Hi George, >> * A windowing system that is simple to use. From any language. > This also is true of SMSQE Is it?
>> * Libraries that applications can link to at run time, as opposed to >> static linking at compile time. > How would that work? If I write a program I like to know in advance what it > will contain True, but lets say you have a graphics application that needs to display an SVG graphic. Would you write an SVG decoder routine? No, you'd use the one built in to the OS as a library (dll on windows, so (shared object) file in Linux for example). The distributed application would not need to distribute the library as it is there on all computers running the OS in question. Your application is less resource intensive and downloads faster - ok, I realise the Windows apps are still available on two DVDs for an install! There's nothing to stop you statically linking the library to your application, of course, that way you know that the version you wrote it to work with is always available regardless of what version of the OS or library in question is built in to the customer's computer. > * A file system that is not restricted to 36 characters. See >> http://qdosmsq.dunbar-it.co.uk/blog/2009/05/whats-wrong-with-this-file-system/ >> for a pseudo-rant on the matter. > Well - that's not in SMSQE. I know! ;-) >> * Industry standard graphics format(s) - PNG, for example. JPG if we >> must! SVG would be nice. > Photon displays JPEG on a QL Yes, photon does. But does anything else which has not been especially written to do so? Nope. So, this belongs in a graphics layer on top of (perhaps?) the OS. > So, presumably, SMSQE is more than half way there? I think you may have taken me up wrong. I'm not complaining that QDOSMSQ is not good enough, I was asking what we would like to see in an ideal OS. SMSQ is pretty well there, I disagree that the windowing system is easy to code - the more I look into it for QL Toady, the more I find myself wondering why TT wrote stuff the way he did. Until I finally decoded EasyPTR3 many years ago, I had great difficulties getting anything pointer driven to work. It's only now I'm even attempting to look at it (the PE) from an assembly viewpoint! SMSQ has lots of colours now and bigger screen resolution etc which is a great improvement over the old days of 512*256 and 8 colours, but that was 1984. The sound system is still pretty lacking though.... Cheers, Norman. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
