>Tarquin has already started to write a browser in beta form for the QL - >he is also a RISC OS user - I have forgotten what he calls it.
Hyperbrowser >I have a copy, yet it doesn't work for me :-( >... anyone got it working ? Yes, all but one version I could only get to work with text. He has (or was plannign to?) use Photon to display JPEGs but I don't think I got hold of this version. I seem to remember it relied on a version of Photon which was able to have filenames for display passed as a parameter and I'm not sure that existed then (i.e. did Tarquin get it working or was it just a feature he'd put in ready for when Dave Westbury got that to work in Photon). >It is only text at present. That's a start at least. Text browsers are a bit useless in the modern graphics-driven internet but at least Lynx and HyperBrowser form something from which to start from once soql becomes reality (if ever Jon Dent sorts his Linux systems out - I think he was having problems with a Linux system he was setting up to test and debug soql). There was another QL text-only browser called QMosaic too. If you could find a version which worked on your system, it worked rather well as a text-only browser. Trouble was, of all the versions I came across (and I have 2 or 3) they were a bit fussy as to which QL system they'd run on. Any graphical QL browser would need to be able to handle much of what the internet currently thrusts upon us - reasonably fast display of various graphics format like PNG, JPEG, and GIF. Or at the very least be sufficiently capable of putting a square in the display where the graphic is to go and a 'Click On This To View This Graphic' as the next step up from text browsers. One way would be for this 'Click To View' thingy to call up a graphics viewer like PhotoQL or Photon via FileInfo 2 and over time a library of file viewers would be available, so that even if browser development stopped external viewers etc (plug-ins???) allowed some advancement. We also need a first GD2 graphics program. No need to be PaintSlap Pro or whatever, just a little something along the lines of earlier QL graphics programs which allow you to draw some simple graphics. It does go to show that although up until now we have had adequate software development tools to produce reasonable software, GD2 has not had the support tools necessary to plough ahead with good software. Yes, the Q40 has brought some good programs, but to some extent they are specific to Q40, or are only at their best on a Q40/Q60. How I look forward to QPTR and EasyPtr being GD2-aware for example. Wolfgang Uhlig recently sent me a cute little GD2 program called QcoLour which helps with the development of hues and shades on high colour systems, and I think is the first or one of the first QL program to use 'skins' or user definable backgrounds (nice colour ripples and textures). A neat little splash of colour. Simon Goodwin, for example, has been doing some good work with his Digicam software, so people with some Kodak cameras can download and handle camera graphics on a QDOS system. The capability is there, but we have to remember it's talented individuals working in their spare time and mostly for free. -- Dilwyn Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.soft.net.uk/dj/index.html
