Ominc BlackBox Component Builder port for OpenBSD and Linux

[Bernhard]

DuckDuckGo pointed me to https://github.com/aixp/BlackBox which is titled "Oberon Microsystems BlackBox Component Builder port for OpenBSD and Linux" ... the author/committer Alexander V. Shiryaev is registered for the Center/community Forum, but as far as I can see, he has not posted until now ...

[Ivan Denisov]

DuckDuckGo pointed me to https://github.com/aixp/BlackBox which is titled "Oberon Microsystems BlackBox Component Builder port for OpenBSD and Linux" ... the author/committer Alexander V. Shiryaev is registered for the Center/community Forum, but as far as I can see, he has not posted until now ...

We making this project together with Alexander: http://gitlab.molpit.org/blackbox/freenix
You can find trial Debian package here: http://community.blackboxframework.org/ ... ?f=30&t=68

Alexandr is registered here for comfortable reading of forum, but has no desire to be the part of the Center right now. The members of board who are not in the Center group can not post in this board.

[DGDanforth]

We making this project together with Alexander: http://gitlab.molpit.com/oberon/blackbox-freenix

Perhaps you can say a few words on how you are mapping the Host Windows dependencies into the Linux system calls?

[Ivan Denisov]

We making this project together with Alexander: http://gitlab.molpit.com/oberon/blackbox-freenix

Perhaps you can say a few words on how you are mapping the Host Windows dependencies into the Linux system calls?

All the Host subsystem is rewritten to use Gtk2 library.
http://redmine.molpit.com/projects/blac ... indows.odc

This work with HostWindows mainly was already done for Gtk by Oberon Microsystems.
So the work for Mac is also to update old realisation for using new libraries (realisation of Abstract interface of System/Mod/Windows.odc).

[DGDanforth]

Ivan,
What is the history of Gtk2library?
It feels as though I have stepped into the middle of a play and missed the title and opening scenes!
Why did Ominc create Gtk2?
What do those letters mean?
How did you hear that they had created that?
Where are the sources for these modules?

All the Host subsystem is rewritten to use Gtk2 library.
http://redmine.molpit.com/projects/blac ... indows.odc

This work with HostWindows mainly was already done for Gtk by Oberon Microsystems.
So the work for Mac is also to update old realisation for using new libraries (realisation of Abstract interface of System/Mod/Windows.odc).

[Ivan Denisov]

What is the history of Gtk2library?

About Gtk you can find many information in the internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK%2B
This is the toolkit with interface elements. It is very popular in Linux world in one line with Qt.

Why did Ominc create Gtk2?

For making linux port of BlackBox Component Builder.

How did you hear that they had created that?

From the web-site of Fyodor Tkachov: http://www.inr.ac.ru/~info21/

Where are the sources for these modules?

Initial sources from Cuno Pfister is here: http://www.inr.ac.ru/~info21/blackbox.l ... lcome.html
It is in Russian, but you can easily read letter from Cuno Pfister here: http://www.inr.ac.ru/~blackbox/rsrc/bla ... letter.txt
This sources is very outdated so you can not run them well in new Linux distribution, big work was done by Russian community before this become usable today.

[DGDanforth]

I am slightly dismayed.

The issue of platform independence should be a topic unto itself.
The future direction of BlackBox needs to be discussed with regard to platform independence.

What I now understand is that the (good) work that has gone on by the Russian community
has not been made open to the rest of the BlackBox community. It needs to be.

What other efforts are taking place with regard to BlackBox porting?

-Doug

[DGDanforth]

Let's consider Ofront (Josef) and the porting of Component Pascal to C.
If that were to exist then GTK+ would be the means for generating the GUI in a platform independent manner.

Has this been considered?

[Ivan Denisov]

Let's consider Ofront (Josef) and the porting of Component Pascal to C.
If that were to exist then GTK+ would be the means for generating the GUI in a platform independent manner.

Has this been considered?

The Kernel was also rewritten for using libc library, so there is no need in porting Component Pascal to C now.
There are few problems. The first is that there is no full .ELF compiler to replace DevLinker. DevElfLinker can make only .so libraries. LinLinker uses Loader written in C, that should be precompiled in target platform by regular C compiler. But that is not big problem. All works fine.
The second problem, that Gtk2 now should be replaced by Gtk3 or SDL library. But this is also can be done slowly.

What other efforts are taking place with regard to BlackBox porting?

Yes, Ivan Kusmitskiy (akastargazer) is working on SDL port for BlackBox. This is very perspective beginning, from my point of view.
He presented his work in the meting at Moscow in Septemper.

The project is opensource and you can download all the code here: http://gitlab.molpit.com/Ikuzmitsky/blackbox-sdl
Ivan have made two demo-videos, please take a look:
http://youtu.be/Sn1rEmwHX5U
http://youtu.be/NEoHAy1e9NA

[DGDanforth]

Ivan,
Thank you!
I am learning all sorts of things.
I see the trend is to create cross platform tools.
That is great and simplifies porting massively.
I have long thought something like that is necessary.
Why reinvent the wheel when someone has already done it for you?
I had not heard of SDL (but then I am not a gamer).
My game days were back when Adventure was running on a VAX 11-780
or later Mario brothers. Yes, SDL is more than a game platform which is lovely.

So it appears that we simply need to keep a clean and consistent framework for BlackBox
that will then run everywhere.

-Doug