I’m just trying to get an idea on what apps people need on Haiku. Feel free to include ideas such as applications from other platforms (e.g. Firefox), or just general application types (e.g. Spreadsheet Program). Also, if there’s an application on Haiku that just needs updated because it no longer runs or is missing feature X, then that would be a great addition as well.
If possible, let’s keep the discussion to a minimal in this thread and treat it more like a list. External links and little notes at the end of your posts are welcome. Please try to stick to one post per user. If you need to modify your list then simply edit that post.
Keep in mind: The point behind this is to allow potential-developers to have a quick list they can run through, evaluate what people want, and can use this knowledge to build applications that will be more beneficial for the community. I don’t have any idea on what most people use Haiku for so choosing an application that would be well worth the time is a guessing-game at best.
There's some various methods of currently distributing packages. From this developer's mailing list thread, it appears there's some work to be done in this area, still. I'd like to see a decision made on how Haiku, from a central aspect, plans on handling package management and get this system (even if it's crude) implemented.
HTML5 browser with Haiku integration: Tabs with StackAndTile, support BView add-ons, MediaKit integration, web browser as BView with API and replicant. If driver requests is allowed then:
Working HDA driver. Current HDA driver work only on my old machine, on my main machine and Acer W500 tablet it don’t produce sound at all.
Samba … suport for SMB/CIF , client for browse a windows network
Intel HDA sound driver / Azalia… this HD audio is in all new mainboards and support in Haiku is not good. i have this sound card … and i hear only very corrupted sound,
support for USB serial programing and port utilities like avra, avrdude, cross-avr-gcc to haiku for programing atmel microcontrolers… maybe other platforms like PIC or ARM devel tools port too.
port of newest verion of Firefox will be good
when you want office tools, there are web office apliacations.
Package Manager, atleast an automatic system update function.
Inkscape, I use it almost exclusively to make graphics for a couple of indie game projects I’m working on. For the stuff I do in Gimp and MyPaint chances are Wonderbrush would do the job.
Modern/HTML5 capable browser, as much as I like the idea of a native browser a la WebPositive I feel that web/browser technology is advancing much too fast for any spare-time project to be able to keep up with what is expected of a fully featured browser. Also given that the web is increasingly becoming platform-agnostic (flash begone!!) all it takes is a port of Chrome/Firefox to make Haiku into something like a first class citizen on the web.
1 - A modern browser with full support to HTML5, password manager, adblock filter, etc… And most important: with the most recent release of WebKit (at the moment r121115)!
2 - Samba (integrated inside Tracker) for network sharing.
3 - A word processor, something like Calligra or Abiword.
Hello everyone,
I follow the Haiku project for about two months, if I say nonsense, forgive me.
I totally agree with X512
Something like Scrivener[1] or Nisus Writer Pro[2] would be great!
There is no open source software with these features (A multi platform project might attract developers?).
From a developers perspective, the Cortex approach is really nice. A good toolset for developing components or “Media Add-ons”, as Cortex calls them. Nice “plug-in” platform there.
This just could be the OOP programmers ultimate target OS at least. Won’t take much to be the best host system too.
Congrats to the developers/maintainers of this sweet little OS.
Right now Ctrl- (the key above Tab in a standard US qwerty keyboard layout) switches between windows of the same application. That would become Cmd (Alt)- when I get around to switching the default application switching key. Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-` would then be reserved for application use. Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab could then be used in WebPositive to change “tabs” (aka windows) like in most tabbed browsers on other platforms.
I’ve thought long and hard about the idea of a stack and tile browser, and I think it is worth experimenting with. There is an API for creating and manipulating stack-and-tiled windows, so it should be possible to do this. The one thing I would want to add would be support for icons in the window decorator, to show site favicons. Though I’m not sure how good this would look in the default decorator. Again we would just need to experiment and see. But right now my personal priority is working on things to help get alpha4 out (and then I may also manage the release process.)
As for all the app ideas and suggestions, I think they are great, keep them coming!
Regarding the various requests for an HTML5 browser, we are doing our best to make that happen! The contract project to update our WebKit port by Alexandre Deckner is going very well, and it looks like he wants to do another month. After I finish some alpha4 related stuff I want to get back into work on WebPositive to make it a really nice browser. Things I want to add:
Better history API, with press and hold history menus on the forward and back buttons.
A combined stop and reload button.
Session management like the latest Firefox, where the tab icon and title are restored, but the tab is not loaded until it is clicked. After using it I much prefer this to Chrome's "load all the tabs at once when starting" method.
Password saving using the soon to be added Haiku BKeyStore API.
Improved address box with the combined best features of Chrome, Firefox and other browsers.
Search provider configuration, i.e. no more hard-coded Google.
Media Kit integration to support HTML5 audio and video, with likely much of the same code used for the MediaPlayer, so that media experiences on Haiku are very consistent.
Support for the WebKit inspector.
Userscript support, with compatibility with Greasemonkey and other user script APIs.
Make use of the native HTTP libraries (after they get more work) instead of the very slow Curl.
Research into maybe using the V8 JavaScript engine from Chrome.
Of course Alexandre or other developers may help on some of the above, depending on their own motivations.
Yes we are a small team compared to the reems of developers working for Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Mozilla, but we also have the advantage of only having to worry about one platform, so we can more easily take advantage of what Haiku has to offer. Also if Haiku needs to be improved to support a nice browser feature, we can do that (such as my idea to add icons to window decorators.)
So, you mean, by clicking the “New Tab” button in WebPositive it would load an entire new Window and attach it to the original as a stack-and-tile “tab”?
That…
WOULD BE…
AWESOME!
Would something like that be possible with the current stack-and-tile API?
That would be a neat feature, but not as a replacement for normal tabbed browsing. I remember all too well what it was like alt-tabbing through twenty different Internet Explorer windows back in the day…
Adding the ability to drag a tab off the tab bar and split it into a stack-and-tile window, though, that would be pretty neat.
How about, we make so that alt-tab or ctrl-tab, whatever is going to be default, switches through all apps. The other one would only switch through apps in a group. This way, WebPositive wouldn’t need an extra tab bar, or even a app-specific way to switch tabs, Haiku would do it.
I think the apps that should be included with Haiku are similar in vein to what comes with other operating systems (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) out of the box. I think Haiku meets most of that expectation (from what I have seen), but is probably missing some crucial apps that some users expect to already be there (out of the box).
It would be interesting to see a comparison list of the BIG 3 (Windows, Mac OS and Linux) of apps that come out of the box. I know for Linux it depends on the distro, but Ubuntu could probably be representative of the norm.
To be clear, I REALLY do prefer a native webbrowser. And what you describe with utilizing the Media Kit both in Webpositive and Mediaplayer (and any other Haiku app needing media functionality) to provide audio/video pretty much defines the ‘component integration’ which makes Haiku such an attractive desktop system for me.
My pessimism again comes down to the huge task of keeping an up-to-date webbrowser with the extremely small amount of available manpower. However if you guys can beat the odds and provide atleast a lion’s share of the features you mentioned I swear I will not utter another word regarding a port of Chrome or Firefox
