W history
Torsten Scherer (TeSche) starts W in 1994 because X is too heavy under
MiNT... The goals were: W should be lightweight and easy to program
graphics window system, use client-server model and be able to run
WTerm, Wload, WClock and simple games. Torsten achieved these goals
admirably, I'd say! :-)
Currently W and W toolkit are "maintained" by Eero Tamminen.
New W 1 features (Dec 1994)
- Use sockets instead of named pipes.
- Kay Römer (MiNT networking support / library author) joins
the development team.
New W 1 Release 2 features (Dec 1995)
- SunOS and m68k Linux support.
- Bug fixes and lots of modifications to the W.
- Buffered socket communications. Speeds up things quite a lot.
- Stuff not totally inside a window is discarded for safety.
- New font scheme with support for proportional fonts.
- Faster background window updating (only 'dirty' area).
- Eero Tamminen joins the team.
- Lots of new fonts.
- New source layout.
New W 1 Release 3 features (Feb 1996)
- Preliminary Amiga NetBSD support.
- Graphics contexts (TeSche).
- Convex polygons (Kay).
- Clipping for graphics functions (Kay).
- Faster patterned graphics functions (Eero).
- Basic widget toolkit library functionality on top of Wlib (Kay).
- Unlimited number of windows, sub windows (for the toolkit)
and window gadgets (TeSche & Kay).
- 'Proper' manual pages instead of the ASCII ones (TeSche).
W1R4-beta features (1997)
- Preliminary x86 Linux support (Torsten).
- Get/putblock functions can now do most mono<->color conversions
either in W server or library (TeSche & Eero).
- Support for user settable colors (TeSche).
- Experimental window resizing (TeSche).
- Ellipse and bezier functions (Eero).
- Graphics modes to the pattern functions (Eero).
- Better support for the W toolkit in Wlib (TeSche).
- Basic widgets for the W Toolkit (Kay & Eero).
- HTML 1.0 conforming WWW-Browser and an enhanced W terminal (Kay).
New W 1 Release 4 features (1998)
- Graphics modes for patterned graphics routines.
- BMONO monochrome driver for x86-linux/svaglib. DIRECT8
driver works now with svgalib too.
- Arc and pie functions.
- Incomplete and crude line width support.
- Server fonts and font path can be set in configuration file.
- New font format offering more information about the font.
- w_init() returs defaults for font family and size.
- New text styles (bold, 'italic' (slanted), light).
- Completed bitmap format conversions (no palette conversion).
- PBM (Portable BitMap) read/write functions.
- A couple of new utilities and games.
- Updated Wlib manual pages.
- W2Xlib Wlib emulation library for X11.
- W server license is now GPL and W library licencies are LGPL.
- Eero Tamminen is now official maintainer of W and Wt.
New W features (1999)
- New libGGI/libGII graphics/input backend.
- New Linux framebuffer/GPM graphics/input backend.
- Separate key press and release events (for W port of Heretic).
- W can map keys (arrows, function keys) if backend support
keycode translations.
- MacMiNT version of W (by Jonathan Oddie).
- Timestamps for events.
- Mouse acceleration.
New W features (2000)
- Wterm/wvt color handling fixed, server port can be specified
from command line (Benjamin Sittler).
- Optional CLICK_TO_FOCUS window manager policy (Jay Carlson).
- W bindings for Lua language interpreter.
- Max image width increased form 1020 to 4000 (in Wlib image
conversion functions).
New W features (2003)
- New SDL graphics/input backend.
- W server works with backends that double buffer the output (it
calls screen_update() when appropiate).
- Server code restructuring which might have broken other backends.
- W bindings for Lua updated to Lua v4.
- Updated HTML documentation.
For more complete description of the changes between different versions,
see the Changelogs file(s).
Authors' W development systems:
Torsten Scherer (1996)
- Atari TT (32MHz m68030).
- 19" monochrome monitor.
- OS: m68k-Linux.
Kay Römer (1996)
- Atari MegaSTe.
- ?
- OS: MiNT.
Eero Tamminen
1996:
- Atari ST (8MHz m68000) 4/32MB.
- 12" monochrome monitor.
- OS: MiNT.
1998:
- Intel P133, 32MB/2GB.
- Matrox Millenium / 15" color monitor.
- OS: Linux (slightly patched v2.0.28).
- STonX ST emulator for testing big endianess.
2002:
- AMD XP 1700, 512MB/40GB.
- Matrox G550 / 17" color monitor.
- OS: Linux (SuSE 8).
No, I don't have Windows® at home as I don't trust product for which
there's no source available...
oak@welho.com