Leopard WebKit



Leopard WebKit is a current build of WebKit for OS X 10.5 Leopard and OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Of WebKit for OS X 10.5 Leopard and OS. A secondary download under the Download link. (I had the case in Leopard, when some site was not rendering well in Safari and it did well in Leopard Webkit) Reply.

A couple weeks ago, we noted that Apple's 3D CSS Transforms were slowly coming to the desktop via Safari 4, at least on Snow Leopard. Over this past weekend, though, WebKit developers put in a small patch that enables 3D CSS transforms in the latest nightly build of WebKit for Leopard, too. Acrobat 2015 serial number.

The WebKit team developed a series of two-dimensional transforms that can be applied with CSS properties, then added the ability to animate them over time. Those transforms were used for the Safari 4 'welcome page' that is loaded whenever Safari 4 is first launched. Mozilla recently implemented support for two-dimensional transforms in the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine, which is used in Firefox 3.5.

The WebKit team later extended the transforms to work in three dimensions and then added the ability for the transforms to be rendered using a GPU, saving valuable CPU cycles for other work. The 3D transforms first became available in iPhone OS 2.0 so that Web app developers could add some advanced visuals with no additional programming expertise. Apple eventually submitted the revised 3D CSS transforms to the W3C for consideration as an official CSS standard. Since then, Apple enabled them in Snow Leopard builds of Safari 4, but had until this weekend left Leopard users out of the fun.

Comments on a bug report requesting the feature to be added to desktop versions of WebKit suggested that there were technical limitations that prevented support for the 3D transforms in Leopard. But a look at the code changes indicates that checks for Leopard were merely removed from the build process so that the feature would be 'turned on' for Mac OS X versions 10.5 and above.

Charles Ying's Snow Stack running in WebKit build r45788, on Mac OS X 10.5.7

Leopard users can now get a feel for what the transforms can do by looking at several demos.

Leopard WebKit

Web developer Charles Ying has put together an impressive photo browser called Snow Stack, which pans a series of photos in 3D and allows a better look at each image by zooming it 'closer' to the viewer.

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Chicago-based developer Peter Zich also updated demos he created for the iPhone to work on the desktop as well, including his 3D 'model' of a van and an impressive 3D photo browser that spins on all three axes.

A cursory look at performance indicates that moving the transform functions to the GPU results in a much lower use of the CPU. These demos purr along in the newest WebKit on Leopard, while running even simple 2D transforms in Safari 4 on Leopard can crank up the CPU on my (admittedly) aging first-gen MacBook.

Results in Snow Leopard appear to be perhaps an order of magnitude better—while Snow Stack runs very smoothly in Snow Leopard, it does occasionally suffer from sputters and frame drops on Leopard. This suggests that something in the graphics pipeline of Snow Leopard is more optimized than Leopard, and may be the reason the WebKit team was reluctant to enable the feature on Leopard before now.

Peter Zich's 3D Image Fly running in WebKit build r45788, on Mac OS X 10.5.7

Support for the 3D transforms has yet to be enabled for Windows or Linux platforms, though the team has encouraged the filing of bug reports for those platforms requesting that support be added. And while Firefox 3.5 has its own support for CSS transforms on those platforms, unlike WebKit it doesn't yet support the Z axis and also doesn't yet support GPU acceleration.

There is already an effort underway to create a full JavaScript-based API for creating 3D graphics within a browser, but the 3D CSS transforms offer those without experience in complex 3D programming a way to add 3D effects using the skills they already have. Progress from both the Mozilla and WebKit teams suggests that such 3D effects will become more mainstream as support for the standard grows, on mobile platforms as well as on the desktop. And from the looks of these early demos, it seems like we can expect some impressive things to come.

Further reading:

If you're a developer with access to Snow Leopard, or you're running Leopard and the latest WebKit nightly build, you can check out the following demos.

  • Charles Ying's Snow Stack photo browser
  • Peter Zich's 3D Van 'model' rotating in space
  • Peter Zich's 3D Image Fly, another image browser (hint: click and drag to rotate)
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Vintage Mac News

This Week's Apple and Desktop Mac News

Compiled and edited by Dan Knight - 2012.09.10

Vintage Mac News is a roundup of news related to vintage Macs* andother older Apple products. For other Mac and Apple news, see Mac News Review. For iBook, PowerBook, and otherportable news, see The 'Book Review.iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iOS News Review.

Purchases made through links to Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes/iBook/App/Mac App Store support Low End Mac.

News & Opinion

Vintage Mac Deals

Leopard

News & Opinion

TenFourKit Gives Safari for PowerPC OS X 10.4 TigerLatest WebKit Version

Alien skin xenofex 2.6 1. MyMacCollection.com notes:

'If you're a PowerPC Macintosh user who runs OS X Tiger, you may have noticed alack of up to date web-browsers. TenFourFox, an up-to-date build ofFireFox, is the current king of web-browsers on PowerPCs running Tiger.For those who prefer Safari over Firefox, but were worried about nothaving an up-to-date browser, your prayers have been answered.TenFourKit is a current build of WebKit (the backbone of Safari, and also what Chrome is built on),is now available for PowerPCs running Tiger. Another great benefit ofWebKit based browsers like TenFourKit is their ability to play H.264video.'

TenFourKit is a build of WebKit 1.x for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, just asAurorafox (see last week's Vintage Mac News) isfor OS X 10.5 Leopard onPowerPC. With it, you can run Safari 4.1.3 (the last version for Tiger)with the current version of the 533 version of WebKit 1.x.

System Requirements

  • PPC
  • Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later

Link: TenFourKit Released for PowerPCs Running Tiger
Link: TenFourKit

TenFourFox 10.0.7 PowerPC Firefox Port for Tigerand Leopard

TenFourFox 10.0.7 is a PowerPC port of Firefox ESR10 that brings most of the latter's feature set to older Macs.Version 10.0.7 is a security and bug fix update for TenFourFox 10.

TenFourFox uses modified Firefox source code, rewritten to remaincompatible with Mac OS X v10.4 and the Power Macintosh. It alsocontains specific optimizations and special features for PowerPCprocessors. For this reason, it is not exactly the same as Firefox.However, it is intended to be as compatible with it as possible,including most add-ons and most standard features. You can treat 10.4Fxas equivalent with Firefox ESR 10.0 in most circumstances, withspecific exceptions noted below.

TenFourFox is available in optimized versions for G3 processors, twovariants of G4 processors: (7400/7450'G4e'), or G5 processors.

Note that TenFourFox no longer supports browser plugins, so if yourequire using Flash, Java or other plugins, do not use TenFourFox.(However, plugins are not extensions. Most add-ons and extensions willwork.) However, add-ons which require an Intel Macintosh will not workwith TenFourFox, even if they are otherwise compatible with Firefox 10,and add-ons that require 10.5 Leopard may not be compatible withTenFourFox running on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, even if they are compatiblewith PowerPC.

Starting with Firefox 10, Mozilla is offering an extended supportrelease version of Firefox ('Firefox ESR') intended for environmentswhere users are unable to use rapid-release versions of Firefox due topolicy or technical constraints. Hum tere bin female song download. 10.4Fox 10.x is based on this extendedsupport release and is intended for users who wish to remain with astable browser core. The stable branch will continue to receivebugfixes and security updates, but will not receive new Firefoxfeatures (although it may receive certain 10.4Fx-specific featuresjudged important for legacy users).

Plugins on PowerPC are of special concern because Mozilla is makingupdates to their plugin architecture which may require the pluginsthemselves to be updated, and there are certain difficult-to-correctbugs with them already on Tiger. Most importantly, QuickTime and AdobeFlash for PowerPC are no longer maintained and have known securityrisks that can crash, perform malicious operations or leak data, andFlash 10.1 is rapidly becoming unsupported by many applications.

For Internet video, Floodgap software now recommend the use ofTenFourFox's optional QuickTimeEnabler. This allows many videos to behandled in QuickTime Player directly: http://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/wiki/QuickTimeEnabler

System Requirements

TenFourFox (hereafter '10.4Fx') requires a G3 Power Macintosh, MacOS X 10.4.11, 100 MB of free disk space, and 512 MB of RAM. 1 GBof RAM and a G4 or G5 processor is recommended. Video playback islikely to be poor on systems slower than 1.25 GHz; a G5 is recommended.Mac OS X 10.5.8 is supported.

Link: TenFourFox

Leopard Webkit Software

Shiira Web Browser for Mac PowerPC

Mac PowerPC.com notes:

'During my morning research, I found a great browser called Shiira.It's a Japanese open source that was working out very well forPowerPC/Intel users until recently. Unfortunately, our JapanesePowerPC friend decided to discontinuethis project in 2009 (after 5 years of life), which is too bad becauseShiira had a lot of potential as a fast and simple browser, but seemedto also have a lot of bugs to work out. The last version released was2.3 and the developer's site is not online anymore but if you wouldlike to check this browser out, you can download from the link[below].

'If you take a minute to review some of the comments, you willnotice that there are some disappointed people, but there is also amember who is using Shiira as his default browser on a PowerBook G4running Tiger and he is pretty happy with the performance. Well, theonly way to find out what you think is to download it and doyour own test drive. Right now, the most important thing for me to findis any software that supports PowerPC! This will make me, andall my readers, very happy!'

Publisher's note: As Shiira is WebKit-based, it's conceivable thatit would work with TenFourKit (above). dk

Link: WebBrowser Shiira for Mac PowerPC
Link: ShiiraDownload (MacUpdate)
Link: Shiira(Wikipedia)

Play Flash 11 Content on PowerPC

MyMacCollection.com notes:

'This isn't breaking news by any means, but I thought it was worthre-sharing. A lot of websites are starting to give the proverbial'middle-finger' to PowerPCs running Flash 10 by demanding Flash 11 beinstalled (which is impossible on PowerPC). Well, there isn't a way toget Flash 11 on PowerPC Macintoshes, but there is a way to trick thewebsite into thinking you have Flash 11. Granted, most PowerPCcomputers show signs of Post-Traumatic Stress from even the thought ofrunning Flash based content, but if you have a late model PowerPC (DualG4 or G5), you shouldn't have any serious issues running a Flashvideo.'

Leopard WebKit

Link: Play Flash 11 Content on PowerPC
Link: Hack AllowsPowerPC Macs to Access Flash 11 Content

Installing Leopard on Unsupported G4 Macs

Mac PowerPC.com reports:

'Installing [OS X 10.5] Leopard on unsupported PowerPC Macs (likeless than 867 MHz requirements).'

'Unfortunately, my DVD requirements weren't quite right for ourmachine but after a few hours browsing different sites, I finally foundthis amazing application/plugin called LeopardAssist. And what this appdoes is essentially virtualizes a 933 MHz processor in such a way thatyour system will think you have all the requirements necessary tofinish the task of formatting your less than 867 MHz machine! I wasvery excited to see the results and everything seemed to be workingperfectly and finally I was having no more errors.'

'Long story short:

  • I learned how to partition using Terminal;
  • I learned how to cheat the system requirements without having tobuy another 10.5!
  • Value of Lesson: PRICELESS!'

Publisher's note: LeopardAssist is based on a technique developed byDylan McDermond and firstshared on Low End Mac shortly after Leopard's release.

Link: Partition (Part 2) Installing Leopard on Unsupported MacPowerPC
Link: LeopardAssist

Vintage MacDeals

Low End Mac updates the following price trackers regularly:

* Although Apple definesvintage asmodels discontinued over five years ago but less than seven years ago(at which point Apple calls them obsolete), we prefer adefinition that has more to do with a lack of functionality and the endof active support by Apple than with how long Apple makes service partsavailable.

Dictionary definitions of the word vintage start outwith wine, but it is also applied to a group of items that sharecertain characteristics, originated in a specific time period, and/oris characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal - aclassic.

As we use the term here, vintage refers toMacs and related software, operating systems, and peripherals thatApple has left behind over the years, whether that's an originalMacintosh or a Power Mac G5 running OS X 10.5 Leopard. At present, weconsider all pre-Intel Macs and all versions of OS X that run on themvintage (and at some point we'll extend that definition to includeIntel Macs that can't run OS X 10.7 Lion, and so on).

Intel

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  • Mac of the Day: Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4, introduced 2002.08.13. Dual CPUs from 867 MHz to 1.25 GHz on the most powerful Mac to boot OS 9.

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