I am glad to announce that a new website is under development. This new website will focus on the development and distribution of both the Classic and Modern MaXX Interactive Desktop products. The new design should be completed by end of May. SVN server will be available next week. This means that I am moving all development related features to MaXXDesktop.com.
Here are a list of those features;
• Wiki
• Forums
• News
• API-SDK full online documentation
• SVN server
• SVN WebView
• Search engine
I am glad to announce the start of the development effort of 5Dwm v2.0. On the road map are the addition of EWMH 1.x support, XRender and hardware overlay plane. Here are below a little bit more details on what those new features means and how this will improve 5Dwm functionality and usability.
Enhanced Window Manager Hints or EWMH is a specification that defines interactions between a window manager, the applications that it manage, and utilities that form part of a desktop experience. These new features will allow 5Dwm v2.0 to support multiple workspaces, a pager, sticky and shaded windows. Refer to the official documentation for more detail: http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html
XRender is on the other hand a very nice addition to 5Dwm and it will guaranty a smooth evolution and provide advanced rendering operations, alpha blending and composition support. XRender will bring to 5Dwm v2.0 a fresh touch of modernization and support transparent window, setting the stage for drop shadows and composition-manager like xcompmgr and Compiz-Fusion. OpenGL application that supports ARGB-GLX Visual will also benefits for XRender support. Here is a very nice example of what ARGB GLX Visual and XRender can do: http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=41
Hardware Overlay Plane is a feature that is only available on workstation and pro-level GPU card like the NVidia Quadro line, 3DLabs and FireGL. In a nutshell it provide a hardware accelerated second plane, above the main plane that we all know, for drawing whatever you want. The idea is to avoid expensive window redraw when popup menus, feedbacks and other GUI elements are displayed to get user inputs. The less often you redraw the better your application behave. The plan is to add into 5Dwm v2.0 hardware overlay plane support to assist and off load CAD/CAM, digital effects and imaging softwares. SGI’s 4DWM as been using hardware overlay plane for almost 10years now. This feature deserve to be used rather that forgotten. Trolltech’s Qt 4.x supports overlay plane right at the QWidget and QGLWidget level, when the hardware supports it, of course!
Finally, 5Dwm v2.0 will be linked against SGI-OpenMotif-2.3. That’s right! OpenMotif 2.3 is getting SGI look and feel and enhancements. As of today, 50% of the work is done and I can tell you that SGI-Motif 2.3 never looked so good with XFT antialiased fonts.
Hope this gets you excited, cause I am and looking forward your comments and feedbacks.
Here are some recent news regarding MaXX Desktop….
The Developer Release Series is well underway and there are over 75 registered members in the MaXX Interactive Desktop Developer Relese Series Google group. It is keep semi-private until DR-2 is released. If you are interested to joy us, please visit our Google Group and send us a subscription request.
5DWM v2.0 will be possibly based on a fork of the BlackBox window manager source code. This will allow us to quickly bring much needed features like multiple-workspace and XRender-XComposite extensions support. The decision is not final cause we are evaluation OpenBox and FluxBox as well.
The MaXX Desktop Foundation Developer Kits will be based on Trolltech’s Qt 4.4, OpenGL and Xlib. The first kits will be made available in DR-2. So developers, get ready!
We are looking for a web master to keep the 5dwm.org official site alive!
Hi Everyone,
It is a great day today (except the winter storm killing my back) for MaXX Interactive. We are officially starting the Developer Release Series with a new web site that will allow us to better document, communicate and share files related to the DR series. We have created a Google Group called MaXX Interactive Desktop Developer Release Series that off loads the main web site and better suited for the task.
We invite you to visit the MaXX Interactive Desktop Developer Release Series Google Group to browse information and discuss various topics.
Here are the steps required to join the MaXX Interactive Desktop Developer Release and to have access to the download files.
1- You have to send us you system configuration (uname -a and the model of your graphic display and its driver version) to the following email; maxxi.desktop@gmail.com
2- Then, we will send you an invite to the MaXX Desktop DR Google Group
3- After completing your registration, you are becoming a member of the group and have access to pretty much everything for downloading, compiling, running MaXX, providing feedbacks and participating in various forums.
We hope this new process will enhance communication and allow everyone to add a little something to the success of MaXX Desktop.
It is finally over, the revised roadmap is online. In it you will found valuable information on the new direction we are taking, developer details and more… Please go to the Roadmap Section to download the PDF file for detail.
It is with great joy that I officially announce the schedule for MaXX Desktop Developer Release Series. You willing below a summary of what each DR will be made of.
DR-1:
Code name: Sleeping Beauty
Date: December 3rd 2007
Goals:
• Migrating existing Beta 1 user to the new file system structure of MaXX Desktop
• Install new foundation libraries (Xt,Xm, Sgm, themes, glut, GLw and Qt)
• New version of several applications: 5Dwm, toolchest, desktop-tools and etc…
• New SVG icons
• QTK themes (classic and modern look and feels)
• Qt theme (modern look and feel)
• ROX Filer overlay pack
• Composition Manager
• SGI and MaXX Interactive Licenses
DR-2:
Code name: Big Easy
Date: March 3rd 2008
Goals:
• Bug fixes of DR-1
• MaXX Monitor new low latency system wide monitoring framework
• MaXX Foundation Application Kits
• MaXX Personality Kits
• New Desktop Configuration Panels
• Workspace Manager
• File Manager
DR-3:
Code name: Mustang
Date: June 3rd 2008
Goals:
• Bug fixes of DR-2
• More MaXX Foundation Application Kits
• More MaXX Personality Kits
• More Desktop Configuration Panels
Yes, we are legit now. MaXX Interactive and SGI came to an agreement in regards to the The MaXX Interactive Desktop. We have a license allowing us to go full steam ahead and to develop, distribute and sell a derivative product based on the great SGI Desktop. The details of the license agreement are to be kept confidential between the two organizations.
More details regarding the dates of the first Developer Release will be posted here in a few days.
I am happy to announce the introduction a of Developer Release Program. The MaXX Desktop Developer Releases will be available for registered users only. However, registration is open to the public. As long as you are willing to spend a bit more time providing your system details and applications that you are expecting to use. This way you will be able to enjoy the MaXX Desktop experience and and in return you provide valuable feedbacks on new features and technologies before we are entering Beta phase again!
Here is a short list of some of those features:
– 64 bit support
– Software Development Kits for building High Performance MaXX Desktop aware applications
– OpenGL Composition and FX Engine for GUI (this is the big one)
– Transparency support for main window and panel with XRender, XComposite and ARGB-GLX Visual
– Workspace Manager – applications icons, multi-workspace and application selector (Exposé inspired)
– MaXX Monitoring Framework – centralized system resources management and graphical instruments: gr_osview, gr_affinity and gmemusage
– file-manager (vector based icons, scaling, traveling and monster-io-workload)
As you might know, I am having lots of problems with the AMD/ATi Linux Driver… And based on many forums, I am not the only one 🙂 XComposite, ARGB Visuals and ARGB-GLX Visuals are not part of AMD/ATi strongest points.
August, 12th 2007 :: Last minute bugs !
Beta2 is very close, however we are having some last minute problems (as usual) with the XComposite extension and the xcompmgr application with the ATi/AMD driver…
So, in order to quickly fix this bug that prevents us from releasing Beta 2, we need your help! We are looking for some existing users that are running the following configuration;
– Xorg 7.2 with the latest Nvidia driver (from Nvidia.com) and with either a Quadro FX or a Serie 8 GPU.
– Xorg 7.2 with the latest ATi driver (from Ati/AMD) with a FireGL GPU.