Exciting (and specific) news about Binary Outcast Operations.
Today I want to talk about the decision I made to drop OAuth2 from Interlink following the changes to Google's requirements to a pay-to-play model where you pay for the right to ASK to even play and continue paying IF you are allowed to play. I have not changed on this stance. The problem is that some users are completely unaware of anything after downloading and using Interlink and that it has otherwise worked fine despite the lack of updates. After this much time how do I manage to not clobber them unexpectedly without holding back the actual fabled dropping of the non-mail technology from the process.
How do you cleanly break a deemed anti-feature after a huge change in status and a massive lul in .. everything? Solve it by solving another long standing problem. The Vendor name used in construction of the program application data path. Initially, and out of solidarity, I persisted the unintentionally established but totally got established trend of ignoring non-Windows path issues with spaces in them. For Mariner, I had already decided to change the vendor name to "BinOC" so that it would be %appdata%\BinOC\Mariner or ~/.binoc/mariner respectively. This offers a possible solution for Interlink and the fact taking away oauth on an oauth enabled imap account will clobber it. Now we cannot stop Google doing it later at any time and that is the whole point but we can take steps so migration is an implicit choice and provide a small tool to help facilitate it as well as manual instructions. Who knows perhaps this will turn into a more complex mail migration system solving potentially even more problems in the future.
Due to this change, I will release one more version of Interlink with oauth2 as normal and then release an otherwise identical version without oauth2 with the new vendor path and AUS for old-vendor/oauth build simply will nag and fail to update until you shut the updater off by preference or blow it away after moving to the non-oauth2 Interlink build or an email client that better serves your specific needs. It kinda sucks and is a bit painful and I hate to impose it but the other choices are playing chicken with Google or simply abandoning Interlink as webmail has obviously won out.
We are in a position to do neither. Nor would it be desirable either way.
Fun times? Sure why not!
Welcome to the refined incarnation of the layout that first showed up on the Interlink Add-ons Site last year. As for image, yes, well.. Don't worry about that just yet!
For a while now I had debated if I was completely happy with the "shadow text" on blue and for the most part I was. However, it caused some issues towards the bottom making the contrast very lacking. Compared with the first incarnation and the "www relaunch" incarnation this is far more readable especially for those whom have sensitive eyes and prefer a "dark" scheme for that reason.
Yes, this was the best way to solve the contrast issue but just adding a background to a box as it was would have been exceedingly underwhelming so with my previous post and the new wordmark style in mind I set out to refine and enhance the site style with the help another BinOC member to bring it to everyone today.
Anyway, there is still lots to be done so, as always, Remain modulated!. wait...
For much of the lifetime of this website it has not been more than a cool web design and a page such as this with others coming and going but most often never materializing. At the risk of the few that stop by assuming this "Stay Tuned" is just like 98% of all the other times, we have decided this re-launch and revamp of Binary Outcast should be done with the upmost consideration and thought. Both for times past and adventures yet to come. Specifically, as to what, how, and why this place does and should continue to exist. This is also why it is so grandiosely stated on the front page that our real work has not even started yet. Still, as I was fond of saying last decade: "All the pieces are there they just need assembling.. correctly". I'd argue that sums up BinOC pretty well right now.
The kernel of this design change started with the ABPrime fork of Adblock Latitude after the code was reverted when I stepped down from the Pale Moon project at the end of 2016. However, it did not reach an actual design trend for us until Interlink Mail & News was created in 2018. This started the ball rolling on non-acrylic primary branding at BinOC.
Pictured (to the left) and on the former splash and current front pages is the third revision of the Interlink icon. I originally intended it to be red when I chose design for the background. Though this was later used for the short lived Unstable channel. This bolder refined version of the Icon is more in line with what I had intended and is far less clash-y especially the new wordmark style. Also, it has improved legibility at sizes as small as 16x16 pixels much like the Binary Outcast text at the top at 26px tall (the smallest we could push the old acrylic version, though the B alone works at 16x16). A constant challenge in raster graphics (the process of how an electron beam is fired to smear light on a screen in an decently organized fashion using the almighty scanline—ALL HAIL THE SCANLINES!) that no designer should ever discount even if they primarily use vector design.
You are absolutely correct, hypothetical BinOC visitor, that is exactly what I wanted to quickly summarize next. So let's break out a couple unordered lists as to status of the Aura-thing-I-call-it .. Runtime Environment .. right!
Aura Runtime Environment Stuff that works:
Aura Runtime Environment Things that don't:
Bottom line:
Mariner could be produced as an unfinished product for distribution fairly quickly but Interlink, the finished product, cannot currently be built due to build system mismatches. Isolated development simply requires a somewhat different approach than I helped foster and became accustom to elsewhere. I am putting a tentative goal on Interlink and public trunk builds of Mariner by my birthday, the first day of summer. However, failing that then July 4th.
Of course, now that I am committed again I.. best snap to it.
Peace!
I wish to give my deepest thanks to all those who are still happening by Binary Outcast. For doing so during the past year or must have been less than inspiring, to say the least. From my perspective, it has been very difficult indeed. However, we (and I do mean more than I), are just about back on track with a lot of the everything that we SHOULD have be known for all this time.
Still, I also want to thank the tireless efforts of the contributors to MCP projects. The ones who have done nothing but work on code, help users, and otherwise just exist for the benefit of everyone, even us. These individuals are the ones to be celebrated even if they no longer feel the same in return. Please go forth and thank them even if you do not use either of our respective offerings.
While one is doing the rounds one should also take the time to stop by the SeaMonkey Project and thank them. For a lot of their selective MozEvolution on the SM soft-fork platform DOES directly or indirectly benefit the broader MozFork Community. It is also the place where I became interested in HOW Netscape and Classic Mozilla technology worked. Oh yeah, and it is the basis for a lot of the main code specifically used in our XUL Projects.
Yeah, and? What's your point?
Pfft.. After 22 years I ain't changing it now... Stay tuned!
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