[NTLK] [ANN] ZLib for NewtonOS 1.0

From: Paul Guyot (pguyot_at_kallisys.net)
Date: Sun Nov 04 2001 - 10:44:32 EST


Hi all,

I'm pleased to announce ZLib for NewtonOS.

ZLib is a compression/decompression library written by Jean-Loup
Gailly and Mark Adler. It is now very mature and recognized. The
compression algorithm it implements is used in zip files (among other
compression algorithms) and within software such as VNC or SSH.

I have partially ported ZLib 1.1.3 to NewtonOS (1.0 is the version
number of the port). The ZLib Newton Package includes NewtonScript
wrappers to basic Inflate/Deflate functions (with calling conventions
very similar to the ZLib's conventions).

You can find the package for your Newton and the source code as well
as the documentation and the user license on my website:
http://www.kallisys.com/newton/zlib/

The ZLib Newton package is like a shared library and it actually uses
the Units mechanism (provided by NewtonOS 2.x). It doesn't do
anything once installed without a software using it.

The ZLib Newton package is currently used by two softwares by Steve
Weyer which he'll release soon (probably today):

VNC client 3.3a6 (I don't need to present this software I guess): If
you have ZLib installed, the packets sent by the server can be
compressed. Requires that the server implements it. Note to fellow
MacOS users: there is no MacOS server doing ZLib compression
(ChromiVNC offers the option in the prefs but doesn't implement it).
UnzipBMP: this is a Newtscape plug-in to display BMP images and
browse zip archives. Don't ask me why both features are together, I
forgot although it's in the doc, but the thing is that if you have
the ZLib package installed, you can extract deflate-compressed files
from the zip files.

Notes concerning the source code of the original ZLib: the changes I
had to do to be compilable for NewtonOS were basically to declare as
const every global variable practically used as constants but not
declared or partially declared as such. As a consequence, the source
code included in the developer archive may not be compilable for
other targets.

Paul

-- 
Home page: http://www.kallisys.com/
Newton-powered WebServer: http://newt.dyndns.org:8080/

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