NewI\O (Alpha Version 0.09 Build 050)
http://www.newio.org

What is NewI\O?

NewI\O is a system for running programs on the Internet. Instead of
trying to kludge a document browser to run programs, it is an attempt
to create something from the ground up to run programs.

The NewI\O system consists of:

1. The NewI\O application browser Dreadnought
(http://www.newio.org/dreadnought.html)
2. The NewI\O daemon NIOd (http://www.newio.org/niod.html)
3. The NewI\O library NIO_lib (http://www.newio.org/nio_lib.html)

NewI\O currently supports keyboard and mouse events, colors, drawing
primitives, fonts, images, sounds, and music. Video support is
included, but not fully functional, yet.

How it Works

Type in a URL to the browser. An application is started on the server,
and I/O is sent back to the browser using a simple bi-directional
message scheme.

Resources such as sound or image files are downloaded just like a web
browser would handle them. Therefore, the first time it runs, it will
take some time for the download. The resources are cached, so
subsequent runs are much faster.

What is new?

- Fixed major bug related to rendering in more than one thread.
- Other misc bug fixes
- Made better use of  SDL_prim drawing routines. Some of the demo apps
have been updated to reflect these changes.
- Added ability to resize window
- New demo program NIO_NEKO available that demos animation, mouse I/O,
and audio.
- First draft at auto update mechanism
- Preliminary support for MPEG video is included. Not working well, yet.
- Build system clean-ups

Status

Alpha, very alpha. Major sections, such as security, are still to be
implemented.

The NewI\O is system is free software. It is released under the GPL.
Libraries are released under the LGPL.

There are a few small applications written for the system, although
most of the work to date has been in the lower level plumbing, and not
in applications. Therefore the API is very preliminary at this point.
Fortunately, it is very easy to modify or add to the API.

There are two reasons game programmers may be interested in this code:

1. Game programmers may be interested in programming for and using this
system. Although it will probably never be adequate for the most
advanced 3D action games, there are many other types of computer games
where a system such as this may be adequate and even advantageous. One
of the design goals was to create a system that is very easy to program
for, and in my opinion, this has been achieved so far.

2. Game programmers may be interested in the code itself as an example.
Since it is designed to be a general purpose client, it uses most all
of the features of the SDL and associated programming libraries. It is
written in straight C, and is hopefully fairly object
oriented so sections could easily be pulled out and used in your own
projects.

Acknowledgments:

Sam Lantinga, Ryan C. Gordon and the rest of the SDL team
Bob Pendleton - Font and text routines
Ryan Mcguigan - SDL_prim library

We would be interested in any comments that you have.

The NewI\O Team
November 28, 2005

--
E-Mail: Chris Nystrom <cnyst...@gmail.com>
Business: http://www.shaklee.net/austin
Blog: http://conversazione.blogspot.com/
AIM: nystromchris