WebGL is working and soon to be common

The interface as I understand it is that Firefox uses the off screen mesa renderer to create open gl objects in memory and then displays them as an image in a window. If I were a programmer, I could apt-get libosmesa6, I could go to about:config in the minefield version and set the string webgl.osmesa to be /usr/lib/libOSMesa.so then change the flags for webgl true and in fact I could compile my own library with the primitives and implement calls from the Firefox minefield interface.

If only I was a programmer. Oh wait, it seems I am remembering something, if I create a function with the right name in the same library name and it has the appropriate passed data types and performs the action of the OpenGL commands it would be like programming. Perhaps I will pretend to be a programmer and do that.

This is just for my benefit and in order for WebGL to be usable, the functions must be present for the sender and receiver both. Oh my, this seems like that language dependency problem again. I can speak WebGL and if you can't hear or understand it, we have a failure to communicate. At least we don't have to wait for the English parliament to advance the language this time. Firefox is in the process of making this part of its delivered product and so soon it will be possible for everybody to understand this language of 3D forms and motion too. Chrome is also implementing the same interface. If you are using Microsoft their language is a bit different and I think it is called "Godda a dolla","Gimme dolla" and smells of cheap wine.

Firefox shortcuts in context

I guess I never noticed this before, or it is new, I can highlight something on a page and right click to select search Google. That is really handy as I often wonder what someone is meaning by a concept and so I search for some relevant information that will clarify my understanding. And there it is and I have been copy and pasting to Google since forever. This has got to save me some time. And don't even consider the fact that spell check is there and it saves a lot of re-typing when I type too fastidious(sic) "fastidious[sic]". And so I did sic and learned from Wikipedia that it should be bracketed and italicized. Some day I am going to be berry[sic] smart. backronyms[sic] is also an interesting subject and answers a few questions.

Funny, I inadvertently made a backronym in the title "Shortcuts In Context"!=sic. The mind is a terrible thing to taste.

In the Minefield alive

Really, I was only mostly dead and now I am better.

Chrome has improved a lot since I last used it and I like it, it has a smoothness about it. It isn't as good or fast as Firefox, but still, it is 10 times better than IE and has some class.

I have been playing with Firefox minefield and WebGL and got serious today while letting web ontologies sink in. Anyway. You probably need to understand HTML, javascript, OpenGL and have a grasp of DOM. I would say that it could be understood with that. If you want to look into the implementation code, you would need a few more talents, perhaps XUL, java, C, libs ... The tutorials for HTML and javascript at W3C are sufficient to grasp those concepts. This is the first part of using WebGL and it isn't all that scary as it is just a javascript function with error handling. So I am trying to see if I have a compatibility issue with X86_64 and so I have placed a Zim wiki in the shared NFS (network file system) on my machines so I can share conceptual "ontological" !yoink! information between machines running different implementations.

It seems a straight forward thing and so I will put some stuff here with the HTML page exported from `kate` to give a simple step by step to apply it in my specific Linux configuration. I will make no attempt to do it for Windows. I am going to do Google Chrome tests also.

var gl;
  function initGL(canvas) {
    try {
      gl = canvas.getContext("experimental-webgl");
    } catch(e) {
    }
    if (!gl) {
      try {
        gl = canvas.getContext("webkit-3d");
      } catch(e) {
      }
    }
    if (!gl) {
      try {
        gl = canvas.getContext("moz-webgl");
      } catch(e) {
      }
    }
    if (!gl) {
      alert("Could not initialise WebGL, sorry :-(");
    }
  }

And the link for the above quote at learning WebGL.

The javascript implementation of minefield has some sticky wickets and so I expect a few SIGSEGVs along the way, but that is all part of the edgy programmer's life. I am sure I covered how to get Firefox minefield as a separate browser and it just needs a second profile.

Firefox WebGL

I was playing with Firefox nightly and Web GL and that is interesting and worth a tour. WebGL could be the future of the web, it certainly looks very interesting. It is a riot and so edgy!

./firefox -P DangerMouse -no-remote &

Fonty fun

    In the hopes that I will develop some style and grace, I am studying fonts, line spacing, colors, and special characters. I can see that if you want to make a point, you have to cater to a person’s interest and avoid the objectionable and irritating. I know that if I come upon a page with massive flash ads and sound and scrolling marquees, that I simply turn off and don't care if it was the most important thing in the world. If anybody has constructive criticism on style it would be helpful as I get my browser all twisted up by changing scale with <Ctrl> key with   +  or  - keys . It gets to the point where I don't know what the ‛real’ fonts look like.

    I am trying some new fonts and I hope they are more readable. I learned what "serif" and "sans serif" mean, that is some interesting history. Of course sans (in French sans=without) serif is without serif, which should have dawned on me long ago.

    So font scales was on my mind and I thought that Firefox should have a way to see a page without the scaling and so I went to "view" menu and "zoom" and there is "reset" with a quick key option of control·☉ (control key and zero key simultaneously).

     I use Firebug and that is becoming so elegant that it is scary. I can change fonts and disable parts of the CSS on a page and see how a specific effect is achieved. A really effective tool that you should try if you use Firefox and want to learn cascading style sheets (CSS).