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Author Topic: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?  (Read 20705 times)

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Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #44 from previous page: November 18, 2018, 09:43:37 AM »
@Spektro totally agree a way to embed the engine would be a priority and the browser itself should be architected in that way. Datatypes are probably not the right way to do it based on my deep knowledge of OS3 and shallow knowledge of OS4 but BOOPSI might be simply because BOOPSI is pretty bare bones as it is. I can imagine a child type of the reaction window.class that implements a webview window as one possible approach.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #45 on: November 18, 2018, 03:01:49 PM »
Quote
As for 68K support, I already mentioned while it would be great to be able to do, the combination of missing dependencies like cairo, lack of recent version of GCC, and the need for 200MB+ RAM would seem to rule it out.

we do have all necessary dependencies on aros and compiling for m68k. there is no excuse, odyssey cannot be made to run at least on winuae.
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #46 on: November 18, 2018, 03:12:40 PM »
@wawrzon I'm already being accused of making promises I'll never keep, despite not yet making any promises, so I definitely won't promise a 68k version! I'd like to think a vampire build might one day be a possibility but right now I'm just spitballing ideas.

I have had a play with OWB on AROS and it renders well but certainly uses all the ram it can get. On OS4 it's just too unstable IMHO. Again, we already have an embedded build for powerpc, and frankly working with code we already know and can build upon is likely to be more productive than importing code from another side project. WebKit also needs a recent GCC 4.7+, which I don't think exists on 68k but maybe exists as a cross compiler?
« Last Edit: November 18, 2018, 03:14:34 PM by NinjaCyborg »
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #47 on: November 18, 2018, 03:19:21 PM »
@NinjaCyborg
im not telling you to base your project on aros owb (which as it has been pointed before is different from odyssey, as the later has a many years newer webkit engine) nor even upon the code base of the latter one, but i wanted at least to point you to some reference you might want to be using (or have an option to look at). while im unlikely to support, especially a bounty for a browser restricted to os4 audience, i wish you luck and just try to be helpful, in case you think, im attacking your effort.
 

Offline gregthecanuck

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Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #48 on: November 19, 2018, 03:34:57 AM »
@gregthecanuck
I completely agree. The purpose of my original post here is to gauge whether it's worth pursuing before spending time and money on the initial risk mitigation and proof of concept work. Out in the real world, I am a published author on the topics of lean/agile software and project risk management. And I was once commissioned by Mozilla to investigate porting Firefox to Symbian OS. The Firefox code was a dumpster fire at the time (it was heavily refactored in recent years). So I'd like to think I know what I'm doing.

Sounds like you have some great background wrangling teams of developers. A big plus. :)

As for 68K, there is a nice updated GCC 6.x cross-compiler from bebbo here: https://github.com/bebbo/gcc
And an EAB discussion thread here: http://eab.abime.net/forumdisplay.php?f=118

I think 68K could be doable, but realistically probably on the upcoming Vampire V4 with 512MB RAM. Of course there is emulated 68K wth more memory available as well. I suggest 68K support should be kept in mind but left to a later date. *ALL* Amiga platforms (OS4/MOS/AROS/68K) could use an updated browser.

Cheers!
 

Offline NinjaCyborgTopic starter

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #49 on: November 19, 2018, 07:46:17 AM »
@gregthecanuck

Thanks for the link to GCC6. While I'm not a fan of AROS and MorphOS if they have the necessary dependencies (e.g. Cairo) I'd see no reason not to make the port in a source compatible way. That would at least increase the pool of potential sponsors. Something to look at during initial feasibility.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #50 on: November 19, 2018, 11:17:28 AM »
of course feasibility of an amiga (m68k) port is disputable. i have not (yet) been able get odyssey to run on even an emulated amiga. all i can say, is that aros owb, with older webkit engine is working on an a4000/060, albeit very slow.
 

Offline Hans_

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #51 on: November 23, 2018, 06:11:34 AM »
@Spektro The datatypes system is not really sophisticated enough to support a proper web datatype, for example inline images was part of the AmigaGuide spec, but never implemented, as it can only cope with data file at a time, no child data files. Datatypes is also missing data stream and progressive rendering support that makes it unsuitable for us with a browser compared to simply embedding the raw codec libraries. Admittedly it's not very Amiga like to have duplicate code, but it's what every other system does and we certainly can't rely on the OS getting 21st century features anymore. BUT what I was thinking was as follows:
- an architecture that makes both the web engine and the JS engine available as separate entities (imagine being able to use Javascript for rexx scripts)
- a web browser that obviously embeds the two
- a light quickviewer suitable for previewing files, that again just embeds the web engine. This would meet your 'datatype' need for use with workbench, DOpus etc.
A quick comment about this. For developers having a WebKit gadget (or similar) would be most useful for embedding the web engine in apps. However, for users a "datatype" would enable quick viewing of HTML files via multi-view. It wouldn't be much of a datatype really. It would basically be the WebKit gadget embedded in a datatype that is set up to recognize HTML/XHTML. And maybe a simple text/rich-text export ability.

NOTE: There are HTML datatypes already, and yes, they cope with loading external images (e.g., here. They're just waaaay too dated.

Of course, HTML viewing could also be done simply by opening an actual web browser...

Hans
http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more. Home of the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project.
 

Offline nbache

Re: Any interest in a crowdfunding for a WebKit based browser for OS4?
« Reply #52 on: November 23, 2018, 10:38:05 AM »
NOTE: There are HTML datatypes already, and yes, they cope with loading external images
Side note: The most important feature of such a thing is IMO not to cope with loading external images, but to cope with not loading external images.

In other words, it must be possible for the user to deselect following external links.

Best regards,

Niels