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Features/WebKit (view source)

Revision as of 17:43, 14 June 2011

933 bytes added , 17:43, 14 June 2011

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[[Category:Features requested by School Xyz|<Feature Name>]] (the |Feature Name option sorts the entry on the category page under the first letter of <Feature Name>). -->

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~~'''Comments and Explanations:'''~~

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There are comments (in italic) providing guidance to fill out each section, see also the [[Features/Policy|Feature Policy Page]] for a more detailed explanation of the new-feature process. '''Copy the source to a ''new page'' named Features/''Your Feature Name'' before making changes! DO NOT EDIT THIS TEMPLATE.'''

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~~<!-- All fields on this form are required to be accepted.~~

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~~We also request that you maintain the same order of sections so that all of the feature pages are uniform. -->~~

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== Summary ==

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~~Due to an increasing of support for building applications around the Mozilla web browsing technologies, this feature proposes that~~ Browse ~~is switched~~ to [http://www.webkit.org/ WebKit] as its back-end technology provider.

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Browse and related components are switching to [http://www.webkit.org/ WebKit] as its back-end technology provider. (this is just a proposal, for now)

== Owner ==

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~~''This should link to your home wiki page so we know who you are''~~

* Name: [[User:DanielDrake|Daniel Drake]]

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== Detailed Description ==

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'~~'Expand~~ on the ~~summary, if appropriate~~. ~~A couple of sentences suffices~~ to ~~explain~~ the ~~goal~~, ~~but~~ the more ~~details you can provide~~ the ~~better~~.''

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Browse and related components currently embed Mozilla XUL/Gecko as their backend, however, Mozilla embedding has typically been neglected and buggy, causing a maintenance headache for us. It is now [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.embedding/c_NMcO-N8wo/discussion actively discouraged] by Mozilla developers, who are focusing all their efforts on Firefox. From the perspective of a fairly regular open-source project, Mozilla's direction is also [http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2011-June/031865.html questionable on other points].

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WebKit is a promising alternative, which is (by nature) an embeddable web engine. It is used in Apple Safari and Google Chrome and various other projects.

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=== Existing prototype: Surf ===

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The pywebkitgtk-based Surf activity can be used as a prototype. Possible areas that need work are:

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* Downloads - originally missing due to [http://www.mail-archive.com/sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org/msg08959.html no support in pywebkitgtk] but now landed?

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* persistant history - not saved across sessions (or journal entries)

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* clipboard/undo/redo - should be simple

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* back and forward buttons - you can go back and forward through your history, but autocomplete and skipping back or forward in the history is not implemented. shouldn't be too hard to complete

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* arrow key navigation in textbox

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* No cookie support

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pywebkit is seen as deprecated, [http://janalonzo.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/using-introspected-webkitgtk-in-gwibber/ even by the author himself]. PyGI is the solution, allowing direct calls into pywebkitgtk with no static bindings, and is now mature. Some of the missing features above can't be solved until either pywebkitgtk grows more API, or the switch is made to PyGI.

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=== Proposed implementation ===

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Browse should move to WebKitGtk (for GTK+-2.x) using PyGI (gobject-introspection). Even though most applications of PyGI target GTK+ v3, we believe it should work on v2. However, a possible problem here is that sugar-toolkit bindings use static GTK+ bindings, and mixing PyGI calls in the same app might lead to problems ([http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2011-June/031869.html source]).

== Benefit to Sugar ==

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== Dependencies ==

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~~''What other packages~~ (~~RPMs~~) depend on this package? Are there changes outside the developers' control on which completion of this feature depends? In other words, does your feature depend on completion of another feature owned by someone else or that you would need to coordinate, which might cause you to be unable to finish on time? Other upstream projects like Python?''

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pywebkitgtk is already a part of the Sugar platform (for epub support in Read).

== Contingency Plan ==

DanielDrake

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