[webkit-dev] Q: Webkit on Windows without COM registration (as wrapped DLL only?)
Hi list as far as I have learned until now, there are several ways to use Webkit as an embeddable component in Windows applications. Maybe some wise on this list could help me out with some more answers that I couldn't find in days googling around. One way to use Webkit on windows is the COM component which exposes some COM Interfaces that can be used to drive Webkit (I use Brent Fulgham's cairo based port without the Apple DLLs). This approach seems to work quite well as far as may experiments went. However, this COM solution requires that webkit.dll is registered with the Windows OS. This may be an issue in managed environments where restricted users cannot register the DLL after copying it in the application directory, so COM won't work for them. Or if several copies of Webkit in different version for different deployed applications are installed on a system, this may lead to problems, because only one path can be registered for the COM component. The alternative - that I would also prefer over a COM wrapper - would be a DLL with a plain C callable interface. I just can use DLLs with their exported functions, not compile my program with dll usage. Does the gtk+ port support an API that can be used that way? I assume I would get some kind of handle for webview instances that must be given to each API call. Thanks a lot for any explanations or comments Thomas ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
Re: [webkit-dev] Q: Webkit on Windows without COM registration (as wrapped DLL only?)
Am Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:40:48 +0100 schrieb Thomas Brodt thomas.br...@porabo.ch: Hi list as far as I have learned until now, there are several ways to use Webkit as an embeddable component in Windows applications. Maybe some wise on this list could help me out with some more answers that I couldn't find in days googling around. One way to use Webkit on windows is the COM component which exposes some COM Interfaces that can be used to drive Webkit (I use Brent Fulgham's cairo based port without the Apple DLLs). This approach seems to work quite well as far as may experiments went. However, this COM solution requires that webkit.dll is registered with the Windows OS. This may be an issue in managed environments where restricted users cannot register the DLL after copying it in the application directory, so COM won't work for them. Or if several copies of Webkit in different version for different deployed applications are installed on a system, this may lead to problems, because only one path can be registered for the COM component. The alternative - that I would also prefer over a COM wrapper - would be a DLL with a plain C callable interface. I just can use DLLs with their exported functions, not compile my program with dll usage. Does the gtk+ port support an API that can be used that way? I assume I would get some kind of handle for webview instances that must be given to each API call. Hey Thomas, with regard to the gtk port: Just have a look at WebKit/gtk/webkit/*.h for API and WebKitTools/GtkLauncher/main.c for a simple example. The gtk port relies on plain C interfaces, based on GObject and it is indeed common to have a folder with a bunch of dynamic link libraries in the same place as the application, on Win32 that is. ciao, Christian ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
Re: [webkit-dev] Q: Webkit on Windows without COM registration (as wrapped DLL only?)
Hey Christian, thanks for the instant answer! Sounds good with the plain API for the gtk port. After a look at the header files and the main.c mentioned I'm not sure how to deal with the different types that are defined there as return values or function arguments. GObject, WebKitWebView, and all the other G* and WebKit* , can they simply be mapped to e.g. ulong or alike (just like handles) to deal with them in function calls from an existing external program that has no knowledge of gtk? As you certainly note I'm not a C programmer at all, nor do I know very much about advanced C API design and DLLs, especially in combination with C++ or Objective C and the bridge between classes and plain C. Of course this way of integration via a callable function library DLL would also require that these functions are exported from some dll that may not yet exist. I assume that there is no wrapper dll yet that just exports the gtk function layer around webkit, say a gtkwebkit.dll. Most developers will just use the libs when they compile their program - which is quite different with me here (just imagine it is like VisualBasic where you have to import functions with their signature from a dll). So I would have to create an otherwise empty wrapper DLL that just exports the gtk functions that gtk wraps around webkit.dll. Right? Again, thanks for any pointers Thomas Christian Dywan schrieb: Am Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:40:48 +0100 schrieb Thomas Brodt thomas.br...@porabo.ch: Hi list as far as I have learned until now, there are several ways to use Webkit as an embeddable component in Windows applications. Maybe some wise on this list could help me out with some more answers that I couldn't find in days googling around. One way to use Webkit on windows is the COM component which exposes some COM Interfaces that can be used to drive Webkit (I use Brent Fulgham's cairo based port without the Apple DLLs). This approach seems to work quite well as far as may experiments went. However, this COM solution requires that webkit.dll is registered with the Windows OS. This may be an issue in managed environments where restricted users cannot register the DLL after copying it in the application directory, so COM won't work for them. Or if several copies of Webkit in different version for different deployed applications are installed on a system, this may lead to problems, because only one path can be registered for the COM component. The alternative - that I would also prefer over a COM wrapper - would be a DLL with a plain C callable interface. I just can use DLLs with their exported functions, not compile my program with dll usage. Does the gtk+ port support an API that can be used that way? I assume I would get some kind of handle for webview instances that must be given to each API call. Hey Thomas, with regard to the gtk port: Just have a look at WebKit/gtk/webkit/*.h for API and WebKitTools/GtkLauncher/main.c for a simple example. The gtk port relies on plain C interfaces, based on GObject and it is indeed common to have a folder with a bunch of dynamic link libraries in the same place as the application, on Win32 that is. ciao, Christian ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev ___ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev
