Gtk+ WebCore -project releases pre-alpha version of Linux/Gtk port of WebCore/KHTML rendering engine and a reference browser implementation. Released components include KJS javascript interpreter, KHTML rendering engine, Qt porting layer, WebKit API for embedding and a reference browser for demonstrating the functionality of the other components. As the first GNOME Browser Atlantis was updated to use GTK-WebCore as standard rendering engine.
Nokia releases Linux/Gtk+ port of WebCore
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The announcement says that the project was released by members of the Nokia Research Center in Finland. How does this relate to Nokia’s primary business of mobile telephones? Is this project endorsed by Nokia or is it just some research they sponsored?
KDE developers make QT/based Gecko browser and now Nokia makes a GTK+ based engine for KHTML.
Where is this world going?
I wonder how this project will be exploited. 🙂
Webbrowsers for smartphones…
Furthermore, most of these changes are just used in commenting out features Apple has implemented to khtml core and we haven’t had time to implement (including canvas extensions and HTML editing).
I know Apple was adding extensions for drawing to HTML (the “canvas” part above), but i hadn’t realized they were adding basic HTML editing to khtml. Does this mean there’s going to be an “iWeb” editor released with Tiger?
JT
Any signs of a KHTML port for Windows? There is a project at http://khtml-win32.sourceforge.net/, but it appears to be inactive.
KHTML is good software, but so far only avaiable for Linux and Mac. A Windows port would give KHTML a greater user base and would encourage even lazy web designers to have a look at it.
“Where is this world going?”
Round in circles (pun intended)
I want to install Atlantis on FreeBSD. Perhaps, another tarball with binary for FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x? 😛
…i love open-source. this is an extremly cool thing, what happend to khtml! it’s possible, cause it’s open-source and we have licenses which allows this.
Well, since there is a Version of GTK for Windows, it will likely just a matter of time that a Windows port arrives.
BTW: Isn’t it strange that Nokia releases GTK-WebCore and sponsors Minimo (Mini-Mozilla)?
“BTW: Isn’t it strange that Nokia releases GTK-WebCore and sponsors Minimo (Mini-Mozilla)?”
No, not really. It’s better not to place all your eggs in one basket.
And there’s no proper webkit based browser in GNUstep yet.
Well, someone did start a project to port WebCore to GNUStep. It stalled a few months back, though.
Why do people aim to port webcore instead of khtml part from KDE?
Is Webcore better for embedding, or does it have better documentation for embedding? I don’t understand.
Go read the KDE dot news site. WebCore is effectively a fork of KHTML, the changes made are not going back to KHTML in any real quantity. Part of the problem is that Apple do not work with the KHTML community at all, rather they do massive patch dumps and do not document the changes they make. This has effectively killed any sense of community KHTML had, as if you want to add a feature or fix a bug you can either:
– Do it yourself and risk duplicating work Apple already did
– Try and rummage through the patch dumps to find the solution
Basically the way Apple have dealt with KHTML is a textbook case of how *not* to work with an open source project.
I’ve downloaded it and try to build it.
osb-jscore builds without problems, but osb-nrcore fails with this:
/snip/
usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so /usr/lib/libxml2.so -lpthread -lz -lm -lXt -L/usr/X11R6/lib /usr/lib/libjscore.so -lgcc -lc -Wl,–export-dynamic -Wl,-soname -Wl,libnrcore_kwiq_gtk.so.0 -o .libs/libnrcore_kwiq_gtk.so.0.0.0
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lXt
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [libnrcore_kwiq_gtk.la] Error 1
Anyone knows what am I missing?
It seems this effort will help spur some progress in the port of KHTML to AmigaOS. It’s been standing still for some time, but with this coming, finally browsing modern pages will be much less of a problem on Amigas…
> Well, someone did start a project to port WebCore to GNUStep. It
> stalled a few months back, though.
It’s like the guy who ported WebCore to GNUstep is waiting for the upcoming gcc 4.0 which will compile Objective-C++. Once that happen may be they can just port Shiira.
Xfree86 libs (libXt.so). Locate and link directly to it or install the missing libs/devel package. You could have gained that much by reading the output you posted…
I wrote a XHTML 1.1 + CSS 1 (the ooold one) page and Safari doesn’t even correctly render image borders and margins, well…
😀
I just swiched to gnome2.8, and the only thing I miss is a good khtml browser. (I don’t like how gecko displays tables)
Can we look forward to a port to SkyOS now? That would be so much easier than a firefox port, even if it’s just a temp fix. Robert has so much other stuff to get out for 5.0, this is the best bet.
So, also Nokia seems to be interested in FOSS like KHTML, GTK, Linux etc. But if Nokia truly cares for the future and development of open source software, why do they want the world, like the EU, to embrace strong software patents? Well, of course they are trying to protect their own technology, but, you know, there are also many software and IT companies that are much more critical or even openly oppose software patents in general; see e.g:
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1826253
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39171034,00.htm
(My personal conclusion: Though I’m a Finn, I am not sure my next mobile phone will be Nokia…)
@Mike Hearn : Where is your proof for the statements you made on the bottom of the previous.
I remember news reports when Apple first adopted KHTML that the changes they made were well documented and that the KDE developers welcomed it.
What has changed, are KDE developers all of a sudden against Apple?
@John Blink: No, KDE are still happily using Apple changes where they are easy to apply. Actually since the discussion Mike Hearn refers to two additional developers joined the KHTML team so it’s picking up steam at the moment.
The changes however aren’t well documented at the moment since those affect Apple’s development on Tiger (see https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/khtml-devel/2004-July/001068.html ). Also the code base of Apple’s WebCore is split into two code paths, one with and one without all OS X specific changes, and apparently currently WebCore is not compilable without the OS X specific changes (see http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=109830055317976 ) which, among other problems, makes it harder to merge back undocumented improvements.
The whole thing about open source is that ANYONE can take it and they don’t have to help the community out (depending on which license of course).
This is the freedom of open source. If people don’t want this to happen then they should give their project a more restrictive license.
Now wasn’t Webcore the first branch of KHTML? Webcore showed that it was possible to use KHTML outside KDE. What Webcore does is provide a middlelayer between MacOSX and KHTML called KWQ. This middlelayer (roughly) is the one to replace for your OS to run KHTML there.
Now we have KHTML on gtk, SkyOS, AtheOS, possibly soon Amiga and Windows too.
BTW: Changes in the KHTML source code made by Apple are tagged APPLE_CHANGES. Go look for them. 🙂
What I like about this project is that it contains a (still very basic) QT-layer called KWIQ put on top of GTK+. Does that mean that other QT apps could be portet to GTK+ in the future – giving the Linux Desktop a more consistent look&feel?
The more liberal BSD license would also be more appropriate for a basic GUI library than QT&GPL.
I believe desktop & toolkit competition was good in the past, but now it has become a big problem for the success of the linux desktop.