OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/22958/NetPositive_Gets_Successor_WebPositive_Emerges Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 23 May 2013 00:13:07 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Comment by CoolGoose http://www.osnews.com/thread?412201 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412201 It's hrf instead of href on the screenshot link Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (CoolGoose) Comments Comment by cb88 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412207 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412207 Web+ FTW! Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cb88) Comments Comment by Kroc http://www.osnews.com/thread?412208 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412208 This’ll make or break Haiku. People will be drawn to the platform because the web will work as well as anywhere else, and stay for the native apps.

I would love to see something a bit more radical as far as browser layout though. I feel the browser tabs, location and buttons should go on the _bottom_ of the window. I always thought this was a more natural, obvious place for navigation as it moves content closer to the top of the page, and the location bar also works as a status bar, telling you the current location. I also find it easier to look at the bottom of the screen, below the reading line, than at the top of the screen which is further away. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE: Comment by Kroc http://www.osnews.com/thread?412217 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412217 Or better yet make the tabs "panel" dragable around the window just like the haiku menu

I can see how people can be comfortable with different layouts (or full on shortcut keys in the cause of some) I think that sort of configurability is what is really needed not fancy themes like seems to be the trend (seen firefox 3.6 anyone)Edited 2010-03-04 15:27 UTC Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cb88) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Kroc http://www.osnews.com/thread?412223 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412223
Or better yet make the tabs "panel" dragable around the window just like the haiku menu


Somewhat OT: there was an old (R4, I think) app for BeOS called ActiveApp, it more-or-less did what you described in an application-agnostic way. It was a free-floating vertical tab bar, listing all of the child windows for the currently-active application - clicking one of the tabs/buttons would bring that window to the front.

Sadly, all of the download links seem to be dead so I never got a chance to try it in Haiku. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StephenBeDoper) Comments I was expecting something entirely different altogether http://www.osnews.com/thread?412228 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412228 Of course, considering the browser is in infancy maybe I'm expecting too much but:
1. I was actually expecting it to look like NetPositive, whose interface I really liked (probably out of nostalgia)
2. Tabs inside a tab? That feels weird. Haiku needs an native tab/window manager.. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FealDorf) Comments WebPositive + replicant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412233 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412233 Haiku has an amazingly flexible architecture. It would be interesting to add replicant capability to Web+. This would allow you to embed a browser object ANYWARE in Haiku.

How cool is that? Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412236 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412236 I installed it in haiku and it gives me an error...:( Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cypress) Comments WebPositive is positively awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?412237 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412237 I took it for a spin over at the ACID benchmarks and SunSpider.

I renders ACID1 content 100%. ACID2, with only one small flaw on the nose. ACID3 gets a 98/100 with "Linktest Failed".

And, on my Athlon XP system, I get 4,390ms on SunSpider!

Opera and FireFox get vastly slower scores, in Ubuntu, on the same system. But Chrome (which also uses WebKit) blows FireFox/Opera outta the water and manages to even outdo WebPositive (1,000ms+ vs. 4,000ms+) for now.

But I am so shocked by how well WebPositive performs, overall, even at this stage of it's development, I can't tell you how enthusiastic I am to see future releases!

Oh, and just in case you're wondering... WebPositive on a Pentium II/266 (Intel 440BX board) with 128Mb of RAM... gets... 33,000ms!!! I think that's VERY impressive, considering Opera on a 64-bit 1.8GHz Sempron (3200+), in Ubuntu (Intrpid Ibex) gets 15,000ms+! That's just a little over twice as slow... on a system that has 1/8th the RAM, 1/7th the processing power (266MHz x 7 = 1.862GHz), on a 100MHz FSB!

Go, Stippi, Go!!!! AUSA! Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luposian) Comments RE: Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412238 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412238
I installed it in haiku and it gives me an error...:(


What type of error message?

If you're using a GCC2-build of Haiku, it will NOT run WebPositive (which is a GCC4-built app and requires Haiku GCC4 or GCC4-hybrid)

If you're using a GCC4-build of Haiku (it says "GCC4" in the "About This System" program, under the revision of Haiku), then the only error message I've gotten is that WebPositive wants some "libsqlite3.so.0" and "libxml2.so.2".

Type "libsq" in the search bar over at HaikuWare, to get the 82Mbyte zip archive of all the GCC4 .so files you'll need for everything (I think) you could possibly imagine.

Then WebPositive worked fine, for me. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luposian) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Kroc http://www.osnews.com/thread?412239 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412239 Well that sounds like it would be replaced by some modification to stack&tile Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cb88) Comments This is very imporant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412240 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412240 What ... kind of error did you get.

Please, Please, Please tell me it was


Errors have occurred.
We won't tell you where or why.
Lazy programmers.

or

The code was willing
It considered your request,
But the chips were weak.

or

To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy


And not some stupid boring error message. The NetPositive Haiku error messages were one of my favorite things about the os. Considering the name of the OS is Haiku, it *needs* to have web browser errors in Haiku. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bill Shooter of Bul) Comments RE: WebPositive + replicant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412244 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412244 Even better than being a replicant - which WebKit design currently make a bit hard to do - a BWebView object is in the work... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE: WebPositive + replicant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412246 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412246 That's not entirely accurate, you can only embed it into something that actually accepts replicants. Tracker implements this by embedding a replicant shelf in the desktop, but that's not something automatic/universal, nor is it desirable in all cases anyhow. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anevilyak) Comments RE: WebPositive is positively awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?412247 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412247

But Chrome (which also uses WebKit) blows FireFox/Opera outta the water and manages to even outdo WebPositive (1,000ms+ vs. 4,000ms+) for now.


That part at least is a bit less surprising for the moment ; Web+ currently isn't using JavascriptCore's JIT mode due to it crashing for not yet determined reasons. Once this has been fixed, the times should be noticeably better. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anevilyak) Comments replicants http://www.osnews.com/thread?412249 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412249 Info on implementing replicants:
http://www.haiku-os.org/documents/dev/replicants_more_application_t... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[2]: Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412251 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412251

If you're using a GCC2-build of Haiku, it will NOT run WebPositive (which is a GCC4-built app and requires Haiku GCC4 or GCC4-hybrid)


It runs just fine on a gcc2hybrid. There is no need to go with a gcc4 or gcc4hybrid installation of Haiku. Especially since the official release of Haiku R1 will be a gcc2hybrid. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (augiedoggie) Comments Comment by koki http://www.osnews.com/thread?412252 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412252 Here is Web+ displaying a webpage in Japanese:

http://haikuzone.net/files/temp/2010-03-05_webpositive-jp.png

Using rev. 286 with configured to use the Takao font set. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (koki) Comments RE[2]: Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412253 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412253 Actually, Web+ works with gcc2 hybrid too. At least for me. Good work Stippi! Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (matako) Comments RE: This is very imporant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412255 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412255 or

"These three are certain:
Death, taxes, and page not found.
You, victim of one"

or

"Something you entered,
Transcended parameters.
The site is not known"

or

"With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
The site is not found" Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StephenBeDoper) Comments Love the attention Haiku is getting... http://www.osnews.com/thread?412260 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412260 ...and I am hoping that at least 1 out of 10 people commenting on form or functionality of the apps that have been presented here or on the Haiku site will actually get down and dirty and write something for Haiku.

Heck, when it goes Beta I think I will be writing little apps here and there, utilities and such, that people might find useful.

I would love to get something like TortoiseSVN on Haiku, and with the flexible file system, I think that should be quite possible. Oh the fun we might have! ;) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments Great job! http://www.osnews.com/thread?412261 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412261 Seems to be a stunning app. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jefro) Comments Nice to see progress http://www.osnews.com/thread?412287 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412287 Or at least interest in a webkit port on Be/Haiku, given what buggy unstable TRAIN WRECK every Gecko engine based browser on the platform has been.

Taking it for a spin, they've made more progress the past three years since we first saw Webkit on Haiku rendering beBits back in '07 than we've seen with any of the Mozilla based browsers over the past DECADE.

Good work guys! Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deathshadow) Comments RE: Nice to see progress http://www.osnews.com/thread?412296 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412296 Ouch! That's a little harsh. I thought BeZilla was pretty good in its time. Yeah, it rarely remained stable and yeah, I ran R5 with Bone. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments RE: Nice to see progress http://www.osnews.com/thread?412315 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412315 The man speaks truth, Mozilla have really got their work cut out for them with the mobile space. WebKit browsers are popping up everywhere, and Mozilla only have a release on N900, and that’s it. I hope to see Gecko available much wider then that as WebKit needs the competition (they cheat with CSS selectors for speed gains) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE: This is very imporant http://www.osnews.com/thread?412343 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412343 Yes! Exactly! I loved the error messages in Net+ - they always put a smile on my face. ;) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MissingBeOS) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Kroc http://www.osnews.com/thread?412348 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412348 Deskbar has an expanded view that lists all running windows of the running applications.

One of my weekend hacks from the early naughties that lives on. :-DEdited 2010-03-05 14:20 UTC Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bryanv) Comments RE: Love the attention Haiku is getting... http://www.osnews.com/thread?412349 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412349 Just use the command line? Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bryanv) Comments RE: Nice to see progress http://www.osnews.com/thread?412350 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412350 When Apple forked KHTML they made an 'unpouplar' at the time move.

In hindsight, I'm so very glad that they did. They clearly made the right decision. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bryanv) Comments RE[2]: Love the attention Haiku is getting... http://www.osnews.com/thread?412352 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412352 You missed the point. The point was that it is easy and fun to develop utilities on BeOS/Haiku, especially with its heavily attribute-flxible-database-like file system. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments RE[3]: Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412356 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412356 This raised another question I've been pondering for a while. Anyone knows why they feel it is so important to be backward-compatible with BeOS?

How many programs written for BeOS actually has any meaning today? Aren't they all dated by now in one way or another? Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abstraction) Comments RE[4]: Installed it http://www.osnews.com/thread?412380 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412380
This raised another question I've been pondering for a while. Anyone knows why they feel it is so important to be backward-compatible with BeOS?


For one, it provides a limited scope at least. It prevents people from arbitrarily expanding the API/ABI and instead focus on making the system just work properly, as well as, and even better than BeOS did.

How many programs written for BeOS actually has any meaning today? Aren't they all dated by now in one way or another?


There was at least one closed-source library that a few apps still use, Marco's liblayout (http://bebits.com/app/3363) it is used in SoundPlay and Wonderbrush, and likely some other apps that are still useful.

I suspect Wonderbrush will eventually be migrated to Haiku's built in layout kit system (which is unfinished, and the public API hasn't been solidified yet). I gather there still isn't a replacement for SoundPlay that is nearly as awesome... and only an older version of SoundPlay runs on Haiku due to the use of some private API from BeOS... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments Comment by Michael Oliveira http://www.osnews.com/thread?412453 http://www.osnews.com/thread?412453 In truth, it's an entire new system, and needs of new apps.

WebPositive shows us that a brilliant app can be small

Is the best browser that I have seem already Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Michael Oliveira) Comments