Small browsers

Before making a branch of any HTML4 capable browsers, consider that HTML5 broke a lot of compatibility with the older syntax. I think Netsurf is only HTML4 capable (or at least the Amiga versions were). If it is only HTML4 standard compliant, you might end up with a highly-optimized, small browser that can’t render as many pages as WebPositive can.

Well, HTML5 is important if the user wants to surf on modern websites. So is HTTPS which is not yet supported by Netsurf, too (afaik). Also Typescript would be nice which is missing yet.

But I really like the modularity of Netsurf. And I like the many GUIs supported even more. My personal dream is having a browser on Linux framebuffer. And on other systems, including ReactOS, Hurd and Haiku.

Unfortunately I have already another programming project. Maybe I’ll switch back and forth between the two. Also I’m not the greatest coder of the world. But on a first glance the Netsurf code seems understandable for me which not the case with many open source software pieces.

HTML5 as a start seems a bit tough. Maybe I add or improve bookmarks handling.

Another important improvement would be giving some debug infos when a page can’t be handled. And of course crashing is not nice. But crashing is common with many browsers, including Web+.

Greetings
Peter

NetSurf supports HTTPS just fine. It uses curl for nework access.
It also has an HTML5 compliant parser.
It is much less complete in terms of Javascript and also lacking some parts of CSS.
But it’s certainly not limited to HTML4 and plain HTTP…

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Good to hear that.

I think first I will try to improve the bookmarks handling.

Greetings
Peter

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The recipe is ready. Will be published in haikuports tomorrow as I am currently on a bit of a road trip.

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Those require QtWebKit or QtWebEngine. They are not small as a result.

Thanks anyway for mentioning the 2 browsers.

My personal favourite really is Netsurf and its many subprojects (libraries).

Greetings
Peter

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Done - Haiku Depot Server

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Looking into a build for 32bit atm, if things are OK can you enable it there @3dEyes ? (will report later, build atm is still running)

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Of course, why not?

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I love using Links, though I can see opportunity of building in more utility. Would be great to get something like it that is more Haiku native.

Maybe worth getting this project going again Themis download | SourceForge.net ?

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Build completed yesterday, but crashes on launch, I could grab a bug report and maybe so Terminal output to put up on haikuports issue tracker?

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Since you replied to 3dEyes, I’m guessing you are referring to LadyBird and not Themis? A partial quote would have clarified this. Anyway, thanks for trying to build it, whichever one it was.

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I thought that was obvious :wink: and yes, was for Ladybird :wink:

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@dcatt Themis’ link was brought up by @PulkoMandy earlier in the thread. How much do you know about it? Does it use native GUI layouts as done in Haiku or is it just out-of-date BeOS source?

@PeterW I like modularity like NetSurf has also. Should we try to mix and match with other browsers listed in this thread if the licenses permit?

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I think mixing the libs into other projects would be a benefit for everyone. But I’m not gonna do that myself because that would over-stretch my coding skills.

It would be good if the libs had their own repos. Of course that would mean more hazzle for the end-user (gathering and/or building the libs before they can install the browser.) But Gimp for example released Gtk independently, too.

Greetings
Peter

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I just happened to remember that project when it got its start from WAY back. The guy who started was really motivated at the time. May be worth reaching out to him to see what he’s up to these days.

Does Haiku have something like WebView component like in Android, where you can make simple app with url and load this web site? in Haiku-BeOS world call it translator, WebView translator? usefull for instant web apps ? :smiley: