Re: GNUstep Web browser (was Re: WebKit Bounty)

[address@hidden]

> are a lot of web browsers around and just a couple of engines. So we
> could steal ideas and code snippets and prove that Objective-C and
> GNUstep are a better base for an engine then anything else around.

> >> The beauty of Objective-C is it's expandability. So I guess the best
> >> way would be to write a browser application as a stand-alone (i.e.
> >> WITHOUT a build-in WWW engine) providing just the basics, that is, a
> >> window (with tabs) that holds the documents (i.e. web pages) and the
> >> navigation bar. Everything else is implemented via "plugins."

That can be done with any rendering engine as long as it uses a
compatible
implementation of WebView (and perhaps WebFrame).

> Prove those C++ coders wrong and make the world (wide web) a better place.

What I (and all those who have attended the FOSDEM meeting) always
wonder,
is that the same ideas come up again and again.

I think it is worth to mention SimpleWebKit here - a rough
implementation of
WebView, WebFrame, WebFrameView, WebDataSource etc. - completely
written
in Objective-C without any C++. The reason is that it must cross-
compile
on gcc 2.95.3 for some ARM processors.

Here is the source code to look at: 
http://www.quantum-step.com/download/sources/mySTEP/SimpleWebKit/

It is not complete but does HTML parsing - HTML rendering is not yet
available since I don't completely understand
the interaction between WebHTMLDocumentRepresentation, DOMHTML and the
WebHTMLView classes.

All the other parts work - loading an URL, notifying end of load,
handling different MIME etc.

So, volunteers to participate are very welcome!

@Jesse Ross:

One question is of course if this will satisfy the Bounty conditions -
it is NOT WebKit ported, it is a compatible reimplementation.

rgds, Nikolaus