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update for 45.5.0

Cameron Kaiser 2016-10-13 18:30:01 -07:00
parent dd81409b86
commit 759c19ddda
1 changed files with 6 additions and 1 deletions
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TechNotes.md

@ -4,7 +4,10 @@ TenFourFox "10.4Fx" is designed to be as close to Mozilla sources as possible, f
* Because of increasingly poor plugin support on Tiger and PowerPC, plugins ship disabled in 10.4Fx 6.0, and no longer function at all in 19.0 and up. This is both for reasons of security (particularly with Flash) and the use of incompatible later OS X APIs. Bug reports related to plugins will not be accepted. See our document on [[plugin non-support|PluginsNoLongerSupported]].
* 10.4Fx, as of 4.0.1pre, uses a modified `libvpx` with AltiVec to accelerate WebM video playback instead of the baseline C version in 4.0 and earlier versions ([issue 28](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/28)). The baseline C version is still used for the G3 build, which lacks VMX.
* 10.4Fx, as of 4.0.1pre, uses a modified `libvpx` with AltiVec to accelerate WebM VP8 video playback instead of the baseline C version in 4.0 and earlier versions ([issue 28](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/28)). The baseline C version is still used for the G3 build, which lacks VMX. The AltiVec VP8 implementation was lifted from an early `libvpx` build which we have maintained and ported forward.
* Custom VP9 AltiVec support was added in 45.5.0 ([issue 324](https://github.com/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/324)).
* MP3 audio support was added using the [`minimp3`](http://keyj.emphy.de/minimp3/) library starting in 31.2 (but due to various streaming bugs was not officially supported until version 38). Starting in version 45.5.0, this support is implemented as a full platform decoder to integrate into Mozilla's MP3 parser-seeker ([issue 325](https://github.com/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/325)).
* OpenGL support is presently disabled in 10.4Fx. This is Apple's fault, as Mozilla requires non-power-of-two texture sizes, which require OpenGL 2. Unfortunately, PPC Tiger does not support OpenGL 2 at all, and only a subset of cards support it in PPC Leopard (the really irritating part is that Intel Tiger does have OpenGL 2, and OpenGL 2 came out in 2004!). It may be enabled in the future for those handful of configurations on Leopard, but this won't benefit the majority of users. Note that many graphics features will work just fine; they just won't be hardware-accelerated.
@ -17,6 +20,8 @@ TenFourFox "10.4Fx" is designed to be as close to Mozilla sources as possible, f
* Versions from 24.0 ending with 38.0 used PPCBC, a PowerPC-specialized form of Baseline Compiler ([issue 224](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/224), [issue 245](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/245)). PPCBC introduced improved type guard code and used some components of the previous methodjit macroassembler for regular expressions (through the end of 31.x) and general code generation, but did not support the full IonMonkey compiler.
* Versions from 38.0 on use IonPower, a PowerPC-specialized form of IonMonkey ([issue 178](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/178)). IonPower uses the PPCBC Baseline Compiler improvements and adds other PowerPC-specific performance modifications to `irregexp` and other compiler subsystems. It does not support `asm.js` due to concerns over its utility on big-endian platforms, but is able to run `asm.js` code in the regular compiler and supports all other features of IonMonkey.
* 10.4Fx uses a hybrid-endian JavaScript engine to facilitate running `asm.js`-based code ([issue 326](https://github.com/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/326)). This engine uses little-endian typed arrays by transparently byteswapping integer access, but retains native endianness for `jsval`s, non-typed arrays, floats and doubles. Support for this mode was added in 45.5.0.
* All text rendering in 10.4Fx uses Apple Type Services (ATS) and HarfBuzz, an OpenType font shaper. While some portions of code leverage Tiger's private CoreText framework (yes, CoreText is in Tiger too), Tiger's CoreText does not support enough font features to allow Mozilla's built-in CoreText shaper to function correctly. HarfBuzz actually works just fine for the vast majority of cases, and appears to be faster overall to boot, so this is a net win.
However, installed fonts and scripts that require Apple Advanced Typography features to correctly render, such as Indic and Arabic fonts, may not have correct ligatures or glyph substitution or reordering depending on if HarfBuz can interpret AAT information encoded in the fonts that come standard with OS X. As a result, although the characters will appear on-screen, they may not be linked or ordered properly; if the site provides an OpenType-equivalent, however, some scripts may be able to display correctly (and more will work correctly in the future). Most European and other Asian characters and scripts obviously work fine, of course. For more information, see [issue 5](/classilla/tenfourfox/issues/5).