Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller reports progress in the mySTEP project to run MacOS X applications on the Sharp Zaurus. Though not yet ready for production, the newest release brings more maturity and features, and Dr. Schaller invites anyone interested in integrating mobile, low-cost handheld computers with MacOS X-based IT applications to contact the project.

In particular, Dr. Schaller would like to locate someone interested in developing and contributing a new menu system (NSMenuView, NSMenuItemCell) to the project.

mySTEP is an LGPL (Lesser General Public License) library based on GNUstep. It works with the myPDA runtime and a Zaurus-gcc cross-compiler development kit to enable source code from Cocoa applications to be compiled into fat binaries capable of running verbatim on MacOS X or a standard Zaurus on which myPDA is installed.

Dr. Schaller lists the new features of the latest releases as follows:

• a working implementation of NSMenuView and NSMenuItemCell
• Model file processing improved and integrated with nib2mib [nib2gmodel]
• NSBezierPath, NSAffineTransform prepared
• NSAttributedString Drawing Extensions added
• several bugs fixed
• many minor functions added to be more compatible to Cocoa
• additional libraries like PreferencePanes, MenuExtras, SimpleWebKit started
• myFinder now works to a level that allows to browse the the file hierarchy and to open applications

The mySTEP system comprises the following components, according to Dr. Schaller:

• myPDA — (a clone of mGSTEP/GNUstep) runtime environment — an application that can be started from within Qtopia on the Zaurus. It shuts down Qtopia, starts the X11 server on the Zaurus, and a window manager, then launches myFinder (“which is working in some very basic way”).
• mySTEP — provides shared libraries libFoundation, libAppKit, libAddressBook, libPreferencePane, libSystemUI (MenuExtras), libWebKit for the Zaurus-Linux. libFoundation is approx. 98% compatible. libAppKit implements approx. 70% of the Mac counterpart.
• Zaurus-gcc — a binary distribution of the gcc Linux-ARM Cross Compiler for installation on MacOS X — with direct integration into Xcode.
• myPDA SDK for Xcode — contains the headers and binary libraries as a plug-in for the cross compiler.

More information is available from the Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller Information Technology Research Initiative (DSITRI).

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.