[General] Still Lively

[Dan Ingalls]

Lively Folks -

The last few months have been somewhat of a distraction from the 
original goals of the Lively Kernel project, but I'm happy to report 
both progress in spite of distraction, and some vision for the future.

First of all, with regard to progress we have just put out a new 
release, version 0.9.  Check it out at...

	http://research.sun.com/projects/lively/index.xhtml


Notable steps forward in 0.9:

Better support for gradients
	compare the new clock and engine

Reasonable compatibility across platforms
	Safari, FireFox, Chrome, latest versions
	See more below regarding Opera and IE

Nearly complete operability using Canvas in place of SVG
	Try it out at...
	http://research.sun.com/projects/lively/expt.xhtml
	Here Lively manages damage rectangles and
	redisplay entirely in JavaScript.  Execute...
	  WorldMorph.current().showDamageRectangles = true
	... to see it in action.  This runs in all the above browsers.

Wiki
	The Lively Kernel now includes a fairly complete client-side Wiki.
	In other words, worlds c an be saved via WebDAV into an SVN repository
	thus allowing one-click save as well as revert to previous versions.
	This together with a ChangeSet-style workspace offers
	much of the Smalltalk-image style of project development.
	[Requires some setup for the repository]

Media player
	The new VideoMorph allows embedding of players such as
	YouTube and Vimeo in Lively Kernel worlds.  There's an example
	in the sample widgets world.  Can be used to get just sound, too.
	[seems only to work in Safari;  Let us know if you can fix for others]

HTML
	We now have a way to embed (multiple) Lively Kernel worlds
	in normal HTML, thus opening the possibility of LK
	serving as an entire Dojo-like widget and viewing frameworlk
	Try, for example...
	http://research.sun.com/projects/lively/divChallenge.html

MIT Open Source Licensing
	The Lively Kernel has been relicensed under an MIT-style license
	for some time now on the developer's repository, but we're happy
	now to have these on the main site.


You can participate...

Projects
We are in the process of working out how to sign people up for our 
Wiki.  Once that works, it is a great way to show off cool stuff and 
publish useful tools as well.  Even better, if you would like to host 
a Lively project wiki, write to us or to this list, and we'll tell 
you what's involved.

Opera
Not long ago, we had everything working in Opera, but that seems to 
have regressed.  Anyone care to track down the problem and submit a 
fix?

Mystery
We (mostly Robert so far) are working on a project called Chameleon. 
We hope to share it very soon and get others involved.

O3D
Have you noticed the O3D plugin that bundles V8 and 2D and 3D 
renderer?  It shouldn't be hard to port the Canvas version to run in 
2D with that plugin, providing possibly interesting performance as 
well as a solution for Internet Explorer and any other browsers that 
don't support the Lively Kernel.  If you get it working before we do, 
you get a bottle of champagne.

Visualization
We are getting interested in data visualization.  If you take Jens 
Linke's Fabrik-like kit visual programming tool, and add a few basic 
data views, the Lively kernel starts to be a pretty useful way to 
look at data all over the Internet, whether scraped from the screen 
or slurped from databases.  And now with the HTML bridge established, 
it can all be integrated with mainstream web sites.  Build a new 
view.  Build a surprising HTML page.  Play with Fabrik.


Have fun, and don't forget to write!

	- Dan
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