Am 04.12.2015 um 16:19 schrieb Ivan Vučica <[email protected]>: > Here's a proper response now that I am at a computer and have found the > original mail to respond to :) > > Side note: we broke the 100 posts mark in the thread -- congratulations, > everyone, on a centithread ;-) > > On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 6:52 AM H. Nikolaus Schaller <[email protected]> > wrote: > Am 03.12.2015 um 20:57 schrieb Ivan Vučica <[email protected]>: >> >> We have an HTML viewer, and it's quite good at that. But it's not a browser, >> and should not be -- it's too much work for too little benefit, not to >> mention performance can only suffer. > > Well, with this way of argumentation you could say: > > GNUstep is an old-fashioned technology demo and is quite good at that. But it > is not an OS or desktop and should not be -- it's too much work for too > little benefit, not to mention performance can only suffer. > > I.e. such arguments do not help. > > You are misinterpreting my words. > > I did not run SWK and Vespucci locally (never got around to it), but Riccardo > has demoed it at the Dublin meeting. I am impressed by it, but not as a > replacement for a full browser. Instead I view it as an excellent lightweight > tool for viewing simple HTML documents, such as our documentation. I value it > as GNUstep's graphical alternative to w3m, links and lynx -- not as a GNUstep > alternative to Firefox and Chrome. > > Does that clarify?
yes. But... you rate it on the status it did reach by teh last commit ~2 years ago and not by what could be achieved by more actively developing it. Anyways I think the arguments have been exchanged and since a community project does not making centralized decisions but everybody can decide on her/his own to ignore it or to work with it, we IMHO do not even need to come to a conclusion.. BR, Nikolaus > > >> >> >> - Can it do 3d transforms? > > If someone writes a patch (and the backend supports) > > >> - Does it do WebRTC and WebGL? > > > If someone writes a patch (and the backend supports) > >> - Will I be able to access Outlook.com and Google Docs in it? > > If someone writes a patch (and the backend supports) > >> - How well do web applications self-declare support for it? > > If someone writes a patch (and the backend supports) > > But this is exactly the point. How much 'someone should write the patch' does > one go into to support modern web? How many developers work on WebKit, Blink > and Gecko? It could be hundreds as long as we more or less tell the first one to join that there are no others and he better does not join. > > SWK has value and is worth improving. But a GNUstep-based desktop needs a > modernized engine wrapped inside a GNUstep-based chrome*, with bitmaps for > certain commonly-themed form elements are provided by GNUstep's theming code. > Which is where Vespucci-over-Blink using CEF** becomes interesting. > > * chrome, in this context, being the term used for 'web browser's elements > displayed around the contents of the page'. > ** https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef > > >> >> There are really good engines that support running web-based applications >> well. > > Yes, they have become really big beasts to support thousands of pages of > standards. > > Yes, which SimpleWebKit should not be, but which > > >> Yet even long-standing, reasonably well written engines such as Opera's >> Presto are being dropped. > >> >> SWK fills a need for a performant HTML viewer, but is not a proper web >> browser engine. > > As an observation of the current status you are very very right. But is it > limited by principle or by manpower? > > Manpower. > > But I don't object to viewing that as a matter of principle either. > > Once you start doing all the crazy things modern browsers are doing, how > simple is SimpleWebKit going to be it is objective C only and does not do any non-straightforward tricks. > and how fast is it going to be? Depends on optimisation. > Will SWK, for security reasons, start separating tabs into different > processes? If GUI and Base can support this. > Will its renderer run in separate process(es)? If GUI and Base can support this. > Will its JS implementation start supporting multiple security contexts > (which, I recently discovered, Chrome does -- extension code injected into a > web page seems to run with different permissions, even though it lives in the > same web page)? > > It's not a problem of can it eventually become a beast supporting thousands > of pages of standards. > > As its principal author, do you personally view that it should? It should support the most important standards. > > >> >> A good GNUstep browser would use an existing engine, but integrate with a >> GS-centric environment: >> - by using GNUstep's theme for its chrome, > > Isn't that working out of the box? Vespucci & SWK just use the NSView > subclasses provided by GUI. > > It does. > > But please consider what a modern-day user expects of something that s/he > would call a browser: if we assume that on top of that list is "it should > open Facebook and Gmail" (arbitrarily chosen websites), then we do not > currently have a fully-featured GNUstep browser. > > Let's look at options: > > - Vespucci, being a GS-based chrome for SWK, definitely is themed, that is > not disputed. But it cannot open Facebook or Gmail. > - Chrome, being a GTK-based chrome for Blink, is fully featured, but is > unaware of GNUstep's themes, save panels, et al. > - Firefox, being a GTK-based chrome for Gecko, is fully featured, but is > unaware of GNUstep's themes, save panels, et al. > > >> - by exposing GNUstep's Services in its textboxes and for its images, >> - by using GNUstep's save panels, by understanding the concept of bundles, > > what do you mean/expect by that? > > If I right click->"save as" on a photo, whatever is generally accepted as "a > GNUstep browser" should display GNUstep's save panel. > > >> - by storing its preferences and cache inside GNUstep's folder structure >> (~/GNUstep/), > > AFAIK it uses NSUserDefaults and WebPreferences which can be adapted to > GNUstep's folder structure (if they don't do already). > > Not disputed, if we talk about Vespucci + SWK. > > But will it *currently* open and correctly render cnn.com (and any > interactive elements it may have)? Will it do so in the next two years? If it > ever does, it will become as bloated and slow as any other engine. Should it? > > If we talk about Chrome and Firefox, neither currently does that. > > >> - by registering web shortcuts (e.g. .url files) with GNUstep's extension >> registry, >> - by using GS menus (whatever they are as configured by the user) and >> therefore by using GS-like keyboard shortcuts > > What is missing there? > > In Vespucci, nothing is missing there. > > >> - in case we have a 'quit app quickly, but restore NSDocuments and its >> windows on start', integrate with that >> etc. > > Do we have that? > > Only Vespucci (which will not serve as my browser any time soon) could > hypothetically integrate with such an upgrade to NSDocumentController. > >> >> Providing an alternate implementation for use by Vespucci seems useful. > > You can extend Vespucci and replace SWK if you like. It should in theory be > as simple as replacing the WebKit.framework or linker search path. > > Which is exactly the ideal outcome. > > > But I don't want to argue at all against any alternatives to SWK and > Vespucci. I just make aware that "something" exists. > The alternatives may be much better and easier to develop, but do not exist. > > I am aware it exists, and I am impressed by SWK. > > But it does not, and should not, serve every use. > > If we would contribute as much code as we recently started to write e-mails > what *should* be done, there would be more progress :) > > I do not disagree here. > > Of course, I see other areas in GS as currently needing more love than > wrapping a browser engine in a way that can be integrated into Vespucci. :-) > For example, I would really like to be able to direct people to 'apt-get > install gnustep-session', me too since I can do that for QuantumSTEP for years (I still struggle a little by libobjc versions in Debian 7.x vs. 8.x)... > or 'download the live CD ISO here'. Crucially, I would also like to be able > to provide an updated gnustep-session with a single command. > > Simple goals, but they are proving to be tricky to actually bring to > completion. > > If achieved, perhaps I will still feel that the lack of a browser integrated > into the gnustep-session impacts the UX. But I'm not there yet. :-) That is where I completely agree - reliable and fast installation is more urgent than a good browser. BR, Nikolaus
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