I guess there was some confusion about the installers I presented the last days… these are not official Releases of FreePascal 3.2. In fact FreePascal 3.2 is not released yet and also no fixed date for it yet.
My work on the installers just show my work preparing the next release that we have a real Amiga style installers with all needed Readme and copyright text that they can serve as official packages and even published on the official FreePascal site.
You can download these packages and test the installer, and that was the purpose of showing them, but please do not distribute them as FreePascal 3.2 releases. (I added also a beta marker at the page and in the ReadMe to make it clear) And do not post news messages about FreePascal 3.2 Release until there is an official announcement.
And as promised the Installer for MorphOS also to the latest Version. I used my old MacMini (with the acient MorphOS3.8) for that, but somehow it is rather slow. Maybe I’m spoiled with my PowerBook now, which feels much faster. But the MacMini is much better for such tries, not destroying my working setup on MorphOS.
As mentioned yesterday the 68k Amiga Installer needed a little bit more work, but now it is working nicely the same way as the other two.
In the video the customized Option selection is shown.
Next I will test the MorphOS installer again and try to make an own Installer for AROS. Thats a little bit tricky because of the Package system they use, which is nice but no support for it in the Installer as far as I can see. Path and assigns are not added to user-startup but should be made via a Package-Startup file, in the folder and a text file in the Envarc: pointing to this Package-Startup File. I did this already for the AROS install process but not with the Install tool.
The release of FreePascal 3.2 gets closer (at least I hope) and with it the first full Release of FPC with complete Support of all Amiga Systems. I created already an Amiga-Style Installer for Amiga OS3 and MorphOS.
Today I added a Installer for Amiga OS 4 which should work on all Amiga OS 4 systems (except the X5000, yes that problem still exists because we have no way to debug it, without such a system available)
I made a little video about the general installation of FreePascal on Amiga OS 4.1 Final Edition Update 1. It needs a reboot at the end, maybe one could add that to the Installer, but I don’t like that when Installers force reboots.
One disadvantage of writing a program relying on web resources is, that you have to update that program everytime the webresource is changed/updated. In the next days the search for MUIMapparium will break again, and the Find by IP/ Find me is broken a while before already.
So I updated MUIMapparium to Version 0.8 I also added some small new features, like some more shortcuts and also by popular demand to jump automatically to the first search result. Best update soon before the search function does not work anymore.
Also the 68k freepascal compiler got some updates which hopefully improve the stability and speed of the m68k-amiga Version.
I decided to release the next Version of MUIMapparium even not all features are finished as I planed just to get the bugfixes out. Routes (calculated directions) can be loaded from GPX and showed on map. But I did not implement the route finding and direction command showing until now. Especially the Track curve plot was still very buggy, and of course I described in a previous blog post the pixel to position calculation which is now much better, much more precise but also much slower than before, with FPU it does not make big difference, but with SoftFloat not really funny. Routes and Tracks are now pre-calculated for the current zoom level. If the zoom level is very small and the track therefore not really good to see, only some pixels wide, it does only paint some points of it, which makes the overviews much faster. Still, with SoftFPU on 68k it still will be too slow if you have some Tracks/Routes. The drawing of Tracks/Marker/Routes can be completely switched off in Menu or buy a FPU 🙂 The package for Amiga68k does contain a FPU and Non-FPU.
I also created a little GPX file with a Track, some Markers and a Route to test the features. (Even you can use any GPX/KML/KMZ/FIT File you can find on the Internet as well)
Changes:
Bugfix: imperial units
Bugfix: key mapping
Bugfix: 2nd track curve drawing
Bugfix: Date/Time loading from GPX,KML,KMZ files
Level of Detail for Tracks
Precalculation of Trackpositions (Speed optimization for NonFPU systems)
Route drawing
Marker in Plot, shows also a marker in the Track
Turn off Marker, Track and Route drawing via Menu
Define Directory for Images via ToolTypes: e.g. DATAPATH=DH1:TmpDir
Change find IP to freegeoip.net (old one is too slow currently)
Working more on the Trackview to show the height and speed track, added a simple Popup Menu and a Data Reader. In the beginning I wanted to use the Bubble function of MUI to show the coordinates, but it flickers like hell if you move it over the map (because you have to destroy and recreate every time) and it makes very bad redrawing errors. On AROS for example when the bubble is over an other part of the window, the background behind it will not repaint, when the bubble disappear. On Amiga the background of the window is visible on the edges instead of my curve background. Also added a fine grid for better visibility of Values and heights, still fixed but maybe later can be disabled via menu.
I implemented a on screen (on-map) menu for zooming and to show the side panel, so do not need use the menu. I did that already for Mapparium but there only released for the special ARM version. There is also a key control available, the + and – keys can be used for zooms and cursor keys for movement.
I guess it will need one or two more version for MUIMapparium to reach the features of Mapparium but I guess it will be MUIMapparium will takes the Mapparium place (and Name) in the end.
Activated the localization for MUIMapparium currently only for english and german (of course ;-)) implemented also the local library unit for AmigaOS4 so localization is available on all platforms.
I also activated the AREXX interface currently only two commands are implemented: goto lat lon [zoom] to jump to a position and addwaypoint lat lon “Name” to create a waypoint. The Portname is the same as for Mapparium an example script can be found in rexx folder. The AREXX port does not work for AROS, Zune has no AREXX support currently.
I tried to compile it on AROS64 sadly the program did not work, it just freeze. Little bit strange sometimes it start but crash directly. I tried some other programs on AROS64 and they work rather nicely so why MUIMapparium not. The difference was easy it uses threads, finally I found the solution, the Critical Sections in FreePascal are mapped to SignalSemaphores of Amiga. In contrast to other OS the SignalSemaphores are not just simple pointers but a complicated structure. The given size there was ok for 32 bit Systems but for 64 bit the structure is much bigger. I included it for that release maybe someone want to try it 😉
After the compilation problems are solved, it is also possible to compile and use EdiSyn (finally a good editor in ARM-AROS :-P).
So here it is, same case as for Mapparium, it’s a special version for ARM-AROS (0.55). This new Version has already some advanced features like reload last open files (also remember the line the cursor is placed)
I found the reason Mapparium, Edisyn and some other application crashed. All things have to be compiled with “-CaEABIHF” to make sure all sources use the same way to transfer floating point values. The -dFPC_ARMHF is only needed by the compiler, the ABI has to set for every other compilation, so I added them also to the fpc.cfg, fp.cfg.
I created Mapparium Release, with the latest not official Release 0.7 which already has some basic GPS Support (position only) and the Zoom and Find me Buttons are moved into a small menu inside the map (like google maps and open streetmap webpage also have). The menu can be hidden if this disturbs someone 😉
Releases for all the other Platforms will need more time.
