Question Doubts regarding the embedding of Gecko
Hello, I'm trying to build an application which'll use html5 and css3 to display its interface and a set of C++ apis to introduce features beyond the scope of html. I have the following questions regarding the embedding process of Gecko: 1) Does embedding gecko only give me access to the html renderer or does it also include the javascript engine? 2) Regarding the new embed api with Qt, how does gecko render html? Does it use cairo's or Qt's api? This aspect is important, since rendering performance is a must. 3) How easy is it to make my c++ apis available to the javascript context? In the case of the Qt port, can i use QObject derived classes such as in QtWebkit? 4) How difficult is it to extend/alter Gecko? For instance: adding a c ++ scene graph to the canvas layer or hooking up a driver to support muti-touch input with a touch screen on a desktop pc? Regards, Leander ___ dev-embedding mailing list dev-embedding@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-embedding
Re: Question Doubts regarding the embedding of Gecko
On 1/9/2012 6:34 AM, Leander Bessa wrote: I'm trying to build an application which'll use html5 and css3 to display its interface and a set of C++ apis to introduce features beyond the scope of html. It sounds like you really want XULRunner, not embedding in the traditional sense. You can write XULRunner apps using HTML (instead of XUL), and this is actually recommended because it will insulate you from any changes we might make to the (unstable) XUL language itself. And most of the special features you need can be implemented as JS modules or XPCOM components. 1) Does embedding gecko only give me access to the html renderer or does it also include the javascript engine? Our platform is a complete platform including layout, JS, networking, and pretty much everything else you need for a complete web experience. 2) Regarding the new embed api with Qt, how does gecko render html? Does it use cairo's or Qt's api? This aspect is important, since rendering performance is a must. I can't answer this question because I don't know what embed API you're discussing. 3) How easy is it to make my c++ apis available to the javascript context? In the case of the Qt port, can i use QObject derived classes such as in QtWebkit? No, you cannot. Typically you interface with C++ code using either XPCOM interfaces declared in XPIDL, or by writing a glue layer in JavaScript and using JS-ctypes. XPCOM is more powerful but you may need to update or recompile your code for each release cycle. JS-ctypes is more stable although it may require additional work and care to get the interface right, especially if you have complex callback mechanisms. 4) How difficult is it to extend/alter Gecko? For instance: adding a c ++ scene graph to the canvas layer or hooking up a driver to support muti-touch input with a touch screen on a desktop pc? Assuming that you can't just translate your scene graph to SVG or some web technology, the best way to implement something like that would probably be as an NPAPI plugin. Gecko already supports multi-touch input natively using DOM events, so that probably doesn't require any additional code on your part except for JS to react to the multitouch events. --BDS ___ dev-embedding mailing list dev-embedding@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-embedding
Re: Question Doubts regarding the embedding of Gecko
Thanks for the reply, i stil have some questions though: 1) Are XPCOM componentes accessible through javascript? 2) Do any new JS modules or XPCOM components need to be integrated at build time or are they loaded at run-time (dll/dylib/so)? 3) Regarding 4), i'm aware the mozilla supports multi-touch events. What i'm trying to accomplish is to hook the events from a touch screen driver on the desktop to the mechanism which launches the touch events. Do i need to alter the mozilla source code to enable this or can it be achieved with a XPCOM component? Regards, Leander On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 4:50 PM, Benjamin Smedberg benja...@smedbergs.uswrote: On 1/9/2012 6:34 AM, Leander Bessa wrote: I'm trying to build an application which'll use html5 and css3 to display its interface and a set of C++ apis to introduce features beyond the scope of html. It sounds like you really want XULRunner, not embedding in the traditional sense. You can write XULRunner apps using HTML (instead of XUL), and this is actually recommended because it will insulate you from any changes we might make to the (unstable) XUL language itself. And most of the special features you need can be implemented as JS modules or XPCOM components. 1) Does embedding gecko only give me access to the html renderer or does it also include the javascript engine? Our platform is a complete platform including layout, JS, networking, and pretty much everything else you need for a complete web experience. 2) Regarding the new embed api with Qt, how does gecko render html? Does it use cairo's or Qt's api? This aspect is important, since rendering performance is a must. I can't answer this question because I don't know what embed API you're discussing. 3) How easy is it to make my c++ apis available to the javascript context? In the case of the Qt port, can i use QObject derived classes such as in QtWebkit? No, you cannot. Typically you interface with C++ code using either XPCOM interfaces declared in XPIDL, or by writing a glue layer in JavaScript and using JS-ctypes. XPCOM is more powerful but you may need to update or recompile your code for each release cycle. JS-ctypes is more stable although it may require additional work and care to get the interface right, especially if you have complex callback mechanisms. 4) How difficult is it to extend/alter Gecko? For instance: adding a c ++ scene graph to the canvas layer or hooking up a driver to support muti-touch input with a touch screen on a desktop pc? Assuming that you can't just translate your scene graph to SVG or some web technology, the best way to implement something like that would probably be as an NPAPI plugin. Gecko already supports multi-touch input natively using DOM events, so that probably doesn't require any additional code on your part except for JS to react to the multitouch events. --BDS ___ dev-embedding mailing list dev-embedding@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-embedding
Re: Question Doubts regarding the embedding of Gecko
Ok. Thanks for the quick reply! Regards, Leander On Monday, January 9, 2012, Benjamin Smedberg benja...@smedbergs.us wrote: On 1/9/2012 12:25 PM, Leander Bessa wrote: Thanks for the reply, i stil have some questions though: 1) Are XPCOM componentes accessible through javascript? Yes. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XPConnect for details. 2) Do any new JS modules or XPCOM components need to be integrated at build time or are they loaded at run-time (dll/dylib/so)? They are loaded at runtime. 3) Regarding 4), i'm aware the mozilla supports multi-touch events. What i'm trying to accomplish is to hook the events from a touch screen driver on the desktop to the mechanism which launches the touch events. Do i need to alter the mozilla source code to enable this or can it be achieved with a XPCOM component? On what OS? I believe that this is already hooked up on Mac, and on Windows as long as the driver uses the standard Windows touchscreen framework. You'd have to do that work on Linux, and it would involve hacking our core event processing systems (it probably could not be accomplished by just a component loaded at runtime. --BDS ___ dev-embedding mailing list dev-embedding@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-embedding
