trend to abandon FLTK or Xvesa in tc32 ?

[jazzbiker]

Hi, PDP-8!

Shame on me, I don't know what is the "SC" spreadship Is this curable?

[Rich]

Hi jazzbiker
See here:
http://tinycorelinux.net/10.x/x86/tcz/sc.tcz.info

[jazzbiker]

Wep, thanks Rich! I must have remembered that the first thing to do if I hear about something amazing is to check the presence of "something-amazing.tcz" in the repo

[Rich]

Hi jazzbiker

... check the presence of "something-amazing.tcz" in the repo

Yes, but you may have to check multiple repos. For x86  sc.tcz  is present in TC8, 9, and 10 but not TC11 or 12.
It is not in any of the x86_64 repos.

[nick65go]

On average I used mostly a browser (+PDF reader) and spreadsheets in the last months. (of course with apulse, ffmpeg codecs). Flwm is sufficient for my fixed menus categories (linked on TC start-up). I do not spend more than few minutes per day on FLWM menu (so no icons /fonts) focus.

For me gnumeric (or LibreOffice) is in need, the equivalents for MS-Excel goal-seek, what-if scenarios, solver of linear/ non-linear equations, and dynamic charts. So "SC" is good but not that much. YMMV.

I still dream (and chase) for a 32 bits netsurf-alike with FLTK interface, hoping that its java engine will be enough advanced for online banking etc.

I prefer the 32 bits appls in VM (virtual machines) from TC64 hosts. VM speed is good enough on modern hardware and its security is precious-less. Plus it allows combinations of tc appls [3.x -12.x].

[PDP-8]

Nick - here's something to ponder to make us look at the situation in another direction.

I think the individual developer of TenFourFox who simply can't keep up said it best about part of the reason he is stopping development, and why simple individually developed browsers are a lost cause (but not really - see my comments)

"However, JavaScript is what probably killed TenFourFox quickest. For better or for worse, web browsers' primary role is no longer to view documents; it is to view applications that, by sheer coincidence, sometimes resemble documents."

About half-way down this page:
https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-end-of-tenfourfox-and-what-ive.html

EXACTLY!  So no bank is going to recognize Dillo, Fifth, Midori, NetSurf and the like.  Their javascript engines have no hope of keeping up with what was once an interactive document viewer, but pages full of javascript applications.  Most online pages elsewhere are like this too making them the small independent browser a very nich application.

BUT - what can we do?  What I'd say to the dev of the Fifth browser for example, is to totally forget about online access.  Keep improving Fifth to be an excellent OFFLINE html document viewer.  Heck, now that Curaga cured my resolution problem, even Dillo serves a purpose for those willing to perfect their .dillorc

Interestingly enough, Slitaz uses Midori as a default browser, and of course these days is more or less in the same useless online boat as all the rest.  But it is still VERY useful for html documents.  Heck, they even created an offline spreadsheet with it!

I guess the point here is that while I'm forced to use browsers online that are written to deal with javascript engines which the ONline world has become, there is still a great need for those of us who value a good HTML reader tool!

And of course, doing html markup on one's own can be a very creative way to express yourself and learn something, but the push from the corporate browsers have that big push to make kids learn javascript, json, yadda yadda and push good quality html markup to the side as old fashioned - you *have* to go online kid!  Yeah, right - but no.

So that's my dream - Fifth cleaned up, perhaps Midori, and don't worry at all about javascript.  Rip that crap out.  There's no hope of keeping up with javascript engines, so fuggedabout it, and make Fifth or whatever a rockin HTML viewer for TC.  Wish I had the chops to do that myself.

So going off topic, but we have a problem - but a possible solution - to leave the online world to itself, but not abandon a browser's main purpose - to view html documents.  Heck, how many know about using a url of "file://" these days?

[nick65go]

PDP-8, I agree that forced future for java engines (because google market share) is for Web-Kit browsers. Even today fifth can run in a VM (because old open-ssl). Yes, I wish it could be updated by developers. Some browsers (fifth also) can fake their ID agent. The bloated (but free) firefox 90+ is working OK. Shame there is not smaller and good  alternative yet for online movies / music.

IMHO we have already in TC all the tools for offline viewers (html 4.x, pdf, text, images, audio/video, etc).
As for HTML editors, in the past I learned in few hours the near 40 tag-types to build a html page from inside of a text editor. But I do not publish web-pages, so AbiWord doc exported as pdf is enough for me. Anyway in TC there are already productive web-editors, if you search for them.

[PDP-8]

I'm with ya, although the kludges we used to do a decade ago by fooling browsers simply won't cut it any more.  At least not on a large scale.

That's why I'm of the mind to just rip out that cancerous javascript support, and if a site doesn't work - well better to have it just balk and refuse to work, than work poorly and tax a dev to death trying to support the moving javascript goalposts.

For that, we are forced to run the big 2 or three.  Ok fine, I'll do my taxes, banking and so forth with those.  But for smaller local or intra-net work, Dillo Midori Netsurf Fifth would be just fine - if the dev is willing to throw up a warning banner:

SITE NOT SUPPORTED

Rather than work poorly with it.  This kind of delineates the modern online sites that are mostly javascript programs, rather than markup, than those that are mostly markup and no javascript at all which are a pleasure to use.

Makes for a smaller binary, less resources, and the initial objective of what a browser is for - static or limited document interaction can be obtained.

I think that's the crux of it.  The definition of a browser has changed.

That being said, I'm rockin Dillo-xft nicely, although I'd prefer a more classic Midori-like experience for the locally generated or javascript-less pages.  I'd love to rip Midori apart, remove any cancerous javascript, ad blockers and all that online crap since I'm not going to use it for major online work anyway.  Oh well...