Re: [dev] Using a different rendering engine for surf

On 20 October 2010 11:19, Nick <suckless-dev_AT_njw.me.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:06 +0100, "Nick" <suckless-dev_AT_njw.me.uk> wrote:
>> I wonder, has anyone looked at Hubbub/LibCSS, the HTML & CSS rendering
>> libraries of NetSurf? I gave them the briefest of glances today, and
>> they look pretty nice. They're certainly *a lot* smaller and simpler
>> than WebkitGTK.
>
> Sorry, forgot pertinent URLs:
> http://www.netsurf-browser.org/projects/hubbub/
> http://www.netsurf-browser.org/projects/libcss/
>
> And it's worth mentioning that we'd need some way of drawing widgets.

What NetSurf lacked the last time I looked into it was JS support.
Anyways, it is too much work in the scope of suckless to really create
a NetSurf based surf version. The web is switching towards HTML5 and
incorporating more and more HTML5 features that NetSurf simply lacks
behind. I think we have to bite into the bullet and keep going with
WebKit. Nevertheless I think the choice of webkitgtk is questionable,
since it is quite a small project and a very immature WebKit port.
Instead of going the NetSurf route, I would suggest to re-use the
chromium source code, even if it's much more monstrous than webkitgtk.
surf could become a headless chromium where each surf window behaves
exactly like a chromium tab (+ some dashboard surf window on demand
like for downloads etc). What we care is the user interface. We can't
fix the web or browser implementation(s) anyways.

I know it is sad, but that's how it is.

-Anselm
Received on Wed Oct 20 2010 - 11:35:07 CEST