[openvrml-develop] Toward 0.18...

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

With 0.17.0 finally out, here are a few notes regarding where I'll be
expending energy next...

      * Factoring platform-independent parts of openvrml-xembed into a
        helper library. The idea is to make the stream handling code
        accessible to non-X11 front-ends which may require this code to
        run in-process. In other words, lay the groundwork for porting
        the player/plug-in to other platforms. This work is likely to
        appear in 0.17.x releases. As a first step toward this
        refactoring, I'm investigating using D-Bus for openvrml-xembed's
        IPC.
      * Modularization. This is a huge, multifaceted task; it's the
        meat-and-potatoes of 0.18. It will start with moving the
        scripting engines into modules (hopefully coupled with the
        resurrection of the Java scripting engine) and finish with
        moving the node implementations into modules accompanied by XML
        descriptors. I expect code reorganization associated with these
        changes to alleviate some of OpenVRML's longstanding issues with
        compile times (and related compiler memory growth).
      * Support for model/x3d+xml. It's entirely possible--perhaps
        likely--that this is something that will get pushed to 0.19; but
        for now I'll optimistically schedule it for 0.18. The XML
        descriptors associated with the modularization work will require
        an XML parser; and depending on one of those puts model/x3d+xml
        support easily within reach. Whether this makes the cut for 0.18
        will depend on whether I feel like that release can be held for
        it once the modularization work is done.

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