Community > ReactOS Newsletter Archive > ReactOS Newsletter: Newsletter 34
ReactOS Newsletter - Newsletter 34 (#34)
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by Z98 on 2007-11-19
A rare joint newsletter between Samuel and I.
topGeneral Changes
Some people have already noticed the inclusion of a new remote desktop utility, mstsc.exe, by Ged. Some asked why include this new tool when there is already such a client in SVN, albeit incomplete. The reasoning is simple. The author of the old client has been gone a while and Ged is not familiar with his code, so he chose to use something else. In the future, the two utilities may merge or the old one will be resurrected, but for the time being, mstsc.exe is the more complete client. It has already been tested on ReactOS and can connect to other Windows machines. This client is slated for inclusion with 0.3.4.
Aleksey recently fixed exception for C++ in the crt (C Runtime Environment) that now should allow MFC applications to run.
Shell32 Improvements
A lot of code in ReactOS actually originates from Wine, specifically the DLLs. This serves ReactOS well, providing us with functional components we don't have to implement. The developers can then focus on other areas, including the lower level plumbing an operating system would need. However, because Wine is a compatibility layer, there are times its code doesn't work for us or lacks functionality that should be there but not because Wine relies on its host to provide. Case in point is the Shell32 DLL. Wine has no reason to implement full shell support so doesn't, forcing the ReactOS developers to fill in those holes. This is effectively forking the Shell32 DLL. Any future syncs with Wine code will have to be done by hand. Some of the functionality implemented are as follows.
- Recycle Bin
- Static Context Menus (Copy, Cute, Paste, Delete, Rename)
- Dynamic Context Menus (Added by applications)
- Open with Context Menu
- Run As Context Menu
- Property Dialogs (Drives, Files. Recycle Bin)
- Start Menu Objects
- COM Interfaces and Win32 Functions
- About Dialog Improvements
GDI/Win32k
Since the win32k rewrite began, the developers have cleaned up a large amount of code. This includes removal of redundant references and fixing various syscalls. Tweaking when switches into kernel mode are made and elimination of unneeded memory copies in win32k also provided a nice speed boost. Currently, the developers are fixing upt he _DC structure, following the design described in Feng Yuan's Windows Graphics Programming book. Work is coming along nicely overall and ReactOS will soon have a complete win32k.
topOpenGL and ReactX
Work continues to make ReactOS a proper gaming platform. ReactOS derives its OpenGL support from Mesa and Magnus has been working on updating the version included to 7.0.1. Magnus was assisted by Kamil Hornicek (IRC nick: Pigglesworth), who imported Mesa into his local tree and modified the rbuild configuration files to build it in. The two then worked to update the ICD (Installable Client Driver) interface that Mesa uses. In the process, they exposed several exception handling bugs that Aleksey is now investigating, which prevent Mesa from running at the moment. This exception problem is not related to the one mentioned above.
The main components of the ReactX branch have also been merged into trunk. The kernel is now aware of syscalls ReactX would make, but win32k is still missing a few APIs before the RX/DX driver can be loaded. The current design for ReactX separates it somewhat from win32k following the Windows 2003 design, so even if win32k is complete, ReactX will still need more work. People should remember that DirectX is more than just graphics. It has network, user I/O, and audio support. Magnus has been focusing on graphics mostly, so that component is more complete. However, even graphics can be split into 2D, 3D, video playback, and others. To duplicate DirectX is a massive undertaking but progress is being made.
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