Matt wrote:
 
> I am a little concerned about support for my code since while
> coexisting with standard Amiga font support is easy enough (and
> easily compiled in or left out..) it does rely on things that
> only a person with a graphics card and a little memory (we're
> talking machines with 24MB or more..) would have.

Hmm.. I take it this isn't something that could be switched on or off
with preferences?  Or even seperate executables?  (like the versions
optimised for different processors)?

> making a few glyphs suck up a few megabytes. Even Ken's system
> will suffer this.

There is going to be a price to pay with any system of dealing with
glyphs.  On the other hand, how many people have minimum specced
Amigas for daily use?

> I would be perfectly happy to ditch AGA users and those of you
> who run on a minimal specification Amiga (we recommend 8MB don't
> we, for Voyager?) but I'm sure others on the team and certainly
> those users would be p**sed.

Sure they would be.  While supporting a minimum specced machine
doesn't mean squat to me, I do see the value in providing a method to
support those users as best as possible.  If CSS requires glyphs, and
glyphs require extra memory and gfx-cards--then why not "ship" V with
that turned off?  Then the user who has the extra required memory can
turn the switch.

> Maybe I could make it work only on MorphOS (this gives maximum
> flexibility) or whatever other OS appears (since more advanced
> RTG systems are required for some stuff), and offer very limited
> support on AmigaOS 3.x .. this gets very complex indeed when you
> have to cull your userbase for a certain feature. So much so
> that I wouldn't do it.

For the time being, MorphOS would count me out.  I don't have PPC. 
This may change in the future, when MOS is a "released" product.  I'm
not anti-MOS or anti-Name.  As far as hardware, I hope that I find the
h/w solution to let me run both.  


> Just out of interest.. what's the average spec of your machines?

I use two fairly regularly.  The lowest specced Amiga is my A1200,
with an 040.  It has a mediator and a Voodoo3 gfx card.  Memory is
32M in that machine.  Over the last few months, though, I've been
migrating to the Amithlon box.  Whoo! Amiga with nVidia gfx, >500M
ram, and about a 1GHz 040 ;-)

(note, the mui smart refresh that bogs a real amiga--KILLS Voyager
under amithlon...  is it using a trick of the custom chips? 
Otherwise, things like FLASH move as fast as they do on the
Windows/Linux side.)

I do have some min-spec machines, but they are limited to old demos,
games, and floppy->ADF jobs.  Those don't have browsers on them (why
bother?). I.E., the low spec Amigas know their place.


> Oh. And then someone has to validate the CSS parser. I've been
> taking a look at the Mozilla one and it's very different to our
> internal one. Making it poke simple values (font sizes, colours,
> shapes, borders.. things we already support) into the HTML
> rendering subsystem is EASY but parsing CSS might well be the
> stick that breaks the donkey's poor little back. And it's legs.
> And it's neck. And puts it in a wheelchair and eating baby food
> for the rest of it's life. :)


In what context?  Will it break Voyager's back, or will it squish
low-end support?  I thought that Ollie rewrote V because of CSS and
other stuff down the line that would break the old V's back?  I
certainly hope you mean old miggy support...  Besides, the Vapor team
could always release V2.95/6 as the suggested browser for low-end
amigas.. 

-- 
--
Regards,

Dave 'Targhan' Crawford

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