World: r3wp

Graham, I'd like to be able to use it for normal scripting - to run 
any of the 100 little scripts that manage data for me on my desktop 
PC, to connect with REBOL formatted data files and text files on 
my web sites, etc.

the Rebol *language* in another platform.   the language itself is 
REBOL's biggest feature.

I've often thought (and may even have suggested, though I'm normally 
so shy :-), that promoting REBOL as a data format would be a good 
thing.

Nick, that kind of thing would be prohibited on the iPhone, still. 
Sorry.

it would be very nice if we had a C library able to load rebol data 
into a simple C struct format.

Not in the Cydia Store.

My understanding is that at least 10% of iPhone users have Cydia 
installed.

Either way, I'd pay just to have it for my own user :)

my own use

Right. Well, I have friends with iPhones and we are starting the 
Stanford iPhone development coursees, so that would be interesting. 
You would have to figure out how to jailbreak the phone now that 
the security hole previously used is plugged.

I don't have developer skills to offer much help, but I'd offer a 
bounty if anyone's interested...

Why bother with iPhone ?

Android will make it irrelevant in the long term

hehe nick has a pet slave  ;-)

And I doubt Carl, as an ex Apple employee, would be particularly 
interested in bypassing Apple's restrictions

The big question really is how difficult is it going to be to run 
Rebol on Android ....

I am bothering with an iPhone because they will still be relevant 
due to the large number of users they have. Not personally though 
- I went Android.

I also think Android is the best choice, but more mobile platforms, 
the merrier.

What platforms are currently operational?  Win32, Linux32 and ??

The idea that there will only be one significant phone platform is 
silly. We will have to consider Android, iPhone, and maybe RIM and 
WP7.

Until then, I'll have to keep using my old core155 version on Windows 
Mobile (that's no joke - I actually used that for several years).

Market leader is RIM, followed by Android and then IOS

I still have that phone, but I just carry a Windows 7 netbook everywhere 
I go, and a tiny clamshell phone - that setup is much more powerful 
and practical.

For my current needs.

However, it makes more sense to target the OS most used by developers

I know, Nick. I was the one who asked for that build in the first 
place. Unfortunately, that is why it doesn't support onscreen keyboards 
well: The original build was for a netbook.

My biggest hope is still to see more developers attracted to REBOL, 
and mobile platforms are fresh meat.

I would love to be able to render postscript in a view face/gob

Give us the power and the developers will flock

Do we have any technical possibility to ever run even on Android? 
Does it allow native code? How do we link to their API, which is 
JAVA based?

Pekr: technical possibility? yes. native code? yes. use android api? 
see the link I posted above; SL4A could be a start.

thanks, missed those ones ...

Rebol on mobiles makes sense to provide mobile clients to some commercial 
enterprise apps. Management loves to see the latest real-time sales 
numbers.

yes, I know - but so far, it seems to me, that most platforms are 
going towards more prohibitive way of accessing their APIs, and overall 
running other environments on them. For corporate sphere, Android, 
Win7 and BB are important, not so much iPhone imo, but if you introduce 
that as part of your app solution, some might accept it.

the thing is, how we can get REBOL on such platforms. Compile REBOL 
app into something else or having REBOL in JAVA e.g., sucks imo - 
lot's of work. I can see the only way to be a native port, but then 
- connecting to APIs might be technically difficult.

If the platforms are closed... well, than we leave it behind and 
use the once that are open. And if people use closed platforms, well 
than they have to do without cool solutions.

The only platform that I know of that would prohibit native REBOL 
is Win7 (don't know about BB). However, some platforms (especially 
iPhone) won't allow the full REBOL experience including the GUI. 
Most GUI layouts would need rethinking for the small screen anyways, 
and using native tookkits matters much more on phones (memory, consistency), 
so that's not as big a deal. It does mean that we need to pay more 
attention to embedded profiles of the host kit.

but GUI (VID) is exactly our advantage imo, to show the world, how 
easy is it to do basic form apps. There is not much to adhere toGUI 
wise imo. Each app can look totally different, like in old Amiga 
days, no?

BrianH: interesting note about Win7 .... I did not expect it. The 
licence is more prohibitive than that of an iOS?

Native code is not allowed on WP7 - you must write for Silverlight 
or XBL (both .NET). This isn't a license restriction though, it's 
technological. .NET code becomes native before it is executed though, 
and GNU has a C compiler for .NET, so it's not so bad. WP7 has an 
app store but they have seen the fallout from Apple's restrictions 
so their store is much less restrictive.

The pricniple behind VID - simple dialected GUI layouts - is REBOL's 
strength. The actual implementation would not be as much of a strength 
on a memory-constrained system with a native GUI toolkit and strict 
UI design rules. However, you can make a simple cross-platform layout 
dialect for phone UIs that tells the native toolkit what to do, and 
then make platform-specific implementations for the various native 
toolkits. Dialecting is REBOL's greatest strength.

a lot of VID's dialect can be used to describe the layout even on 
native GUI toolkits.

Exactly! You would need to redo your layout anyways for the small 
screen (unless the layout dialect is *really* properly strict about 
not allowing sizes, offsets and real colors in its layouts, the way 
the R3 GUI is supposed to be), but the layout dialect itself could 
be very compatible and you could reuse a lot of code.

WRT to all the discussions in ~Vent / Rebol3 GUI etc. I want to make 
some points clear. And, don't interpret things that are not written 
 as these will be false.

1. host-kit release: It's still Carl's job and responsebility to 
release official host-kits. We (RM-Asset team) won't do this.


2. host-kit support: Yes, we spend time to work on the host-kit source-code. 
And yes, we concentrate on these things we need for our upcoming 
projects. All this will flow into the host-kit and be available to 
you. And, I'm sponsoring this effort. Our goal is to help to get 
the host-kit to a stable state ASAP.

and it should be also noted, than many here appreciate the effort 
very much, so thanks Robert.

3. rebol3 gui: We are working on getting VID to a state that it can 
be used for app development. For this we did a complete new resizing 
system, changed the styles etc. This is not yet ready for release 
because to much flux in the design and code. We will release it either 
in form of the official VID via Carl or as our own VID fork, if Carl 
decides that the official VID should look differently.

No decision taken yet and I hope that we don't need to fork VID.

4. styles: We need a bunch of styles for our apps. We will create 
them all if necessary because we need a stable style set that is 
enterprise & bullet proof. Most likely I can't make use of hobby-styles 
in commercial apps. There is a bunch of other requirements to full-fill.


And yes, we will release these too. But, we set the priorities, we 
fix the bugs we think are critical, we work on the features we need. 
I listen to you, we think about it, but decisions are made on a pure: 
Urgent & necessary for business context.

5. Extensions: We will create a bunch of R3 extensions we need. Some 
will be quite special, some more generic. For these we use a mix 
from open-source libs, commercial frameworks etc. Which bings up 
the nice licensing issue stuff if things should be released.


As I hate licensing issues at all, and it's a big time killer, my 
rule is quite simple: RM Asset will have all necessary licenses we 
need, if I can release stuff we think about it. If not, than not. 
Sorry. I don't have time to get all this sorted out to provide a 
perfect-R3-framework to everyone.

6. collaboration: We are absolutly open to it. We support the community 
with everything that's possible. But, our main focus will not be 
to become the community runners. We have our own priorities and we 
stick to them. Next, we focus on getting things done.


If the community talks about a specific topic, no problem, if people 
code something, no problem. If we need something different, we will 
do it with or without the community.