The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit? Topic is solved

Discussions about the development and maturation of the platform code (UXP).
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The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by djgpp » 2021-04-18, 04:25

I mean the ability to be embed into application to provide web browsing support of GTK Webkit. It's similar to CEF, isn't it? Could UXP be employed to use for the same purpose? And how to properly do it?

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-04-18, 06:58

Easy api hooking and embedding was destroyed by Mozilla with gecko/2 (Firefox 4) back in 2011-ish but it is still possible but is much much harder and must be built against and used with that specific binary only.

Practicly speaking no as I only know of two projects that even tried. The later not-quite-open-source geckofx on Windows and that one browser I can't remember the name of but it was also on Windows.

There is no documentation for this as Mozilla never wrote anything post gecko/2 in this regard except some gloating materal celebrating the destruction of a common use case that gave them an edge.

This destroyed a couple projects I was doing at the time so I know first hand how pissed people were when this happened.

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by djgpp » 2021-04-18, 11:45

New Tobin Paradigm wrote:
2021-04-18, 06:58
Easy api hooking and embedding was destroyed by Mozilla with gecko/2 (Firefox 4) back in 2011-ish but it is still possible but is much much harder and must be built against and used with that specific binary only.

Practicly speaking no as I only know of two projects that even tried. The later not-quite-open-source geckofx on Windows and that one browser I can't remember the name of but it was also on Windows.

There is no documentation for this as Mozilla never wrote anything post gecko/2 in this regard except some gloating materal celebrating the destruction of a common use case that gave them an edge.

This destroyed a couple projects I was doing at the time so I know first hand how pissed people were when this happened.
So the short answer is impossible. Thanks for your detailed clarification.

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-04-18, 11:48

Nothing is impossible and it is clearly possible but it isn't very practical.. Not anymore and that is a shame.

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by moonbat » 2021-04-19, 04:09

New Tobin Paradigm wrote:
2021-04-18, 06:58
except some gloating materal celebrating the destruction of a common use case that gave them an edge.

This destroyed a couple projects I was doing at the time so I know first hand how pissed people were when this happened.
Off-topic:
They celebrated their own destruction? Retarded fucking imbeciles :evil:
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by The Squash » 2021-04-20, 00:28

I know of another app that used to embed Gecko in a GTK window -- GNOME's help viewer, Yelp. It used XUL Runner until ~2011 (as a matter of fact), when Yelp switched to WebKit-GTK. To be perfectly honest, when Yelp switched to WebKit-GTK, the whole help viewer became more responsive. It may have just been a misuse of Gecko, or maybe there was something fundamentally slower about Gecko; but for whatever reason, this was obviously done on Linux too in the past.
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-04-20, 00:41

It was likely for the reason I stated. Easy embedding was no longer possible and the harder embedding required you build your embedded widget against a specific version build of xulrunner and no other. It went from broadly capable with any close by xulrunner to having to build against and use only with that EXACT version and build.

A lot of projects were affected by this at the time and never recovered.

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by The Squash » 2021-04-20, 00:53

I'm not arguing with you at all; I'm just stating fact. You didn't give any specific examples of the embedding on Linux (as far as I could see), and I wanted to show an example myself. That's all. :|

(Did I misunderstand what you said?)
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-04-20, 01:18

Well today there aren't any.. I don't think. As for various Powered by Mozilla projects there used to be a page dedicated to em.. Of course all are dead except the shitty geckofx successor, the mentioned Eclipse that lasted into the 20s, and that one browser I can't be bothered to look up..

Also I don't think I intended any specific hostility with my answer in this case nor do I think you misunderstood. But I am on drugs at the moment after an extraction of my three lower right molars.. So enjoy drugged up Tobin for the next few days.

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-04-20, 07:32

We used to be on that page too, until they forced us to fork off.
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by The Squash » 2021-04-20, 23:54

Off-topic:
Moonchild wrote:
2021-04-20, 07:32
fork off
I'm supposing that's supposed to be a less offensive way of using the other "F"-word-based phrase, at least in programming circles, right? :)

What I'm saying is: Mozilla didn't saddle up to you and say "You'd better fork the code now", I assume?
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2021-04-21, 03:49

Off-topic:
xjxyz wrote:
2021-04-20, 23:54
I'm supposing that's supposed to be a less offensive way of using the other "F"-word-based phrase
No, it's not. But you can take it as a tongue-in-cheek pun if you like because they really didn't leave any other options open (well aside from me becoming their pseudo-employee, among other unacceptable options).
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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by shevy » 2021-08-18, 19:27

I haven't yet spent much time, effort or research into WebKit, but there are ruby-gtk bindings to it. I am
using ruby-gtk3 in particular since some time, and CSS (at the least the subset of CSS that GTK supports).
It's quite nifty. I still like gtk2 (oldschool never dies), but CSS is great (excluding some of the more recent
complexities ... variables? What are they thinking ...). Being able to use one "unified" UI language would
be really great in the long run. See also toolkits such as libui - yes, not usable for everything but it's so
convenient from the idea ... I remember after having learned GTK (via ruby-gtk), it was so refreshingly
simple to use libui.

A problem I see is as to who is maintaining/controlling the software stack. With WebKit it's Apple mostly
I think? With GTK it is IBM/Red Hat, and a few smaller actors aggregated via GNOME. I am not necessarily
full anti-private interests per se, but there have been many examples of where the interest of the people
is at odds with the interest of whoever maintains a stack. In fact: I dropped off from firefox after
constantly disagreeing with the Mozilla folks about what they have been doing in the last ~10 years or
so. Then one developer stating that pulseaudio/systemd is mandatory for audio was enough ... I can
not watch youtube videos in firefox but I can just fine in palemoon, so mozilla was not acting in "good
faith" here, IMO. But I digress.

My bigger dream would be to really have one strong, popular language or toolkit where UI elements
can be defined and re-used just fine. I have been trying to do that via ruby DSLs too, like common
things such as:

button.on_clicked { do_something }

Of course you can do this just fine in javascript, gtk, qt and so forth, but I want something that is
more "generic" and streamlined. And then easily "implementable" everywhere, without users having
to think - at the least for most parts. (Toolkits are different, so they don't offer the same or use
the same idioms either.)

As for Mozilla destroying more than creating - they have done so indeed in the last ~10 years but the
question is why people still want to lend credibility to someone who is just a Google shell these
days. All the influx of money doesn't go into making any real improvement anymore. It's a sunk
ship IMO. There is a reason why so many people have abandoned firefox, and while most of this
is due to chrome and Google flexing their muscles, I am pretty certain that this is not the only
reason.

> There is no documentation for this as Mozilla never wrote anything post gecko/2 in this regard

Yeah. That is usually a sign of bad engineering when those writing the code don't want to write
documentation. It's kind of ironic how Rust would become more appreciated than Firefox ...
evidently Mozilla focuses on other things than firefox! :P

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Re: The ability to use UXP like GTK Webkit?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-08-19, 01:50

This isn't VIM.. you don't have to make everything 80col.

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