The Icon Bar: News and features: New telnet client, browser (updated)
Posted by Richard Goodwin on 12:27, 3/9/2001
| RISC OS, Open source, Acorn, Site, Internet
 The telnet client - Nettle - is rather nifty with support for hotlists, numerous terminal types and colour display with full editing; as such it compares favourably with old war horse FreeTerm. As for the browser, don't get too excited, it's a port of Lynx, the text-only browser much used on Unix machines. Peter Naull's Website: http://www.chocky.org/unix/
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New telnet client, browser (updated) |
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(13:45 3/9/2001)
Andrew Sidwell (13:49 3/9/2001)
Peter Naulls (14:21 3/9/2001)
Cherie mugabe (15:08 3/9/2001)
Gerph (15:57 3/9/2001)
Michael Stubbs (16:22 3/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (18:21 3/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (18:26 3/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (18:29 3/9/2001)
Peter Naulls (18:43 3/9/2001)
Peter Price (20:49 3/9/2001)
Ian Jeffray (21:21 3/9/2001)
Peter Naulls (21:34 3/9/2001)
Gerph (21:38 3/9/2001)
Daniel Barron (22:37 3/9/2001)
Geoff Youngs (10:13 4/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (10:32 4/9/2001)
Guest (10:42 4/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (10:43 4/9/2001)
Sendu Bala (11:59 4/9/2001)
Ian Jeffray (12:12 4/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (13:11 4/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (13:27 4/9/2001)
Mr Jake Monkeyson (16:34 4/9/2001)
Rich Mackin (11:32 5/9/2001)
Richard Goodwin (16:50 5/9/2001)
Rob Dimond (18:38 6/9/2001)
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Ian Jeffray |
Message #89023, posted at 13:45, 3/9/2001 |
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Actually, Nettle was mainly developed by Alex Macfarlane Smith, not Peter. Alex made it Opensource and put it on Sourceforge - there are now 5 main developers on the project (including myself :-) Get your Nettle at http://nettle.sourceforge.net/
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Andrew Sidwell |
Message #89024, posted at 13:49, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89023 |
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Interesting! It just so happens that I came across this news item when I was browsing with Lynx, just downloaded now. What a coincidence... |
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Peter Naulls |
Message #89025, posted at 14:21, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89024 |
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I'm a little offended by this article - as Ian as had said, Nettle was very much a joint effort by 5 people, which perhaps you might have found if you'd more carefully read whatever announcment it was that you'd read.
I take issue with the "only a port of Lynx" comment too - many people have been asking for this for sometime, and judging by the number of downloads I've had, met with great enthusiasm.
I challenge anyone to "only" port a program which is 5MB of source.
The teasing on newsgroups was about Lynx and BitchX - Nettle was merely a (willing) 3rd party.
Finally, the slowdown is mostly to do with keyboard input and taskwindows than anything else, and will be rectified in the next version - but you'd not bothered to ask me about that, either hard you? |
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Cherie mugabe |
Message #89026, posted at 15:08, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89025 |
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Yes, he is hard isn't he? ;-) |
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Gerph |
Message #89027, posted at 15:57, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89026 |
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I think I'd like to back up Peter's comments as 'only a port of Lynx' is hardly fair to the amount of work involved in it, or the number of 'attempts' there have been in the past that have failed.
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Michael Stubbs |
Message #89028, posted at 16:22, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89027 |
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Well then, is Peter the man to port Mozilla to RISC OS? ;-) |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89029, posted at 18:21, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89028 |
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Given that the newsgroup posting was entitled "New browser for..." I don't think people should really be getting their hopes up. Yes, people have asked for it, but it's not exactly Mozilla/Netscape 6 is it?
Come on guys, I know a lot of work's gone into it, but Lynx is just, well, Lynx. I use it myself, but only when there's nothing else available. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89030, posted at 18:26, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89029 |
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p.s. sorry about getting the Nettle thing wrong, I was in a rush - the even more strangled use of the English language than usual at the start of the post probably gives that away.
But why on earthwould you think I should ask why something's slow? If it's slow, it's slow; if an R-Comp game is slow I don't email the author and ask why, I just say it's slow.
Given that I've just spent two days trying to get a browser working on an old Mac 68K, I recognise that any port of Lynx is going to be a bit clunky; that's no reflection on your porting skills but comes from the original. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89031, posted at 18:29, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89030 |
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p.p.s. Internet Explorer 3 works better than Netscape 2 and 3 on an old Mac - N3 doesn't run because it requires 3 times the memory of IE, and N2 is just pants (like crashing on startup because the current Netscape home page is too complex for it :) ). So I'm using Microsoft software in the house for the first time. Now that's scary! :( |
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Peter Naulls |
Message #89032, posted at 18:43, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89031 |
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Why shouldn't they get their hopes up? Yes, it was a bit of a light-hearted joke, but it _is_ something that people have asked for. I certainly don't think you should be starting an "X is better than Lynx" debate. There are many many people who
choose Lynx (or Links, or W3M) over Netscape et al., for any number of technical or preferential reasons.
Why should you contact me - because what you essentially did was a review. I'm sure R-Comp would have expected similar contact if you were experiencing issues during a review of one of their games.
The original lynx certainly isn't clunky (well, perhaps compared to links it is), so I'm not sure where your reasoning comes from.
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Peter Price |
Message #89033, posted at 20:49, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89032 |
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Peter, you seem to be assuming that Richard _had_ to announce your announcement to a wider audience than your post would ever get in the newsgroups.
Surely it's not logical that you should flame the poor bloke for doing a job he's not paid for...
Rich, he's obviously not worth the effort - if I were you I'd delete his news item and concentrate on publishing news about people who will appreciate your effort.
Peter. |
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Ian Jeffray |
Message #89034, posted at 21:21, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89033 |
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Eh? Mr Price, hold on to your britches. You may be suprised to think that we believe credit should be paid where it's due. Peter didn't write Nettle single handedly, and DID do a lot of work to get these unix ports to run. Do you believe he should be misrepresented by the iconbar news article? Is that fair? Think not...
Maybe all us developers should just and pack up shop as our work seems undervalued? Oh. No. Wait. Look how many hundred downloads we've had... |
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Peter Naulls |
Message #89035, posted at 21:34, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89034 |
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I what? I made no such assumption about what Richard had to do at any time. It _did_ reach a much wider audience, and that was thanks to the kind listing on Acorn Search, and would have also been similiary so thanks to Drobe, but Chris didn't post the item he'd been chasing me all last week for.
Whether Richard chooses to or not to post an item is purely his choice, but if commentary isn't wanted, then forums like this shouldn't be provided, and if there are inaccuracies, then people will comment, as they have done on previous Iconbar articles.
Peter, commenting in the comments forum about article inaccuracies. |
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Gerph |
Message #89036, posted at 21:38, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89035 |
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Hang on a second... I don't think anyone is questioning that the publicity that both Drobe and Iconbar give to things; I think it's wonderful that you both produce such good news coverage and aren't into an amazing amount of rivaly.
And I don't think that Richard set out to misrepresent your work. It's just a rushed article that has a few off hand comments that could be taken the wrong way.
Please, don't fall out over this; Richard, I suggest you amend your wording to something suitable instead of the 'only Lynx'. Peter, calm down. I know I'm not one for handing out this advice because I know full well that you've given me it enough times in the past <laugh>. But let's be cool, guys.
Richard, you might like to say /why/ it only being lynx isn't so great. It's a text only browser; it doesn't do plugins. It doesn't do tables (well, maybe it does, but I thought that was only links and w3m, but that's why you're a journalist and I'm a pleb). And its unix lineage is the reason why it takes up more memory. Unix applications are notorious for assuming infinite resources. It's one reason why development is so much faster - they're not throttled by having to worry about restrictive memory requirements.
It'd be nice if Peter could give a little indication as to the technologoy behind the development of lynx. Because you'll notice that behind it we have a lot of developments that are very important to some people - there's the work on Nettle that spurred the work on UnixLib and in turn has provided more feedback for GCC and the development of more stable tools.
The development of lynx, and the related tools is actually very important, I feel.
Do an interview with Peter (Naulls), or the other developers who have spent many a night swearing as they fixed problems they never knew. I know that I've been an ear for Ian and I've been ungracious to Peter over it because we believe in slightly different things, but they have put in the effort.
Instead of bickering over minor points, let's make this something to be proud of.
Ok, sorry, that's a bit of a ramble. Ignore me if you wish. |
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Daniel Barron |
Message #89037, posted at 22:37, 3/9/2001, in reply to message #89036 |
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Well, to take a break from all that arguing...
Nettle is, without doubt, the best telnet program for RISC OS. It fixes all my niggles with other telnet apps. I am really looking forward to ssh support. |
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Geoff Youngs |
Message #89038, posted at 10:13, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89037 |
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... and Lynx is a definite asset - although it's stiffed my machine a couple of times (and I don't know whether that's Nettle's taskwindow support or Lynx), it is considerably more stable than my bodged version of ArcLynx (with Acorn URL fetcher support) running in druck's Graphic Taskwindows.
It also happens to be faster, far exceeds the feature list of ArcLynx and makes me feel as though I'm browsing properly :)
Well done Peter! |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89039, posted at 10:32, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89038 |
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"Browsing properly"? With no graphics, tables, nasty plugins... wait a minute, I'm disproving my own theory here aren't I? ;) |
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Guest |
Message #89040, posted at 10:42, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89039 |
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PeterP, keep your hair on, you should know by now that PeterN offends a few people with this abrupt personality. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89041, posted at 10:43, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89040 |
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I certainly don't think you should be starting an
"X is better than Lynx" debate.
At no point did I even mention X, which is a windowing system!
Modern browsers come with graphics capabilities and we've long been bemoaning the lack of plugin support, style sheets etc. etc., none of which Lynx can offer. Although Lynx is used - and indeed required - in certain specialised sectors, it's not a browser for the mainstream, which is the only point I was trying to get across.
Why should you contact me - because what you essentially did was a review. I'm sure R-Comp would have expected similar contact if you were experiencing issues during a review of one of their
games.
Er, no. I occasionally clarify things with some people because I happen to know them, but the reviewing process is seeing how the end product I have been given runs at that point, not in some future vapourware version. To accept "well, it's a bit bad now, but it'll be better in the next version, honest!" from a commercial release would be naive in the extreme, although of course we're not talking of a commercial port in this case.
Or indeed, a review.
The original lynx certainly isn't clunky (well, perhaps compared to links it is), so I'm not sure where your reasoning comes
from.
It (Lynx ported) takes up more memory and resources than Fresco, and about the same on the Mac version I've just installed. I don't know the resources it takes for the Linux version as I installed it automatically as part of the Linux install. However, on modern web pages it's not exactly a pleasure to use, more of a necessity.
I usually try to write for the "average" RISC OS user - which
I admit is a difficult concept to get a handle on fully sometimes - so while
Lynx is a useful piece of software and all power to you for porting it,
it'll never rival, say, Oregano 2 or a Mozilla port in the terms of news. Which of course is
turning out to be furture vapourware, so I'll shut up now ;) |
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Sendu Bala |
Message #89042, posted at 11:59, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89041 |
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Exactly Rich. Your commentry, specifically the 'only Lynx' bit was right on the money. The postings at tib are aimed at the readers and Rich has a good idea of what we're interested in. Browsers are important to us, so when he gets us all excited with mention of a new browser, he then makes it clear it aint no Oregano. That then lets us put the thing in context, and lets Rich go onto explain just what Lynx is about.
The only thing you can really fault with the posting is the misleading description of who authored nettle. |
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Ian Jeffray |
Message #89043, posted at 12:12, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89042 |
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Hey Rich, if you're aiming at the mainstream RISC OS user, then you should probably check your webserver logs about now and look at the browser info... mine's showing the majority of hits to be from RISC OS Lynx just now. ;-) |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89044, posted at 13:11, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89043 |
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Alas our logs have Internet Explorer number one with a bullet - although that's not to say that part of that isn't something like Fresco frigged to look like IE. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89045, posted at 13:27, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89044 |
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(tell a lie - I've checked and for the past four days Oregano comes out on top. But for every full month /before/ that... :) |
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Mr Jake Monkeyson |
Message #89046, posted at 16:34, 4/9/2001, in reply to message #89045 |
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I've just managed to install Mozilla, so I'm using that. |
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Rich Mackin |
Message #89047, posted at 11:32, 5/9/2001, in reply to message #89046 |
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> I certainly don't think you should be starting an "X is better than Lynx" debate.
I think "X" was meant in the context of "Insert-browser-name-here" rather than the X Window System. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89048, posted at 16:50, 5/9/2001, in reply to message #89047 |
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Looking at logs is fun...
Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Compatible; RISC OS 4.23; Oregano 1.10)
Mozilla/4.01 (Compatible; Acorn Phoenix 2.08 [intermediate]; RISC OS 4.23) |
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Rob Dimond |
Message #89049, posted at 18:38, 6/9/2001, in reply to message #89048 |
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I'm going to go against the trend and post a positive comment... Nettle is fantastic, congratulations guys!
Rob.
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The Icon Bar: News and features: New telnet client, browser (updated) |
The telnet client - Nettle - is rather nifty with support for hotlists, numerous terminal types and colour display with full editing; as such it compares favourably with old war horse FreeTerm.