World: r3wp

The current top priority is to get stdio working properly.  For Windows, 
this is a pain, but for everything else, it's quite easy.

re

S: Do you ever sleep?

So... I wonder what time works best for chat?  If say, developer 
is 4PM in France, then that would be 8AM Pacific time? (Depending 
on DST.)

4PM is not good in France, for those who work

Ok... what time do you think is best?

i would say 8PM-11PM

Ok, good. That's better for me too.

I think that we should announce time for Q&A session, we can come 
up with moderation, if we wish (but not probably necessary), and 
the main person is Carl - so Carl chooses the time, the rest tries 
to adhere. As for me, I have no problem with any time, I just need 
to know - WHEN it happens :-)

1) portable fot system working with VID/draw

2) better way to handle events directly in draw content ? (don't 
know if this would be a gain or not)

portable fonts system working with VID/draw this means a font system 
than render the font for the same font file the same way on linux, 
macosX, windows seven, vista xp etc...,  and being able to know precisely 
the size in pixel on screen of the characters from the font we are 
using any time and any momment ( this is related to area-tc and what 
we noticed developping it actually area-tc rendering engine / event 
system works only properly on windows XP due to limitations in  rebol 
2) 

3) better draw dilect more hum light  and flexible ( no need to give 
the coords and call the text instruction in draw bloack any time 
we want to change the color or the font style of a particular bunch 
of text drawn on screen)

instead of [ pen 0.0.0 text antialised  0X0 "one text" pen 255.0.0 
text  0x20 anti-aliased " red " etc... ]  it would then nice to have 
" text antiliased black "one text " red " red " etc...]  the matrix 
push and clear should be a way too  optimise the management of segments 
of  set of draw instructions ine the  draw block.

dig up one of the proposition made a year ago by carl regarding the 
way draw could   work using aliases ...  hum at that time we hadn't 
worked on area-tc and the aliase to short set of instructions and 
arguement comming often in the draw block apeared us like a meaningless 
thing  but this kind of feature would be nice in a project  like 
area-tc where the size of the draw block matters in many way (debugging 
200K  of draw instruction to back trace why your text drawing engine 
is not drawing the proper way is a pain believe me) ....

shadwolf, graphics are not in priorities for this round of REBOL. 
 we need to finish the core first.  once that is done we will be 
able to fix some of the stuff in the host code ourself, thus allowing 
us to work in helping Carl... but there remains much lower and important 
issues than VID right now.

A few quick replies...

Three things come to mind:
1. Yes, core is the focus.... for me and for right now.
2. View graphics is open source (see next msg.)
3. VID is also open source.

On View: Cyphre was in charge of all graphics. But, he vanished into 
the Qtask black hole a year ago.


If someone else has guru graphics-system knowledge and wants to move 
it forward, that might be a good thing.

I have daily contact with Cyphre, but don't know how much time he 
has right now. Should an arrangement for some more work be made on 
View?

Well, the reason I'm mentioning it is if there are others who are 
also interested.

Maxim is active in graphics and GUIs.... so I was thinking he may 
be interested in those lower levels too.

Yes, good candidate. He's working on !SCARE right now. Some 3D engine 
for R2.

I know Maxim likes OpenGL too.

If he's so busy on 3D for R2, maybe he should jump to R3?

R3 is too buggy for him, but I think he has not considered himself 
getting a chance to fix those bugs. If he has a chance, maybe he'll 
change his mind.

Buggy?

I can't risk working 2 weeks and hitting an issue which can't be 
solved because its an unfinished part of the host.
 - Maxim on R3 View

cause its buggy, cause I've got no time for release 

surprises" nor can I use all of the several MB of code I already 
have which works in R2. going to R3 is a big endeavor for people 
like me who have a lot of code to convert." - Maxim

i'm interested too (cause i already made a partial svg converter 
for R3 ,see http://sites.google.com/site/rebolish/test-1)

But i'm afraid i will be disconnected from rebol stuffs during comming 
weeks.

I think simply he hasn't considered if he would ever be put in charge 
of View.

Although I know he has some very particular features he wants to 
see in DRAW.

Well, a "limited release" of the main host source is not entirely 
out of the question.  Meaning, released to a small group.

I don't want to release it to everyone yet, because it would consume 
all my time to deal with the feedback, changes, hacks, etc.

If it helps to get the host code done first and then get someone 
to work on graphics, maybe that's a better idea. R3 is making great 
progress in other areas, which we don't want grinding to a halt.

Well, my main goal is to get parallel development on it.  So, if 
things are needed on graphics for View, that can happen while work 
is done on other core items.

I think we should get a hold of Maxim and see what he says. If he 
gets free access to the candy store, he might change his mind. :-)

I'm sure he would really like the candy.

Cyphre told me that he is waiting for actual sources. So maybe giving 
him the latest host source would be a good start.

darn, I go away a few hours and Carl pops in.... basically offering 
what I've been dreaming for the last Decade!
  

I would really like to participate in the host code, right now, I'm 
basically giving myself a very in-depth course in applied 3D graphics 
and I won't lie in saying I'd rather do it R3 if I would be sure 
that I won't run into an unknown and be stuck.


my comment wrt R3 being buggy, is not a comment on the quality of 
R3 itself, but the fact that many core things still change quite 
often.  so code using R3, especially very hard to debug and complex 
code like 3d arithmetics can become a nightware with the slightest 
little change.

Just hang around online for the next 24 hours Max

Quicker to talk to Carl on r3 chat

true, I'll go there and see if there's more news for me.

Carl, I posted messages to you privately on R3 chat... in case you 
didn't see them.

From the sidelines, I hope this bears fruit Maxim (and Carl). Very 
cool.


One favour to ask.  Max, if you get hold of our low levels ... be 
gentle ... try and factor some of it down so the 2 dimensional 4 
digit brain types still have a chance to decode some of that whiz 
bang almost too far out of the box stuff I suspect you may have brewing. 
 :)

don't worry, I want stuff to be simple to USE... its the behind the 
scenes which is complex  ;-)

Carl: "Cyphre was in charge of all graphics. But, he vanished into 
the Qtask black hole a year ago." More precisely, you stopped updating 
the host code on CVS, and me and him stopped having the ability to 
do anything useful on that front in the little time we had available.

Carl: I have the same feedback from Cyphre - he was mainly waiting 
for the "Go" and synced sources ...

Carl: Couldn't  more agree with Gabriele here. If you update the 
Host codebase so it is possible to compile latest R3 builds...things 
can start move on again especially in the upcoming days.

Carl, listen to the chorus: Release some source, even if it is a 
limited release to the interested-and-qualified-helpers. You need 
help :(

I second BrianH's opinion - please release to the first limited group 
of Devs, to prevent possible initial chaos. As for me - I think that 
we CAN manage the situation, even if you would release it publicly. 
Not many ppl use R3 Chat do download sources nowadays. I think that 
if you set some coordinator or two, e.g. BrianH, Henrik, Maxim  - 
whoever who will accept the role, then we will be fine and even other 
ppl can study the code and try some things for themselves ...

Yes... I agree... it is my fault!