I read the Chrome comic on Monday. It goes into technical detail in describing what their justification was for creating Chrome. By and large I think they succeeded: on the whole, Chrome doesn't appear to be a case of not-invented-hereism. They really do have some different ideas of how to do the browser, both technically and in the UI.

So yesterday I knew two things: Chrome was going to be crossplatform and the 30pg+ comic that went into some detail didn't say how they were planning to do that or anything about their UI toolkit.

So after poking at the code for a bit, it comes to no great surprise that crossplatform wasn't a big concern from the start. Currently the Linux version doesn't actually run, according to its website. And their UI toolkit choices might indeed have been based on some NIHism and are certainly not the most Linux or OS X friendly. Given how easy it is to create a crossplatform app if you make the correct early decisions, this is a bit frustrating.

They use Skia, a graphics library for Android for basic image display. And they have "Chromium Views" which mostly seem to be used to abstract between XP and Vista. It could theoretically be extended and used for crossplatform abstraction (just what the world needs - another xplatform api).

And why not Qt? "Existing UI toolkits for Windows are similarly unsatisfying, with limited widget sets, unnatural aesthetics, or awkward programming models. " Doesn't jive with my experience of Qt. But I guess I'm a bit partisan.

I do think that promising cross-platform support might have been a bit disingenuous of them, time will tell for sure. I suspect that if Linux desktop users do see Chrome, it will most likely be in the form of existing browsers incorporating some of their technology or ideas.

QtScript Bindings

If you've been following Peter Zhou's blogs, you know that he has been implementing QtScript support for Amarok. Probably the neatest thing we did is give access to almost the entire Qt API via the QtScript Binding Generator from Trolltech Labs. It uses technology from QtJambi; if you have Qt 4.4.1 and were wondering why Amarok gives a bunch of MetaJavaBuilder errors, this is why. (The bindings are disabled for Qt 4.4.0; we'll bump the Amarok dependency once 4.4.1 is more widespread).

I do think that the QtScript API is probably the most difficult Qt API to get the details right on. Your mind swirls with QScriptValue, QObjects and QVariants. But it is also quite powerful.

Since I had been sending the generators creator Kent Hanson emails regularly, I thought a mailing list would be a good idea to make it more public and useful. Join qtscript-bindings for discussion on the QtScript bindings in general. Kent also created a bug tracker and a Git repo. I created a mirror of it on repo.or.cz and posted the changes we've made to our SVN copy.

The beginnings of documentation for Amarok scripting are available and Richard Moore started a general Techbase article.

Console and Unnamed HTTP Server

The first script I created was an "irb" for Amarok's QtScript environment. This is available with Amarok SVN now, the "Amarok Script Console." It's quite handy to test out QtScript or to even test out the Qt API.

I've been working on a web control application for Amarok 2 using the new API. Using QTcpServer and QHttp, I have created a web server that should work well enough for what I'm doing. Now all that's left is the "little detail" of the HTML interface; I've been tinkering with qooxdoo, a very fancy JavaScript API.

One of my first sizable Amarok-related developments was to create the first kde-apps Amarok script in 2004 using Korundrum. So now its full circle.

Some Blog

The google news catcher sent me an indirect link to this Time-Warner blog: 3 Linux Apps That Make Me Hate Windows. He cites Synaptic, Compiz and Amarok. As much as you hear people gripe about package management on Linux, I really do think its one of its best features. Certainly from a security standpoint: going to a random web site and installing software just isn't something You Do on Linux, and I think thats for the best. And of course, it goes without saying that I agree Amarok is the best media player.

Everyone have fun at aKademy!

QtScript Bindings

If you've been following Peter Zhou's blogs, you know that he has been implementing QtScript support for Amarok. Probably the neatest thing we did is give access to almost the entire Qt API via the QtScript Binding Generator from Trolltech Labs. It uses technology from QtJambi; if you have Qt 4.4.1 and were wondering why Amarok gives a bunch of MetaJavaBuilder errors, this is why. (The bindings are disabled for Qt 4.4.0; we'll bump the Amarok dependency once 4.4.1 is more widespread).

I do think that the QtScript API is probably the most difficult Qt API to get the details right on. Your mind swirls with QScriptValue, QObjects and QVariants. But it is also quite powerful.

Since I had been sending the generators creator Kent Hanson emails regularly, I thought a mailing list would be a good idea to make it more public and useful. Join qtscript-bindings for discussion on the QtScript bindings in general. Kent also created a bug tracker and a Git repo. I created a mirror of it on repo.or.cz and posted the changes we've made to our SVN copy.

The beginnings of documentation for Amarok scripting are available and Richard Moore started a general Techbase article.

Console and Unnamed HTTP Server

The first script I created was an "irb" for Amarok's QtScript environment. This is available with Amarok SVN now, the "Amarok Script Console." It's quite handy to test out QtScript or to even test out the Qt API.

I've been working on a web control application for Amarok 2 using the new API. Using QTcpServer and QHttp, I have created a web server that should work well enough for what I'm doing. Now all that's left is the "little detail" of the HTML interface; I've been tinkering with qooxdoo, a very fancy JavaScript API.

One of my first sizable Amarok-related developments was to create the first kde-apps Amarok script in 2004 using Korundrum. So now its full circle.

Some Blog

The google news catcher sent me an indirect link to this Time-Warner blog: 3 Linux Apps That Make Me Hate Windows. He cites Synaptic, Compiz and Amarok. As much as you hear people gripe about package management on Linux, I really do think its one of its best features. Certainly from a security standpoint: going to a random web site and installing software just isn't something You Do on Linux, and I think thats for the best. And of course, it goes without saying that I agree Amarok is the best media player.

Everyone have fun at aKademy! I know I would be. :/

We're currently transitioning our blog from s9y to Drupal. For the time being people who blog on s9y itself are blogging there still, but the aggregation is already happening on Drupal so its a good time to change.

Add this feed if you want to follow the blogs of Amarok developers:
http://amarok.kde.org/planet.xml

As a Missourian and a person who thinks Belgium makes some of the best beer in the world, I've been following the story about the possible take over of Anheuser-Busch by Belgium beer-producer InBev with some interest. Personally I kind of want it to go through: it would hopefully mean the end of American beer being judged by its most tasteless examples. There is some good beer produced here. I think people would look at things differently if Bud Light becomes a Belgian beer.

It would also be very ironic and funny, which is mostly why I hope the deal will go through.

The article notes that "The takeover attempt has also run into a political backlash, as Anheuser-Busch, based in St. Louis, is an American icon. Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, has vowed to stop the deal." Which got me thinking: I would personally find it hilarious if people in Belgium started rallying against this deal due to the damage to their national pride from having their corporations promote products like Bud Light. Any Belgian folks out there feel like writing their MPs?

Our biochemist-in-residence illogic-al just wrote a fun and interesting blog about Amarok on OS X. Interesting because it shows Amarok working on OS X, fun because it shows some of the progression of Amarok 2 in general.