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I have a simple question about Android in which I have not found the simple answer to... (Although I think I know, I just want some clarification). I recently switched over to Windows Phone 7 because of various reasons, I will not name them here as that is an entirely different subject, however one of the reasons i switched was because of overall responsiveness of the OS. Why does Android's touch response feel sooo clunky? Yeah transitions and app launches are nice and quick, but I mean like pinch-to-zoom, and scrolling... I have played with the latest and greatest both rooted (with and without custom rom) and non rooted (with or without OEM UI), Motorola Xoom, Atrix 4G whatever is being claimed latest and greatest. But no matter what they all have the same touch response lag no matter what. This, believe it or not, is a major deal breaker for me, and before the majority of you speak, I'll speak for you; "why is something so simple and small, barely even considered a nuisance, be such a nuisance?" for me, i love fluidity, so, it just is. At this question however i do retort; if its such a "simple" or "small" nuisance, why can't it "simply" be coded to feel as fluid as Windows Phone 7, or iOS?
Luisraul924 said:
I have a simple question about Android in which I have not found the simple answer to... (Although I think I know, I just want some clarification). I recently switched over to Windows Phone 7 because of various reasons, I will not name them here as that is an entirely different subject, however one of the reasons i switched was because of overall responsiveness of the OS. Why does Android's touch response feel sooo clunky? Yeah transitions and app launches are nice and quick, but I mean like pinch-to-zoom, and scrolling... I have played with the latest and greatest both rooted (with and without custom rom) and non rooted (with or without OEM UI), Motorola Xoom, Atrix 4G whatever is being claimed latest and greatest. But no matter what they all have the same touch response lag no matter what. This, believe it or not, is a major deal breaker for me, and before the majority of you speak, I'll speak for you; "why is something so simple and small, barely even considered a nuisance, be such a nuisance?" for me, i love fluidity, so, it just is. At this question however i do retort; if its such a "simple" or "small" nuisance, why can't it "simply" be coded to feel as fluid as Windows Phone 7, or iOS?
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I will try to answer since I've been using android before. android now as I believe is still in development stage. especially because it started from open source, where many developers get involved to participate in android development. unlike windows or the IOS platform. development is only done by the company itself through microsoft and apple. Except for third-party application development
android is a system (for run smoothly) with very powerful hardware. so that the source code would require a very complicated of encoding. Its a very difficult job to sync between the needs of software with hardware which is available. and vice versa. in an application such as pinching and scrolling there is more than one command which contains a lot of code. and should be remembered that this is a system. which are all related to each other for the overall operations to run smoothly based on the minimum demand of the hardware required. if there is one character in which is wrong of encoding or difference may cause the application not running properly.
for high-end android device such as Xoom, atrik 4G I'm sure the hardware is not an issue. I'm sure it was more caused by the complexity of encoding in one of the applications listed that is running inside in the whole operating system, making it not running smoothly. because so many commands which must be running at the same time is what make pinching and scrolling activity to be "clunky" like you said. you can differentiate by turning off the internet connection or turn off unnecessary applications running in the background. But I'm sure very soon android operating system will have a system which is more stable and efficient in encoding such as those held by the windows or apple.
My answer may be added by other members of the more expert in these matters. as a newbie, i am just trying to help based on the knowledge I had acquired over the years. CMIIW
Yeah I figured it would be something like that, I owned a Droid (1st gen.) and I had multiple setups from completely stock to my favorite, Cyanogenmod (always on the latest stable build, although I've already flashed CM7 RC2 and its probably the fastest its ever been at 800 MHz) everything was perfect except; scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. The scrolling is almost there, it actually lags for a bit but if I leave my finger on the page, it locks on to that position and stays there, but once I lift it to continue scrolling down or up it'll lag a bit again. The pinch zooming is just horrible no matter what. Unfortunately, given the nature of open source, and coding software in general, there is no such thing as "finished" software, so since this is open source, and the software is basically written to run on "nearly" whatever device you choose to flash it on, i don't think that problem will ever be solved. However, if Android does eventually reach that richness of responsiveness, then i will more than gladly switch back.
issues of a system running smoothly is different from one device to another device.
due to the wide variety of different android devices that causes the emergence of issues on the system stability. it was time to google as the main developer sets the standards for the development of next android os. while there is no standardization of hardware is set by google. it will be very difficult for other developers to write code/adjust performance in the operating system command. all this time writing code is must be adapted to the device from vendor itself. This will bring up the differences result of writing the code on other devices from another vendors (competitors). so if we running bencmark test or head to head test on both devices from different vendor the result will not be the same.
and if there will be a standarization set by google i believed it will not againts a spirit of an open source
I think the hardware that the WinCE (well...the shoe still fits) and Android phones are made on is essentially the same, in terms of the CPU power, the actual CPUs, the memory and the various other systems (graphics, etc.). Maybe not identical but overlapping classes and performance.
I haven't played with the new WinPhones but have noticed that every Android phone, no matter how fast and how "bare" factory, sometimes goes out to lunch. Apparently that's just the way the OS is written, it sometimes goes off to do other things internally (loading code? checking hardware states?) and you can't do anything except wait for it to come back.
But then again, almost every OS does that at times, including the main Windows OSes. That's just how they are done these days. If you had a cell phone fifteen year ago, you could turn it on and dial NOW. With any of the new cell phones? Can you do a cold power up and have a functioning phone in less than 30 seconds? Uh, no. But they call that progress, because you rarely have to power them off these days.
Every OS has tradeoffs, if the WinPhone makes you happier, by all means do it.
Rred said:
I think the hardware that the WinCE (well...the shoe still fits) and Android phones are made on is essentially the same, in terms of the CPU power, the actual CPUs, the memory and the various other systems (graphics, etc.). Maybe not identical but overlapping classes and performance.
I haven't played with the new WinPhones but have noticed that every Android phone, no matter how fast and how "bare" factory, sometimes goes out to lunch. Apparently that's just the way the OS is written, it sometimes goes off to do other things internally (loading code? checking hardware states?) and you can't do anything except wait for it to come back.
But then again, almost every OS does that at times, including the main Windows OSes. That's just how they are done these days. If you had a cell phone fifteen year ago, you could turn it on and dial NOW. With any of the new cell phones? Can you do a cold power up and have a functioning phone in less than 30 seconds? Uh, no. But they call that progress, because you rarely have to power them off these days.
Every OS has tradeoffs, if the WinPhone makes you happier, by all means do it.
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I agree with you, I do like both OS's for their own benefits, currently I do like WP7 better than Android and keeps me "happy". However if you notice; that's not my prime motive in starting this thread, I didn't come here to say one is better than the other. I just want to know why those two simple things (scrolling and pinch zooming) are not fluid on Android. You can't use the excuse that it's different hardware because Microsoft is playing that trick too. You can't use the "its busy doing other things" excuse either, while WP7 doesn't have multi-tasking, iOS does (somewhat) so it can go "do" something else but will still feel fluid. In a multi-OEM environment it is up to the OEM to optimize it for the device it runs on, which is why it baffles me that even Sense and MotoBlur and others make performance decline a bit and still has the lag. Shouldn't it be the opposite?
Nothing? So no one can tell me why Android's responsiveness (scrolling, pinch-zooming) sucks?
Luisraul924 said:
Nothing? So no one can tell me why Android's responsiveness (scrolling, pinch-zooming) sucks?
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The answer is quite simple (and the above replies are miles off the mark). Hardware acceleration.
WP7 has it, Android doesn't.
FloatingFatMan said:
The answer is quite simple (and the above replies are miles off the mark). Hardware acceleration.
WP7 has it, Android doesn't.
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So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS? I thought it was mainly just the XNA and Silverlight stuff that was accelerated (I do believe those are different than native OS code, as Microsoft isnt allowing developers to write apps with native code. Future compatibility issues I guess)
Of course it's the entire OS. Why do you think MS's minimum spec stipulations are so high? This is what Windows Mobile was so plagued with, and how MS fixed that problem.
Luis-
"So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS?"
It isn't so much that the hardware acceleration runs in the OS, but that the hardware itself has certain routines built into it, on the firmware level, so the OS can just call those routines instead of trying to calculate them.
To oversimplify a bit, for instance, a hardware accelerator for "zoom in" might be programmed into the video chip system to automatically tell it "take the 50 pixels around this spot and blow up up to 250 pixels, refresh screen" where the OS would be saying "OK, let's take this spot, draw a square with a 50 pixel radius around it, now let's take each of those pixels and transpose it over twice the radius and go fill..." sending a long slow string of commands, each computed by the CPU.
When the CPU can offload all of that into a simple "zoom" command to the video chip, the CPU is now free to do other things. Like, respond to your next input, or push the next menu onto the display.
When you have ironclad control over the hardware--it can be a great way to make systems faster. And more stable.
Rred said:
Luis-
"So the hardware acceleration runs throughout the entire OS?"
It isn't so much that the hardware acceleration runs in the OS, but that the hardware itself has certain routines built into it, on the firmware level, so the OS can just call those routines instead of trying to calculate them.
To oversimplify a bit, for instance, a hardware accelerator for "zoom in" might be programmed into the video chip system to automatically tell it "take the 50 pixels around this spot and blow up up to 250 pixels, refresh screen" where the OS would be saying "OK, let's take this spot, draw a square with a 50 pixel radius around it, now let's take each of those pixels and transpose it over twice the radius and go fill..." sending a long slow string of commands, each computed by the CPU.
When the CPU can offload all of that into a simple "zoom" command to the video chip, the CPU is now free to do other things. Like, respond to your next input, or push the next menu onto the display.
When you have ironclad control over the hardware--it can be a great way to make systems faster. And more stable.
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Great answer. Makes sense, thanks. Now given that this is an Android section lets talk more on that, will it ever be possible to have hardware acceleration on Android, Whether it be through custom ROMs or OEM devices?
"will it ever be possible to have hardware acceleration on Android,"
Possible? Sure, I've seen pigs on the wing.<G> Don't hold your breath for it though. Android is an unruly place where even ordinary hardware is often not supported by the OS and software breaks on every new phone. In order for hardware acceleration to work, the OS needs to have routines and drivers for standard hardware, which means locking down a hardware spec. Which is so very Undroid.
Can't see that happening, unless ten year from now someone invents a "standard universal Android cell phone chipset" and all the manufacturers get paid to exclusively use it. That's the ticket--use our chipset, we'll pay you to use it, and oh, yes, it will play one of "our" ads every time your screen turns on. Or you launch a new app. Or place a call.
(See? Things could get worse!<G>)
Here's an interesting discussion...
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
burtcom said:
Here's an interesting discussion...
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914
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Well as far as I read, it was just a bunch of "me too" and "I agree" lol I got bored reading that I still dont think Google has an official statement on the matter do they?
I got my G Tablet last week and replaced the stock ROM with Cyanogenmod 7. For the most part, it's elicited more oo's and aah's and wow's from me than cursing, but there are some aspects of the Android "app environment" (or whatever you'd call it) that really bug me.
One of the big reasons I bought this was to do light productivity on the go. However, apparently my definition of "light" is far more heavy-duty than app developers' definition of "light." I simply cannot believe that there is no app which lets you edit Word documents in "Print Layout" view, so it's not really possible to know what the actual formatting will be like in the end.
To edit Powerpoint presentations I've only tried Documents-to-Go prof., but I'm flumoxed that it doesn't let you edit the text in the slide itself, but sends you to a different screen that displays the text only. I'm in the sciences, so I suppose I make very complex PPT slides compared to most people, and I need to be able to dynamically alter things and see what they look like while I'm editting them. Yes, I realize now that PPT editing is relatively new across productivity suites for the Android, but I'm still very disappointed.
Anyone care to make an educated guess about the future of Android productivity? Especially since I can get a case with a built-in keyboard I was having high hopes for my Android tablet, but it looks like my dream office app is just not available.
Sweet.
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I was surprised that mame does not exist for android. I thought mame has been ported to pretty much everything, so surely there must be a version for android right? I know there is a version of mame that plays cp2 games and supports a couple of other types of hardware, but I'm referring to old school games (pac-man, frogger etc).
I'd like there to be a more robust mame for android. Something that supports all the roms as it does on the desktop. Obviously if it's a more modern rom and the cpu of your android device isn't enough for it, then it won't run well.
Again, for me personally it would be mainly the classic arcade games.
Most I can imagine working well, some wouldn't (like say defender just cause of it's control scheme).
Anyway, I'd really like to see this happen, but someone mentioned on another forum that developers don't want to as mame is opensource and they couldn't sell a closed source version. Actually, just reading the mame page it states:
"Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity." It also goes on to say the source code would have to be released.
Would a donation fund be in conflict with the above? Hmm, probably so I assume. But again, it would be paying a developer a one-time fee for his service of porting and not the final product per say. Once he/she claims this bounty, it would be free to all others. Can anyone chime in if that would be in conflict?
Would any developer be interested in this? What would be a fair amount for this work? If I started this fund with even a small amount of say 10 dollars, if 10 others did, obviously it would only be 100.00. But maybe after some time 100 would. Would 1000.00 be worth it to a developer to take this task? I have no clue how difficult this would be to port to android (c to java porting). Obviously, some type of custom overlay controls would be needed as well in addition, a touch based frontend for launching the games.
Companies (atari etc) may not like the existence of emulators and I know roms bring up issues and would never be distributed, but emulators alone are completely legal.
Hey woah... Hold up on all the replies. One at a time folks.
I'm a little surprised, no one is interested to see mame on android? After productivity apps it was the first thing I thought of when I thought of gaming on my android. I've waited a while to see if things would happen, so now I thought of this idea.
No one is interested?
You won't be seeing recent versions of MAME running on Android at any point soon. The performance requirements for MAME have gone up drastically as MAME gets more and more accurate with its emulation. As such, you're only going to see older versions of MAME being used in stuff like phones, such as MAME 0.37 or below.
And for someone like you who really wants the older classics, running an older version of MAME would be better for you anyways unless you'd want to see the classics stutter and be almost unplayable.
I haven't been actively following mame development as of late,but I do remember when they changed from sound samples in asteroids and the CPU requurements went up drastically. But that was a unique case of emulating analog circuitry. So I'd be surprised if the requirements went up dramatically for say pacman.
But fine let's say you are right point taken. I would have no qualms with mame . 35 or whatever. But again few seem interested.
Besides the ones in the market?
http://www.appbrain.com/app/jrioni-arcade-full-version/com.jrioni.jarcade
Or this?
http://g-arcade.appspot.com/
g arcade only supports:
Capcom CPS-1,CPS-2,Cave
Neo Geo (make sure neogeo.zip(bios file) is in the same folder)
Taito, Toaplan
That's the one I was referring to initially. Not interested in that.
jroini I saw before and was under the impression it only supported modern hardware similar to g arcade but it seems I was wrong. However it is a commercial app and not in compliance with the mame license. From it's blog:
http://jrioni-arcade.blogspot.com/
Starting at the next release, Jarcade will no longer contain MAME core engine in order to be compliant with MAME license.
I'll separate all android related work from MAME core engine including UI/touch control, opengl rendering, screen preview/Cabinet, video/sound filter, file handling...etc.
There will be a separate MAME engine APK which will be open-source and free to download from Market.
What does this mean to you?
You'll need to download and install MAME APK separately.
Again, this is needed in order to continue supporting the project.
I hope you understand
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So it sounds like mame will be free and what he'll be charging for is the android gui?
Anyway, I'll look into this option further.
See my recent post. I have ported my iOS mame 0.37b5 Mame4all port called iMAME4all to Android. It's called MAME4droid. No stutter with correct hw without filtering
Let you play all classic
Hey! I just came here to spread the word! I just found this yesterday.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!
Just some comments. Not really related to your app but I have roms of a modern set and having difficulty converting my roms. I believe I understand how clrmamepro works (although I think the interface is clunky) and I didn't see any errors in conversion (using your dat file) but yet over half my roms won't work saying they are missing files. I used to use a different program for rom sets but I can't recall it's name as it has been a number of years. Even if it's still around, I assume you don't have a dat file for other rom conversion utilities. I can't recall if dat files are universal. I guess I could grab an exe of mame 37 and use that as it's reference.
On your program, great stuff! My only complaint is the actual controls unfortunately. And this may not be a fault of your software, rather my inability to get accustomed to touch based controls. Even in the menu to select a game I keep accidentally trigger a left or right and go down a full page. I have to be calm and patient just to select a game. I'm not sure how this can be resolved though. There is a dead zone option but no fine tuning. Maybe that would help. Or even an option to scale the control size? I realize that may start to overlap the game, but for good controls I'd sacrifice that.
What I think does need changing is the threshold for trackballs. I tried playing attaxx (a turn based game, so it doesn't require twitch skills) and even on the lowest trackball sensitivity setting I couldn't play it.
Also, is there a way to get into the dip switches of games? (difficulty, # of lives etc).
Finally, some games I prefer the bootleg version. If I have them in a merged set does it recognize that? For ex, with galaxians I prefer super galaxians that has the alternate board layout. Do I need to make separate rom set for that and not a merged set? Also, galaxians enemies shots seem to flicker more than I recall in mame on a pc. But a minor gripe.
Anyway, my only real gripe is the controls and that may just be my inexperience with touch based controls. But man, try and play frogger (which requires someone to let go and and then re-push in a direction) I could barely get a frogger to his home!
Regardless, thanks again. Android really needed this!
MAME is meant to be played on with buttons and real joysticks.
Yes I realize that, however things might be able to be changed to make the controls more usable. The trackball sensitivity definitely needs adjusting. And maybe a tweak for the deadzone option (like set a threshold value?).
sark666 said:
Also, is there a way to get into the dip switches of games? (difficulty, # of lives etc).
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Press Coin + Start at the same time
So, I've been at this for about 48 hours now (not continuously, but closer than you might think) and I figured I should take a break from modifying project files and puzzling over alignment issues to discuss the project, share some of the problems I've been having and ask if anybody can help, and so on.
The general idea is "Chromium build for Windows (on x86/x64) and build on ARM (for Linux), so there must be a way to build it for Windows on ARM". For the most part, that even looks like it's true. Probably at least 80% of 654 Visual Studio projects (no, that's not a joke) either build just fine with only minor amounts of work, or are things that we don't actually need (I'll try building the test suites... once everything else builds!!)
Areas that have given me problems (caution: some chance of brief rants ahead):
v8. Less than you might think, though. Setting the flags for Arm seems to have been enough.
Sandbox. There's a fair bit of thunking coded in assembly going on in the sandbox for x86. Not sure what's up with it (I don't know exactly how the Chromium sandbox works) but it'll have to come out or be replaced. The Linux (including ARM) sandbox seems to be SELinux-based, which doesn't help at all.
Native Client (NaCl). I think all the assembly is in test code, though, so I may just boldly #ifdef if all away.
libjpg-turbo (libjpg). Piles of carefully optimized assembly... for x86 and x64. There is a set of ARM assembly (for Linux) that Visual Studio won't compile, but something else might... or I may tweak until it works. Of course, I could also just accept the speed hit and use the version of libjpg implemented in nice, portable C.
Anything where the developers tried to use some SSE to speed things up. I may be able to replace it with NEON code, or I may just remove it and hope **** doesn't break. We'll see.
Inline assembly in general. Even when it's ARM assembly, Visual Studio / CL.exe don't want anything to do with it (__asm is apparently now an invalid keyword). I suspect I'll have to just pull the assembly out into stand-alone functions in their own files, then compile them to object files and link them back in later. If I can figure out the best way to do this (for example, I'll want to inline the asm functions) then it shouldn't impact performance. Seriously though, I kind of hate inline assembly. I can read assembly just fine, but I'm usually staring at it in a debugger or disassembly tool, not in the middle of source code I'm trying to build...
Everywhere that the current state of the CPU is cared about (exception and crash handlers, in particular) because the CONTEXT structure is, of course, CPU-specific. They're pretty easy to get past, though.
Low-level functions, like MemoryBarrier. Fortunately, it's implemented in ntdll.h... but as a macro, which breaks at least half the places it's referenced. Solution: where it breaks things, undefine the macro and just have it be an inline function that does what the macro did.
Running out of memory. Not even joking... well, OK, a little bit. I've got 32GB; I won't actually run out. Both Visual Studio and cl.exe do at times, though!. Task Manager says VS is currently using 1,928 MB, and before I restarted it, it broke 2.5GB private working set. Pretty good for a program that for some reason is still 32-bit...
Goddamn compiler flags. Seriously, every single project (I mentioned there are over 600, right?) has its LIBPATHs hardcoded to point at x86. Several projects have /D:_X86_ or similar (that's supposed to be set by the build tools, not the user, you idiots...) which plays merry hell with the #ifdef guards. Everything has /SAFESEH specified, not in the actual property table where the IDE could have removed it (unneeded and invlaid on ARM) but in the "extra stuff we'll pass on the build command line" field, which means every single .EXE/.DLL project must be modified or the linker will fail.
My current biggest goal is the JPG library; nobody wants to use a browser without it. After that, I'll tackle the sandbox, leaving NaCl for last... well, last before whatever else crops up.
Anyhow, thoughts/comments/advice are welcome... in the mean time, I'm going to go eat something (for the first time in ~22 hours) and then get some sleep.
Kudos for having the patience to look though this monster.
It's my understanding that NaCl is still a pretty niche thing at the moment. Is it possible to easily either disable it or completely hack it out, or do other more critical parts of Chromium now depend on it?
I don't think anything truly depends on it. I'll look in the VS dependency hierarchy and see how many things list it, and how awful it would be to remove them.. after I get the other stuff working. I may pass on the sandbox as well, if possible; it makes the security guy in me cringe something awful, but as they say, shipping is a feature..
great
Please make that happen !
Working on it! I've gotten over half of the projects to build and link, but some other stuff is adamantly refusing to work. I'm beginning to suspect I'll need to work from the other direction - rather than starting at the bottom and building all the dependencies, then combining them into browser components, and then eventually combining all the components into a complete piece of software, I may have to work from the top, removing components until the whole thing builds (at which point it will likely be useless, or all-but) and then seeing what I can add back in. I thought it would be faster to just assume everything can be made to work and only exclude something if it proved intractable, but at this point I've got a ton of very small components and almost no ability to combine them.
It would also help if VS was better at managing such truly immense tasks. For example, I have no simple graph of what all is and is not building, so I'm being forced to manually map that onto the VS dependency tree and see what is blocking a given component from building successfully, and how much is dependent upon it, one erroring project at a time (and there are a *lot* of erroring projects - my last attempt to build any substantial part of the system saw 50 of 400 projects fail).
GoodDayToDie said:
Working on it! I've gotten over half of the projects to build and link, but some other stuff is adamantly refusing to work. I'm beginning to suspect I'll need to work from the other direction - rather than starting at the bottom and building all the dependencies, then combining them into browser components, and then eventually combining all the components into a complete piece of software, I may have to work from the top, removing components until the whole thing builds (at which point it will likely be useless, or all-but) and then seeing what I can add back in. I thought it would be faster to just assume everything can be made to work and only exclude something if it proved intractable, but at this point I've got a ton of very small components and almost no ability to combine them.
It would also help if VS was better at managing such truly immense tasks. For example, I have no simple graph of what all is and is not building, so I'm being forced to manually map that onto the VS dependency tree and see what is blocking a given component from building successfully, and how much is dependent upon it, one erroring project at a time (and there are a *lot* of erroring projects - my last attempt to build any substantial part of the system saw 50 of 400 projects fail).
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I thinkt tht is a mutch better taktic and mutch less frustrading.
I would love to see just a minimal version of it. After that all the small componens can follow.
50 of 400 is pretty good i think. Better then i expected
Bear in mind that the entire thing is 650 projects. If 50 fail at that level, many of the higher-level ones (dependent upon the lower-level) will fail too. I'll see what I can do. I may or may not be able to get v8 actually working (without it, the JS speed will be very bad, think IE8 at best) and I may have to fall back to the legacy libjpeg (which will cut JPEG render speeds by at least a factor of 2). Skia (2D drawing library used by Chrome) has a bunch of assembly optimizations that I need to get it to use the Arm version of instead. There's a couple of total hacks with the library files I've had to pull, which may or may not result in a working final build. We'll see.
GoodDayToDie said:
Bear in mind that the entire thing is 650 projects. If 50 fail at that level, many of the higher-level ones (dependent upon the lower-level) will fail too. I'll see what I can do. I may or may not be able to get v8 actually working (without it, the JS speed will be very bad, think IE8 at best) and I may have to fall back to the legacy libjpeg (which will cut JPEG render speeds by at least a factor of 2). Skia (2D drawing library used by Chrome) has a bunch of assembly optimizations that I need to get it to use the Arm version of instead. There's a couple of total hacks with the library files I've had to pull, which may or may not result in a working final build. We'll see.
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the v8 engine ( used in nodejs ) has been ported to ARM :
I still can't link : htt p://ww w.it-wars.com/article305/compiler-node-js-pour-arm-v5
perhaps it will help you
Edit : oups, I just see that another great user of this forum made the port of nodejs to RT
Yep... but they did it without v8. That's not an encouraging result, but I feel like I'm so close...
Is there a GitHub repo so we can help or track the progress of the project ?
Sorry, not at present. There probably should be. The sheer size of the codebase is incredible (about 2.4GB) and having some way to share it practically would be good.
Also, I suspect this would go a lot faster if I don't have to repeat the work of others. I know that there's a working Webkit DLL out there, for example (though with several features, including the V8 JS engine, missing) and if I could get my hands on that it would drastically reduce the number of additional components I need to build. Currently I'm working on the sandbux, but expect that I will need to rip the whole thing out and basically have the browser run as though it was always passed the --no-sandbox parameter, at least for the first build. Too damn much assembly.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/22/google-chrome-native-client-arm-support/
This wouldn't have any impact on this project, would it?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda-developers app, complete with annoying signatures.
It probably means that NaCl on Windows RT will be possible in the future. At present, I'm cutting it out of the build - too much x86-specific stuff there to port it over myself, and it owuldn't be able to run x86-compiled NaCl code anyhow.
You might have bit off more than you could chew. It'd better if you put your current progress under version control on some public site so that other people may be able to help you.
It's a big and complex project. You are taking a lot of time, and understandably so. But just open up to other people and you could get this done faster.
Yeah, this is probably true. My life also got unexpectedly *busy* in the last week; a couple weeks ago I had many times as much free time as I do now, and so porting has slowed down.
My upload speed would take ages (literally probably at least a day of solid activity; it's embarassingly slow) to push the full source anywhere, but I may make the effort anyhow. I'll have to post it somewhere for GPL compliance in any case...
You may upload only the diff files, they'll probably be smaller then the whole distribution.
Not to pour cold water on you however, IE10 is already faster than the latest Chrome build in Windows Phone, Windows 8.
I don't see the point of this.
I have personally jumped from IE8 > FF > Chrome and finally back to IE10 over the years depends on its usability, smoothness, speed, etc
Speed isn't the only reason to use a browser. I actually prefer IE myself, but there are some things that other browsers do better than it (in the case of Chrome, parts of HTML5, the syncing across Google services, etc.) Also, Chrome gets updated far more often than IE; IE9 was equal with Chrome on speed at its release, and was far behind by the time IE10 came out.
The reason for this project, though, is a mixture of interest in what it takes, and a desire to benefit the community. Microsoft has deeped that only software which they have blessed may run on the Windows RT desktop. I disagree, and have chosen (among several other things) to port a web browser because I feel that it's important for users to have choice.
LastBattle said:
Not to pour cold water on you however, IE10 is already faster than the latest Chrome build in Windows Phone, Windows 8.
I don't see the point of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some websites do not get along with the trident rendering engine. Some webdevs are so "Oh f*** IE I don't care" and block access to features just because it is IE. I have experienced this first hand on IE10 on my surface where it tells me to come back when I have a decent browser, only to not have the choice to do that.
This really isn't the webdevs fault either, for years IE was the scum of the internet, only recently has IE caught up to the rest of the browsers (and in my opinion exceeded some) but the years of IE being bad have left a lot of disjointed webdevs who won't even consider giving the latest IE a chance.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I HAVE RESOLVED THIS ISSUE BY DOING THE FOLLOWING:
1) Root the SM-P900 using ODIN. (it's a breeze to do - just follow the directions!)
2) Install TWRP recovery and then do a full TWRP backup of your device.
3) Download & Install the new "Hyperdrive Note Pro 12.2 KK RLS1.1" ROM from here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-note-pro-12/development/rom-hyperdrive-kk-rls1-tab-s-t2986949
Follow the directions for installing this ROM very closely. As recommended, FULLY WIPE your device - everything except the external SD card - BEFORE installing the new ROM.
4) Download the AOSP "MAIL" APK and "Exchange Services" APK from here: *SEE NOTES BELOW
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/exchange-services/exchange-services-6-2-1158763-apk/
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/email/email-6-3-1218562-apk/
These are "Exchange Services 6.2-1158763" and "Email 6.3-1218562", respectively. (These are the last stock, Android versions before the forced upgrade/merge to Gmail)
5) Install (side-load) the Exchange Services APK and then Email APK - from whatever folder you downloaded the files to.
* NOTES:
A) Side-loading is necessary because the Play Store will recognize that you have an SM-P900 and won't allow the install. It has nothing to do with compatibility, but rather agreements made between Samsung and Google (and likely Apple, as well), to prevent you from doing this.
B) Replacing the Samsung Email with AOSP Email is required for a complete fix because the Samsung app seems to side-step the re-enabling of the red-underline spell-check. In other words, your new, working spell check will work nearly everywhere - except inside the stock Samsung Email app!
C) These are NOT the most recent versions of Exchange and Mail, but they are the last ones before GMAIL swallowed MAIL - and I prefer the stock AOSP MAIL. If you install a higher version, you will be forced to 'upgrade' to the GMAIL app during installation. It's up to you, of course.
I'M SURE YOU WILL BE AS HAPPY AS I AM - FINALLY!
PLEASE DONATE TO THE DEVELOPER, sbreen94 - HE'S DONE SOMETHING REALLY GOOD AND INVESTED A LOT OF TIME FOR A VERY ESOTERIC DEVICE - THE P900 - WITH A SMALL USER-BASE.
THE ROM PROVIDES MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN A SPELLING-CORRECTION FIX - THAT'S JUST MY THING. OUT-OF-THE-BOX, THIS ROM IS STOCK TOUCHWIZ - EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE USED TO, INCLUDING FULL S-PEN SUPPORT AND ALL THE SAMSUNG APPS (OR WHICHEVER ONES YOU WANT - YOU CAN CHOISE DURUNG JNSTALL).
HOWEVER, IT 'UNLOCKS' TW AND ALLOWS YOU TO TWEAK MANY VISUAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS, TO YOUR LIKING. AS THE DEVELOPER SAYS ABOUT THE ROM...
"Touchwiz how I think it should be: The latest Samsung Tab S Software features as well as a Fully Customizable User Interface on the fly as well as excellent performance and battery life."
LASTLY, BE AWARE THAT THIS ROM IS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE SM-P900 NOTE PRO 12.2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm desperate! I can type faster and with fewer mistakes on my puny, 5-year-old iPhone 3GS than I can on my HUGE Note Pro 12.2 horizontal keyboard. Predictive text is retarded. I'm tired of fighting with auto-replace. All I want is a little red line under each of my misspelled words, like in the old days - before Samsung crippled Android. I've tried Anysoft, Hacker's, Google,... as Gordon Gecko once said, "different dog, same fleas".
I've stock-rooted the tablet with CF. What next? I'll install any mod or keyboard that does this simple thing. I don't care about the warranty, or if the UI ends up looking like Windows 1.0 and sharp pins jump out at every virtual key-press, puncturing my fingertips as I type - just show me the misspelled words before I click 'Send'!
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Proper keyboard spelling check....
treetopsranch said:
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your timely reply. In the context of a Windows PC, for example, I would wholly agree with you - that spell check is provided by the host application; however, it seems that in the mobile world, a different approach was taken, with the 'keyboard' providing a unified spelling correction that behaved identically within all applications. This is very evident in iOS, and is well documented as a mysteriously disappearing keyboard option ("Underline Misspelled Words") in fairly recent Samsung distributions of Android. KitKat seems to be where the trouble really started, and some claim that this was among the casualties of the Apple-Samsung patent wars. Placing a red line under an unrecognized word, after the spacebar is pressed or navigating away from it, seems well within the means of a keyboard app. That simple red line is all I'm looking for.
Other (non-Samsung) Kitkat devices appear to still have it....
...Owners of HTC devices, running KitKat, claim to still have the 'Underline misspelled words' option in their keyboard options.
No underlines for you!
treetopsranch said:
Pretty sure that apps handle misspelled words like MS Word does using Windows. So you need to find a android word processor that handles spell checking. Maybe someone here has a recommendation for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've always understood that if I failed to ‘fix' this deficiency, I would have to find an email client with its own spelling correction, "like MS Word does using Windows", either utilizing its own dictionary or one of the two already installed in the tablet - stock Samsung or Anysoft.
Last night, I did some research and landed on ‘MailDroid', having a true spell checker among its many other impessive features. So, I installed the ad-paid version to test it out, fully prepared to fork over $22 for the ‘Pro' version. Email is my main concern, so I was getting excited! Installation was a breeze and within 2 or 3 minutes I was up and running with 2 accounts. And, yes, misspelled words were immediately underlined in red!!! Yipppeeeee!!!! Such a feature-rich, $22 app surely comes with its own dictionary, right?
So, just for fun, I disabled WIFI and tried to compose an email, offline. Then I felt something happening around my feet. I looked down and saw a Google API flopping around on the carpet, gasping for air. It was tring to say something, so I got closer and I could hear it muttering "feed me, feed me".
When I bought this tablet 6 months ago, I just expected it to work at least as well as my 5-year-old Apple 3GS. For a couple of months, I just figured that I wasn't understanding something, that I just needed to find that one setting - it was just hiding somewhere in unfamiliar Android territory. Some folks would say things like "No, it's not like that. Just play with the auto-replace and word prediction settings, or try another keyboard." Well, I did all of that and I'm sorry - Apple does a way better job with automatic correction - even identifying and separating words that are both misspelled and conjoined with errantly typed letters from the bottom row! And the few mistakes that do get past this magic are UNDERLINED IN RED! All applications that require text entry enjoy this unified writing tool... and all of it works even in ‘Airplane Mode' - offline!
There are two installed, accessible, LOCAL dictionaries on my tablet - including stock Samsung... Asking why an email client ]needs to go online for a dictionary is entirely rhetorical - especially when Google is involved.
One of the reasons I bought an Android tablet (and ultimately rooted it) - as well as being a protest vote against Apple's authoritarian control over what I do with MY mobile device - was to gain at least some control over unnecessary permissions, personal data leakage and data mining...
But, it feels like there's a trap - or a beaten-down conformist holding a sign that says "That's just the way it is" - everywhere I step. :crying:
WOW! You did a great job explaining this android dictionary stuff to me. I suspect the app 'Maildroid' didn't have a dictionary installed because of memory concerns. Dictionaries take up lots of space in memory. But, Hey, Word had one for XP in the days when we had very little memory on our machines 10 years ago. So that is really no excuse. A major fault for android devices in my book.
swiftkey keyboard app
Phuyuk said:
I'm desperate! I can type faster and with fewer mistakes on my puny, 5-year-old iPhone 3GS than I can on my HUGE Note Pro 12.2 horizontal keyboard. Predictive text is retarded. I'm tired of fighting with auto-replace. All I want is a little red line under each of my misspelled words, like in the old days - before Samsung crippled Android. I've tried Anysoft, Hacker's, Google,... as Gordon Gecko once said, "different dog, same fleas".
I've stock-rooted the tablet with CF. What next? I'll install any mod or keyboard that does this simple thing. I don't care about the warranty, or if the UI ends up looking like Windows 1.0 and sharp pins jump out at every virtual key-press, puncturing my fingertips as I type - just show me the misspelled words before I click 'Send'!
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiftkey key board app allows you to use a physical bluetooth key board and still have spell check for the win. AWSOME!!! Get the app at play store for free.
Swiftkey? Are you serious?
samsunggoliath said:
Swiftkey key board app allows you to use a physical bluetooth key board and still have spell check for the win. AWSOME!!! Get the app at play store for free.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiftkey? You think i haven't already tried that? And adding a physical keyboard - defeating the purpose of having a physically-simple, stand-alone communication device - to this [email protected]!%& top-of-the-line, most-expensive-Android-tablet-in the-world - that I paid over $800 for with a memory card? Really?
I have a better idea: Invest not one more penny in this mistake, cut my losses, and get a different kind of keyboard - one that comes with a screen and does what it was designed to do, correctly.... and I will not have to patch it up with goofy solutions because it will also have Windows or Ubuntu built-in- at no extra cost! Wait a second... I already own one - this isn't going to cost me a cent!
BTW, since I first posted on this topic, I bought - directly from China, a new Android Kitkat phone - made by Foxconn. I had it in 5 days and Including shipping, it cost me less than $200, has a lovely 5" 300ppi screen, quad-core Snapdragon, all of the sensors known to mankind, a decent camera (front and back), and a real FM radio! Oh, and you know what else it has?!? Oh, c'mon... you know what's coming.... AN INTEGRATED, UNIVERSAL, ANDROID SPELLING CHECKER WITH RED LINES UNDER EVERY SPELLING MISTAKE! I don't need to get a keyboard or pay for more software because it already does what it's supposed to do! I can type an error-free paragraph, with confidence, more than twice as fast on that little phone than I can on this overpriced piece of TouchWiz.
And that is the problem - TouchWiz. Samsung lost a lawsuit and quietly crippled the OS with Touchwiz. Sadly, since this tablet is so overpriced to begin with, not many people bought it, not many accessories have been made for it, and more importantly, no front-end, TouchWiz-replacements have been developed for / ported to it as has been done for nearly every other Samsung device.
Like I said in an earlier post... it feels like there's a trap - or a beaten-down conformist holding a sign that says "That's just the way it is" - everywhere I step.
Problem FIXED!!!
Please read the EDITED FIRST POST in this thread.
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