FSV

This repo is a fork of fsv, updated to current environments. The original author is Daniel Richard G., a former student of Computer Science at the MIT.

About fsv

fsv (pronounced eff-ess-vee) is a file system visualizer in cyberspace. It lays out files and directories in three dimensions, geometrically representing the file system hierarchy to allow visual overview and analysis. fsv can visualize a modest home directory, a workstation's hard drive, or any arbitrarily large collection of files, limited only by the host computer's memory and graphics hardware.

Its ancestor, SGI's fsn (pronounced "fusion") originated on IRIX and was prominently featured in Jurassic Park: "It's a Unix system!".

Screenshots of the original clone are still available.

Useful info and screenshots of the original SGI IRIX implementation are available on siliconbunny.

Install

1. Clone the repository
2. Install dependencies (Ubuntu): sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libepoxy-dev libcglm-dev
   1. cglm is available as of Ubuntu 20.10. If cglm is not available system-wide, make a subdirectory under the project root and extract cglm there under the name cglm:
      1. mkdir -p subprojects; cd subprojects
      2. tar xaf /path/to/cglm-version.tar.gz
      3. mv cglm-version cglm
3. Run meson in repository root directory: meson setup builddir
   • Or set non-default options: meson setup -Dbuildtype=release -Dprefix=~/.local builddir
   • Check current options: meson configure builddir
   • Modify options on existing builddir: meson configure -Doptimization=g builddir
4. Compile: ninja -C builddir
5. Install: sudo ninja -C builddir install

TODO

DONE Update to Gtk+3

1. DONE Update code, still using gtk+2, to build cleanly with meson configure -Dc_args="-DGDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED -DGTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED" builddir
2. DONE Update code, still using gtk+-2.0, to build cleanly with meson configure -Dc_args="-DGDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED -DGTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED -DGTK_DISABLE_SINGLE_INCLUDES -DGSEAL_ENABLE" builddir
3. DONE Update to 'modern' OpenGL 3.1. GtkGLArea in Gtk+3 supports only core profile, so modernize the OpenGL code before switching to Gtk+3 and the OpenGL core profile.
   1. Build scaffolding to use shaders and VBO's. Bundle shaders using Gresource, compile and link shaders, use cglm for host side linear algebra instead of OpenGL 1.x matrix stack manipulation.
   2. Get rid of display lists, using VBO's and shaders inside display lists does not work properly.
   3. Replace deprecated GL_SELECT for picking objects. Maybe with something like http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/miscellaneous/clicking-on-objects/picking-with-an-opengl-hack/
   4. Convert immediate mode OpenGL code to VBO's, including switching from GL_QUADS to GL_TRIANGLES.
4. DONE Switch to Gtk+3

Update to Gtk 4

Step by step instructions at https://docs.gtk.org/gtk4/migrating-3to4.html

1. DONE While using Gtk 3, build cleanly with meson configure -Dc_args="-DGDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED -DGTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED" builddir

Setup github actions for CI

Use Gtk calendar

There exists commented out code for using gnome date edit widget (gnome_date_edit_new etc.). Use gtk calendar widget instead. https://developer-old.gnome.org/gtk2/stable/GtkCalendar.html

Misc notes

OpenGL versions and compatibility

Gtk+3 tries to create a OpenGL 3.2 core context (since 3.16), and if that fails it falls back to whatever legacy context it manages to create (since 3.20). Thus one cannot assume availability of any legacy pre-3.2 API's that are dropped in a core context. So for maximum compatibility use the oldest API's still possible in 3.2.

For the shading language version, the latest OpenGL core specification says "The core profile of OpenGL 4.6 is also guaranteed to support all previous versions of the OpenGL Shading Language back to version 1.40". Thus GLSL 1.40 is the minimum version. This corresponds to OpenGL 3.1. However, it also says that "OpenGL 4.6 implementations are guaranteed to support versions 1.00, 3.00, and 3.10 of the OpenGL ES Shading Language.". So that is also an alternative. There's also WebGL 2.0 that roughly corresponds to OpenGL ES 3.0 & OpenGL 3.3 and also uses GLSL ES 3.0.

Fsv is a relatively simple OpenGL application and doesn't need very fancy features. Thus, aim for OpenGL 3.1 and GLSL 1.40 in order to provide maximum compatibility.