[Openvrml-develop] Status update

[Braden M. <br...@en...>]

It's been a little while since we had a release; but hopefully 0.11 isn't
too far away....

JavaScript
----------
While I initially planned to make the release after incorporating
VrmlNodePtr, I've decided to push it back a bit while I clean up the
JavaScript stuff and remove our dependency on the private header. Once
that's done, we'll have the option of nolonger including SpiderMonkey
(libjs) with the OpenVRML distribution.

I am inclined to take that option; but the somewhat compelling argument
for continuing to include it is the relative complexity of installing a
development version of SpiderMonkey on Win32. Of course, if we include
SpiderMonkey on those grounds, then we should also include libjpeg,
libpng, and zlib. That would bring us up to five 3rd-party sources in our
CVS repository--which is a nontrivial maintenance burden, and bordering on
outright silliness (IMO) considering the mass of our distribution would
comprise mostly dependencies. I'm interested in hearing other points of
view on this.

But note: we can currently build without JavaScript; and for 0.11 I'm
working on allowing us to build without libpng and libjpeg. zlib, too, can
probably be made optional. With these dependencies out of the way, it
ought to be pretty straightforward to build a no-frills version of the
library on Win32.

Win32 DLLs
----------
I've added some macros which ought to let us build DLLs on Win32, either
using gcc (Cygwin) or Visual C++. They are untested. I'm looking for a
volunteer on Win32 to work with me to ensure these work as intended for
0.11.

New models
----------
A while ago I asked people to submit some new models for the OpenVRML
distribution. I haven't forgotten about them! I was anticipating putting
them into an imminent release at the time; but unfortunately, that release
has been delayed substantially. I *will* indeed be compiling these for
0.11, though.

-- 
Braden McDaniel                             e-mail: <br...@en...>
<http://endoframe.com>                      Jabber: <br...@ja...>