MaXXDesktop.com live

Hi all,

I am happy, relieved and excited all at the same time because MaXXDesktop.com is live at last. MaXXDesktop.com is slowly becoming our new home from which everything that was previously scattered on different sites are now all centralized in one-stop-shop!

MaXXDesktop.co is in its infancy phase really. Lots of contents, a new look and feel and applications needs to be installed and migrated. In a nutshell, our new home will provide to the MaXXDesktop community a place where we can discuss, blog, share, document, deploy and test new things and more importantly showcase the great SGI Desktop experience.

MaXXDesktop .com will also serve the purpose of launching the new development effor for the MaXXDesktop Modern Edition which is of course based on the existing desktop (that we also call Classic) and build a new modern all OpenGL and vector look and feel desktop. We aim at fostering creativity and productivity with maximum performance and not over blotting user experience :)

Your comments and feedbacks are always welcome and see you at http://MaXXDesktop.co

Eric Masson
Genirix Systems

DR-2 has reached Code freeze status

Howdy!

I am glad to announce that MaXX Desktop has reached code freeze for
the Developer Release 2 version and I should be pretty close to
release it at the expected date... CORRECTION October-6th 2008!

I took that screenshot from my QuadCore Q6700 machine running a
full Ubuntu 8.04.1 x86_64 environment with full NVidia support and Xinerama (of course).

DR-2 will be made available in .dep packages, bare-bone shell installer for the die hard and a new Live CD for those who wants to have a fully functional Desktop right out of the box....

Eric Masson

5Dwm.org || MaXXDesktop.com

Time to Rock and Roll !!

Hi all,

I am fully functional at my new house and things are really like I want then to be... A small piece of heaven!

Ok, time to rock and Roll. I know it is summer, but here in Montreal it is raining every days of the week, at the exception of Monday.... It is not good for outdoors activities....

So here is below the plan until (CORRECTED) October 6th 2008, which is Developer Release 2 launch date! Surprise! Also, MaXX Desktop is going public at the same time as the MaXXDesktop.com website.

That means lots of work ahead and I would really appreciate some help (not only from the 3-4 usual members)

First, we will focus our efforts on the two following Linux Distribution: Ubuntu(Debian) and Fedora(RH) on both 32 and 64 bit architectures.

The Plan is simple, we must get those packages ready from prime-time. The MaXXDesktop.com main site will provide and the necessary tools(wiki, forums, docs, blogs and community).

1) Foundation Frameworks

• includes: SGI-Xt Library, SGI-OpenMotif-2.1.32 Library, SGI-Shemes and Sgm-1.0 Library
• packaging: binary, source and development headers and tools
• issues:

1. dependencies involved by overwriting existing Xt and Motif libraries on both .deb and RPM based systems.
2. numbering scheme for .deb packaging to force a clean upgrade without breaking dependencies
3. /etc/apt/sources.list alteration to support automatic installer on Ubuntu and other Debian based systems.

2) 5Dwm Window Manager Classic Edition

• includes: 5Dwm window manager v1.2.1, config files and x11 resources
• packaging: binary and source
• issues: ???

3) MaXX Desktop Classic Edition

• includes: desktop-apps, desktop-utils, shared files, config files and scripts
• packaging: binary and source
• issues: ???

4) MaXX Desktop 'Experimental'

• includes: various experimental libraries and applications.
• packaging: binary and source
• issues: ???

Do I forgot something here.

Looking forward to your comments, feed backs and involvement!

Eric Masson
MaXXDesktop.com || 5Dwm.org

MaXXDesktop.com

I am glad to announce that a new website is under development. This new website will focus on the development and distribution of both the Classic and Modern MaXX Interactive Desktop products. The new design should be completed by end of May. SVN server will be available next week. This means that I am moving all development related features to MaXXDesktop.com.

Here are a list of those features;
• Wiki
• Forums
• News
• API-SDK full online documentation
• SVN server
• SVN WebView
• Search engine

Cheers,

Eric Masson

5Dwm.org || MaXXDesktop.com

5Dwm v2.0

Hi all,

I am glad to announce the start of the development effort of 5Dwm v2.0. On the road map are the addition of EWMH 1.x support, XRender and hardware overlay plane. Here are below a little bit more details on what those new features means and how this will improve 5Dwm functionality and usability.

Enhanced Window Manager Hints or EWMH is a specification that defines interactions between a window manager, the applications that it manage, and utilities that form part of a desktop experience. These new features will allow 5Dwm v2.0 to support multiple workspaces, a pager, sticky and shaded windows. Refer to the official documentation for more detail: http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html

XRender is on the other hand a very nice addition to 5Dwm and it will guaranty a smooth evolution and provide advanced rendering operations, alpha blending and composition support. XRender will bring to 5Dwm v2.0 a fresh touch of modernization and support transparent window, setting the stage for drop shadows and composition-manager like xcompmgr and Compiz-Fusion. OpenGL application that supports ARGB-GLX Visual will also benefits for XRender support. Here is a very nice example of what ARGB GLX Visual and XRender can do: http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=41

Hardware Overlay Plane is a feature that is only available on workstation and pro-level GPU card like the NVidia Quadro line, 3DLabs and FireGL. In a nutshell it provide a hardware accelerated second plane, above the main plane that we all know, for drawing whatever you want. The idea is to avoid expensive window redraw when popup menus, feedbacks and other GUI elements are displayed to get user inputs. The less often you redraw the better your application behave. The plan is to add into 5Dwm v2.0 hardware overlay plane support to assist and off load CAD/CAM, digital effects and imaging softwares. SGI's 4DWM as been using hardware overlay plane for almost 10years now. This feature deserve to be used rather that forgotten. Trolltech's Qt 4.x supports overlay plane right at the QWidget and QGLWidget level, when the hardware supports it, of course!

Finally, 5Dwm v2.0 will be linked against SGI-OpenMotif-2.3. That's right! OpenMotif 2.3 is getting SGI look and feel and enhancements. As of today, 50% of the work is done and I can tell you that SGI-Motif 2.3 never looked so good with XFT antialiased fonts.

Hope this gets you excited, cause I am and looking forward your comments and feedbacks.

Eric Masson

5Dwm.org|| MaXXDesktop.com

New Sourceforge.net project

Hi all and Happy Easter!

I have created a new sourceforge project for the code that will have a BSD License (mainly all the open-source code). This code will make up the classic desktop, the SDK upper stack and lots of goodies.

Here is the URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxxdesktop/

Regards,

Eric Masson
5dwm.org

Calling for C++ and Java Developers

Hi all,

As you probably know already (if not, please read the Roadmap), that the MaXX Interactive Development Frameworks will allow developers to build MaXX Desktop aware/friendly application in both C++ and Java. This is possible for two reasons; First, the Frameworks are built using Trolltech's Qt 4.4 Second, each MaXX Interactive Framework is carefully designed to integrate with Trolltech's Qt Jambi technology. Qt Jambi provides tools to easily bridge the gap between native C++ and Java code.

Here is below a summary of the development kits:



Foundation Framework
▪ Core Kit
▪ Utility Kit
▪ IO Kit
▪ Network Kit
▪ File System Kit
▪ Concurrency Kit

Vue Framework
▪ Window Kit
▪ Dialog Kit
▪ Preview Kit
▪ Icon Kit
▪ Desktop Kit
▪ Composer Kit
▪ Widget Kit

Monitor Framework
▪ Instrument Kit
▪ Monitoring Server Kit
▪ Monitoring Client Kit

Grafix Framework
▪ Imaging Kit
▪ OpenGL Kit
▪ OpenSceneGraph Kit
▪ Performer Kit
▪ OpenInventor Kit

Média Framework
▪ Audio Kit (OpenAL or KDE Phonom)
▪ Video Kit (OpenML or KDE Phonom)



I invite you to get your hands on the latest version 4.4 (beta): http://trolltech.com/downloads/opensource

For more information on Jambi, please refer to this url: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/jambi


Waiting for comments and questions!

Eric Masson
5dwm.org

Well underway for DR-2

Hi all,

Here are some recent news regarding MaXX Desktop....

The Developer Release Series is well underway and there are over 75 registered members in the MaXX Interactive Desktop Developer Release Series Google Group. If you are interested to joy us as a developer-tester, visit our Google Group and send us a subscription request!

5DWM v2.0 will be possibly based on a fork of either OpenBox or FluxBox Window Manager source code. This will bring needed features like multiple-workspace and XRender-XComposite extensions support.

The MaXX Desktop Foundation Developer Kits will be based on Trolltech's Qt 4.4, OpenGL and Xlib. The first kits will be made available in DR-2. So developers, get ready!

We are looking for a web master to keep the 5dwm.org official site alive! So anyone with HTML, CSS, FLASH, good design nose and some free time to spare can apply at maxxi (dot) desktop (at) gmail (dot) com.

You are welcome to comment to any of the topics above!!! (I hope someone does)

Eric Masson
5dwm.org