Jonathan, how is the new job??? You wrote:
I fixed the problem with the formula/lsystem/ifs selection screens. Also twiddled with the make file a bit and got rid of some of the warnings associated with routines being too big for global optimizations.
Great! I tried starting it to force arbitrary precision with debugflag=3200, and the zoom box wouldn't work. Probably Bert's windows zoom box code is not connected up to the arbitrary precision corners arrays. This probably is not too hard to fix. Winfract seems slow. This makes me think that it is only of historical interest, and won't be that usable even if we fix the problems. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to help bring Winfract and Fractint in synch if we can do it in a finite amount of time. It would be nice to have synched up versions of Fractint, Xfractint, and Winfract if it doesn't take too long. Have you seen the program gnofract4d? The home page is http://gnofract4d.sourceforge.net. This is an amazing open source program written in python and C++ using GTK+. It parses both fractint and ultrafractal formula files to C, and then loads the C and runs. It runs only under Linux at present. I had no trouble installing it under Mandrake. Given the existence of at least two, and maybe three outstanding fractal programs (Gnofract4d, Ultrafractal, and Xaos), as I find my interest picking up again I also find myself asking this question: what is a worthwhile goal for a further development of Fractint given the existence of those (each in their own way) more advanced programs? Xaos is the notably different program because it is focused on animated zooming. I noticed that that program had a 6 year hiatus, and the team only recently resumed work on it. Goes to show you it can happen. Looks like the Windows port hasn't been refreshed yet. Gnofract4d and Ultrafractal both are based on fractint concepts but have extended them in different ways, and on two different platforms, and with two different development models (open and closed source). Interesting that Gnofract4d has implemented a clone of Ultrafractal's parser (which in turn started as a clone of fractint's parser.) The simplest answer to my question about a goal would be to extend fractint's life by porting to 32 bits as we have discussed. I still favor using WxWindows rather than Windows API so we could have an easy Linux port. I'm looking into various compiler choices. I figure I have enough in me to learn one new thing, maybe two, and I wonder if a good choice would be WxWindows and maybe C++ for a more literal port of Fractint (legacy code would remain in C). I'm also interested in learning more about Gnofract4d and what can be accomplished with Python and C++. Tim