Progress on distribution
A unique music composition and improvisation program using grammars
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akozar,
belbernard
Dear all ,
I have spent this month designing better distributions of the Bol
Processor in the three environments (MacOS, Windows, Linux).
First of all, to make the interface more attractive, thanks to several
colour 'skins' that will be updated from time to time. I have a
preference for the blue skin in dark mode, which is the one selected by
default...
But the most important work is not yet visible. Czarek Tomczak has
released the long-awaited distribution of his "PHP Desktop" package for
MacOS. Windows and Linux versions were already up and running
(https://github.com/cztomczak/phpdesktop).
In a nutshell, PHP Desktop emulates a Chrome browser and a built-in
Apache server. The package has a "www" folder. The magic is that if you
fill this folder with the contents of "bolprocessor" (which includes the
console, all the PHP files and the data), you get a version of Bol
Processor that requires no installation of MAMP or XAMPP, no GCC
compiler, etc. And you can still develop the interface by editing the
PHP files. No 'compilation' required!
I have verified that these standalone versions of Bol Processor work
perfectly with MacOS and Windows. I haven't yet checked Linux, but it
should work as well. However, there are a few issues that need to be
fixed (in PHP Desktop) before distributing these packages. For example,
the "_blank" links open new windows instead of new tabs, window sizes
can't be controlled by PHP, etc. All issues are listed and discussed here:
https://github.com/cztomczak/phpdesktop/issues
I hope that PHP Desktop will reach its full functionality soon, so that
we can distribute the Bol Processor to musicians who are reluctant to
install MAMP or XAMPP, even if they are for free...
Meanwhile, I have made life easier for Windows users: the Bol Processor
installer now includes a pre-compiled console 'bp.exe'. This avoids the
hassle of installing MinGW to run the GCC compiler. The simple
installation is explained here:
https://bolprocessor.org/quick-install-windows/
All the best,
Bernard