Update - See it to believe it

Great news! Finally, the display component now allows me to draw pixels on-screen which is the basics for any drawing operation. It also supports alpha blending which works very nicely. I have uploaded the changes. I still have not finished the design of the elements components but I am very close and it looks great so far. The broadcasting feature is becoming very useful for drawing and input and is a big part of the elements design. This is a great step for Safire since now I can start writing objects that draw things on-screen.

Update

I decided to upload the source anyway so that a sudden computer melt-down or the more common 'my dog ate my files' wont stop the development of Screens. I finished coding the display component. I need to code the layer and elements components. I have not finished designing them but I expect to finish the design shortly. Things are finally getting somewhere and this makes me very happy. Very exciting...

Safire begins

Finally, I have started coding the Safire module. I will be currently be writing it for the win32 platform and then port it to PalmOS since it allows me to debug and write the code quicker (VC++ is much faster than Eclipse). Most of the code is platform independent so this should not be a problem especially when windows is more complex. The framework is already coded and an empty window is displayed. I am now working on the display component which deals with the back buffer for the window that layers are drawn on and then copied to the window. Progress should be quick in the next few weeks when I finally get some drawing elements inside the system. Once I can demo the layering capabilities, I will upload the source to SourceForge and the demo executable. Once the layering is done (I have written layering components before so this should not be a hard job) I can start working on the child windows and input device components. The future is bright as safire :D

Update - Slow week

OK, while getting the Safire design together, I have been doing cleanup and bug fixes in the kernel which has been going very well. I am constantly trying to make actions faster currently I can run an action with an empty method in under 30 milliseconds on my computer. This is sort of the speed I like for Screens. I am working hard on Safire to get it done quickly and efficiently. I dont want to specify a date because I have not been very good at prediciting them. It took me 4 years to get here, no point giving up now.

Screens System Requirements

Screens is designed to scale from low end to high end devices. It requires hardly any dynamic memory apart from a single off-screen buffer so I guess it requires a different amount depending on the screen size. It does require alot more storage memory although I dont know yet how much because it largly depends on how complex the UI will be. I will try and make Screens work on as many devices as possible and I do have some tweaks available where you can choose speed over size, so devices without much room can opt for size saving while devices with alot of space can opt for speed. When I finish the UI components in Safire, I will have a much better idea of the scalability of Screens and will able to update you on the storage requirements. Update: Yes, Screens will run on PalmOS 4.0 and maybe even PalmOS 3.5/3.0 if realy wanted

What does Screens bring for music?

Screens is going to do wonders for music lovers. First of all, you will finally able to make your own playlists in a hierarchy, so finally you dont have to use folders to seperate music that you want to hear. Another feature will be the ability to make playlists that are a combination of other playlists. So for example you will able to take your favourite pop playlist and your favourite rock playlist and have a pop & rock playlist. If you add a new music file to the pop playlist, it will apear in both the pop and the pop & rock playlist. I think users will find this a powerful feature. I am very open to features and I am sure I will see them pile on when I release Safire later this year. Even though the syncing feature wont exist in Screens v1 but it will be available in v2 which allows you to sync your favourite music over when connected. It goes even a step further, once you sync, it transfers your entire music collection information (meta data, not the music itself) so that you can decide when offline what music to sync when you go back online. For example: You could be listening to a George Michael song on your device and you can easily tell your device to sync another song from the same album or even its entire album. I see this feature very usefull to myself and I am sure others will too. I have not decided which music players I will integrate with but you will able to control your music directly from Screens without having to exit to run your music apps.