Withnail said:
Yeah no worries, I must say it took me a while to recognise it as the old interface.
Sony did say that the new FW would force a password update. There's a new SDK going out to developers as well according to Gamasutra yesterday.
I normally read and reread articles to insure I have correctly understood what it's saying. I was excited to finally have an answer as to when PSN would be up again and seeing the Store GUI + PSN update, I posted what I expected would be the next step made by Sony in the use of Cairo and webkit.
1) Hulu and other IPTV sites are the first use of a partial webkit (Javascript engine with CairoGL bindings)
2) Portal 2 First possible use of full Webkit; Javascript engine and possibly the Core DOM using CairoGL
Next step might be:
PSN Store, second use of GTKWebkit
Webview http://www.atoker.com/webkit/webkitgtk-fosdem08.pdf
Introducing WebView
Write a browser in a dozen lines
import gtk This is in the Webkit disclosure (GTK_Lib)
import webkit
view = webkit.WebView()
sw = gtk.ScrolledWindow()
(or fixed PSN Store window with different call)
sw.add(view)
win = gtk.Window(gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
win.add(sw)
win.show_all()
view.open("http://planet.gnome.org/")
gtk.main()WebView modes
The inclusion of the GTK & GAIL librarys in the webkit port may mean that Gnome3 Linux desktop applications are easily portable to the PS3.
$(CAIRO_LIBS) \ Cairo SVG library*
+ $(COVERAGE_LDFLAGS) \
+ $(ENCHANT_LIBS) \...............Front end API for a spell checker and more
+ $(FREETYPE_LIBS) \...............SVG default Font Library
+ $
(GAIL_LIBS) \
+ $(GEOCLUE_LIBS) \.....No need for this on the PS3, NGP will use! Requires a GPS chipset.
+ $(GLIB_LIBS) \
+ $(GSTREAMER_LIBS) \ Gstreamer AV library *Gstreamer with Cairo bindings
+ $(GTK_LIBS) \
+ $(HILDON_LIBS) \ Hildon SVG UI library
+ $(JPEG_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBSOUP_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBXML_LIBS) \
+ $(LIBXSLT_LIBS) \
+ $(PANGO_LIBS) \ International Fonts Cairo-pango =
SVG international fonts
+ $(PNG_LIBS) \
+ $(SQLITE3_LIBS) \
+ $(UNICODE_LIBS) \
+ $(XT_LIBS) \
+ $(WINMM_LIBS) \
+ $(SHLWAPI_LIBS) \
+ $(OLE32_LIBS)
The Sony SNAP developer program (applications for Sony Networked Platforms) was put on Hold before it was even completed. NO GUI toolkit or theme was developed. While Glib, Gstreamer and Cairo are included in all 2011 networked platforms and the PS3, (Assume NGP gets the same libraries) only the PS3 has Webkit and GTK toolkit libraries. Sony TV's and Blu-ray players have Opera browsers and can support Opera widgets. The PS3 and NGP will not support Opera widgets but can support WebkitGTK widgets and possibly Gnome3 desktop applications/widgets and maybe more.
Native language applications can still be supported with SNAP but a different toolkit/GUI would seem to be needed with the schism between TV-Bluray and PS3-NGP . It will be harder to support all SNAP platforms with the same code. So as speculated something changed after the initial Posting of SNAP in April 2010.
Did Sony get wind of Microsoft and MANY Silverlight 5 applications coming for the Xbox and/or the coming Wii 2 and felt that the above which could give the PS3 many applications and possibly a mini-Linux (like Maemo) Sony flavor of a Linux Matchbox desktop & applications on the PS3 was needed? Xwindows support is not needed in the GTKwebkit. All speculation and biased by hope.
http://matchbox-project.org/screenshots.html
Notice the Sugar UI in the above link and Picture below looks like the NGP screen. This was given as an example of a Linux Matchbox but it doesn't use Xwindows.
Icons arranged in a circle. That doesn't mean much just that the same Open source software authors that designed the Sugar interface influenced the NGP (it's in GTK PDFs above) WebKit and
OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)
WebKit/GTK+ Sugar activity done by Dan Winship (Red Hat) in one day. It's about as KISS as you can get, designed for age 6-12 third world. <Ouch>
In the above link to Matchbook examples, Maemo matchbook does use Cairo SVG, Pango, Gstreamer, Hildon_Lib, webkit and GTK_lib (or QT can be used) which are in the PS3 webkit disclosure. Xwindows is also needed which is NOT in the disclosure. Many of the screenshots give examples of what applications on the PS3 and NGP may look like, just delete the pure Xwindows features.
Nokia was behind QT toolkit development but has signed with MS to offer Windows 7 on it's phones Several months ago. Maemo can be built with either the QT or GTK+ toolkit. It appears that GTK+ has the better webkit implementation due to Alp Toker's (Gstreamer/Collabora) Webkit/Cairo Gstreamer with Cairo bindings innovation. Again, the PS3 webkit port is based on the latest GTK+ webkit.
I keep seeing some of the same names associated with these projects. It's hard to pin down what that means for us. I'm getting and I hope readers are getting an idea of where the coming PS3 & NGP Webkit and tools are coming from. What Sony does with the tools is a big open question.
The webkit tools appear to give Sony a lot of potential. Designing an ecosystem with a common KISS GUI theme with multiple controllers and platforms is, I would think, a big job; probably equal to actually porting the tools.
Getting Ideas from those already using the tools is I think probable.