Meet the New wIRC
Several weeks ago we discovered that wIRC from WebOS Internals would be the very first hybrid app available to webOS users. However, at the time only a small portion of webOS users were able to use the new wIRC as it was exclusive to webOS 1.4.5. Now that Sprint users here in the U.S. have the 1.4.5 update most of the webOS community can now play with this new update to wIRC and experience it in all of its hybrid glory!
Many of us here at webOSroundup have been salivating for months at the thought of what can be accomplished with a hybrid (SDK/PDK) app. Being able to use the look and feel of an SDK app but having the power of the the PDK under the hood can make for some pretty awesome possibilities! So we decided to email WebOS Internals to ask what exactly they were able to attain by moving wIRC to a hybrid app. As expected we received a response from WebOS Internals very quickly, but we weren’t really expecting the answer we got. Believe it or not, they really didn’t gain anything they couldn’t have already done because the app has technically been a hybrid all along! That is, of course, if you look at the definition of “hybrid app” like wIRC developer Ryan Hope (PuffTheMagic) does.
His response to our question is as follows:
Well I like to look at “hybrids” as apps that use a combination of C/C++ and Javascript/Mojo. wIRC has always been a “hybrid” if you use this definition. The older wIRC (pre 0.2.99) used a “C service” to do all the dirty work. A service is essentially a standalone linux daemon that runs in the background and talks to apps (one or multiple apps) via some IPC (inter-process communication). The current wIRC uses the PDL framework provided by Palm. The backend of wIRC is still very much a standard Linux daemon. What changed is that as a service, the C code talked to the Javascript code via D-Bus/JSON-RPC; the PDL skips the IPC. Essentially, C code can talk to JS directly and vise versa.
Converting to a hybrid didn’t really provide us anything we couldn’t do before. A few bugs got fixed for free by not using dbus/json-rpc mostly due to fewer escape code conversions. Most of the awesome changes in the latest wIRC have been on the todo for a while and their implementation just happened to coincide with the conversion to from a service to using PDL (which I only did so that we can submit wIRC to the Palm app catalog; something we couldnt do using undocumented APIs). So while its very cool to be able to call javascript functions from C, switching to using PDL isn’t what caused all the big improvements to wIRC… The improvements were a push to make wIRC as sweet as possible before our first Palm catalog release, not a result of becoming a hybrid… but we had to use official APIs to even be considered for inclusion. This probably isn’t the answer you were expecting but its the truth.
In the end they did take care of a couple issues they had by moving to official PDL framework. However, their main purpose in this was just to get it to the app catalog in the future. Depending on how you look at things we have had access to a hybrid app for a very long time on webOS but now wIRC is a hybrid app according to the Palm definition.
In addition to moving wIRC to an official hybrid app the developers have also added a ton of new features that make this app truly shine. Here is the mighty long list of features that have been added to wIRC version 0.3.0:
- IRC Proxy support (ex. BIP and Irssi Proxy work)
- Tossing the main stage will now kill the entire app, including all child stages, and any connections to servers
- Added option to stop the screen from dimming
- Better random colors, they now are changed based on theme
- DCC Chat and Send support
- Correctly parses color in messages
- Added option to turn off join/part/quit/mode event messages
- Changing the theme resets message color options to be visible on the current theme
- Favorite channels support
- More palm-dark theme updates
- Added theme based color prefs
- Added custom aliases for commands
- Gesture+Q and Gesture+A cycle though command history
- /ctcp requests
- Custom ctcp replies
- Added events preference pages
- /ping works when autoping is off
- Auto-prepend # to channel names if they\’re forgotten on /join
- Fixed bug stoping you from joining channels that didn\’t start with #
- Relaunch bugfix
- Added contextual menu when you tap a message
- Added yell and connect launch commands for very webosy cross-app integration
- Changed how notice events and /msg commands are displayed
- /ns aliased to /msg NickServ
- /authserv aliased to /msg AuthServ
- Fixed /topic command bug
- Now handles numeric 404 event
- Changes to app-menus on most scenes
- Fixed bug in timestamps
- Added format options for timestamps
- Added standard help scene
- Removed old about scene
- Turning off autoping actually turns off autoping
- Added option to set autoping interval
- Split messages longer than 255 char
- /part messages now work
- Now rejoins channels with open cards on a reconnect
As you can see, there have been countless hours of development poured into the newest update. I think a huge pat on the back should go to Ryan Hope (PuffTheMagic), Brandon VanBelle (oil), and Eric Gaudet (egaudet) for the amazing job they have done on this app. Don’t forget these fellas have put together something that has not been done on webOS before and they have done so for free! If you use wIRC or just appreciate all the hard work they have done please donate to WebOS Internals. Also keep an eye out for a full review of this app when it goes live in the Palm App Catalog and a How To for all those who want to know how to use this awesome app.
