTML browser at all - we 
already have those, and they suck.

part -> point

I can see the point to implementing a compiler from a REBOL dialect 
to HTML/CSS/JavaScript though.

html borwser would allow rebol to infiltrate the masses...No one 
will use rebol only browser if they can't also access google or any 
of their other favorite sites. A An html plug-in could activate when 
an html page is requesteed...?

No, an HTML browser would not allow REBOL to infiltrate the masses 
because they already have HTML browsers and most of them don't want 
to switch. I can see the point to making something that works in 
the browser that they already have, but not one that would require 
them to switch browsers because that would fail.

They would switch for the added benifits rebol pages would provide 
but they would still be able to accesshtml until those sites cought 
up to speed...

It would be better to work with their existing browser because they 
won't switch. I may not even like Firefox but I can't switch.

It needs some good apps that force people to use it. Onec they know 
they can use it alos for html why would they open two browsers if 
one does can handle both types of web content.

No, if we are going to force them to use something other than HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Flash/Silverlight? 
it would either have to work in their existing browser, or be something 
seperate that just gets installed with an app they already want, 
as a side effect.

Personally, I don't want HTML browser overhead in my REBOL browser.

The latter...exactly.

I'm building an app that works great as a standalone app but I can 
see it working in this "browser" thing as the rebol "browser" I believe 
will be proving a framework to extend my app..things like caht, file 
sharing, and other things not yet thought of. If i I have a base 
of users and I stear them to use the browser as it will provide additional 
benifits to my app..that's a bunch of people nows using it that will 
quickly discover they can also rech the html web. Why us ie or firefox?

proving>providing

For that matter, unless you support their existing web services that 
they already have their data or the data they already want in it, 
it won't matter. That means their existing webmail account and Flash 
video. If you can't play YouTube (and RedTube, ...) it won't matter.


People don't care about the underlying technology unless they are 
techs. If you make a REBOL browser so that you can do REBOL stuff, 
and then try to support the old web stuff thinking that people will 
try the REBOL stuff and find it to be better, you will be wrong. 
Most people won't be able to tell the difference, because it isn't 
the technology that matters, it is the content. If you have the best 
content available in the most convenient way, people will install 
your software to get at it, whatever your software is written in.