Roadmap

As the initial roadmap has evolved these last years, with the incoming version 0.60, it is the opportunity to set a new to-do list.

Step 0 : Version 0.60, end of 2010

• Integrated the GUI if started from the Workbench
• Added support of text styles, handling the master slide attributes
• Fixed paragraph alignment
• Added support of WMF images
• Validated with Valgrind and almost 700 files

Step 1 : The to-do list

• Finalize usage of shared objects on OS4
• Support shadowed text, different styles in a paragraph
• Support transitions between slides, effects and interactivity as well
• Reach 1000 PowerPoint test files
• Much more Amiga oriented (appicon, GUI, tootypes, native gfx API, ...)
• Port to other OS ? (AmigaOS 3.x, AROS, Android, ...)
• Support music and sounds
• Support TIFF format
• Font management : if a font is not found, use a font from the same family
• MorphUp support

Initial roadmap

PointRider roadmap or what I planned for the future with progressive steps.

Step 0 (over year 2005)

• understand the format, obtain structured data
• write tools to help managing these data

Step 1 : beta 1 (april 2006)

• First public release
• Shapes (images and texts) displayed at the right position with the right size
• Text : basic layout and Unicode support
• Fullscreen mode ('f' key)

Step 2 : beta 2 (june 2006 ... delayed in september)

• Better OLE support (big files)
• Remove some crashes (visible on Windows)
• First Hollywood module (export of Hollywood scripts)
• Validate with more test on Amiga systems
• Fix the image parsing to obtain the good display order
• Test with many more PPS files
• Find how to set the background (colour or picture) ^delayed
• Fix memory leaks
• Change the size of the default font^delayed
• Remove strange characters (uncomplete font files or wrong charset)
• Add options to set the font and its size^delayed

Step 3 : Version 0.30 "In the background" (february 2007 ... delayed in may)

• Add background support : colour, picture, tiles
• Add timer to display slides each n seconds
• New arguments : timer value, auto-end flag
• Fix first unexpected slide that appeared with some files
• SDL used as shared libraries under OS4 (sorry, they won't be ready)

Step 4 : Version 0.40 "Before the storm" (summer 2007 ... in fact, internal version)

• New (and official) logo
• Add statistics to get information for internal use (debug, optimization, ...)
• MeltingPoint : Add support of background
• Get the depth of the desktop, use hardware surfaces, manage uncommon display (16/9, ...)
• Improve the scaling mode
• GUI to launch PointRider
• Test and debug : interactive display

Step 5 : Version 0.50 "Font engine" (beginning of 2008)

• Better font management, find which font and size to apply to each shape
• First step to a graphical engine indenpendant from the engine (SDL)
• Text attributes with alignment
• Support new background types (images, patterns, unique color, shaded colors, ...)
• Inherit background but also other shapes from master slide !
• Reach 1000 PPS files for testing (hey, send me yours)
• AmiUpdate support

Step 6 : The future

• Much more Amiga oriented (appicon, GUI, tootypes, native gfx API, ...)
• 68k version ? May be a good test to indicate the low requirements
• AROS version ? Embedded version ?
• Music and sounds
• Transitions, effects
• Interactivity
• More image formats supported, like WMF
• Font management : if a font is not found, use a font from the same family
• MorphUp support
• Other OS as targets ...