Re: browser for gnustep

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

> That reminds me something. How is Simple Webkit going on? Google shows
> last "latest status" was 1 year ago:
>
> http://gnustep.blogspot.com/2008/02/simplewebkit-status.html
>
> I didn't know Browser Vespucci before, is it another web browser.

Google tricks you there, on my own blog (multixden.blogspot.com) there wave
been more news.

There is a bit of confusion, one thing is the browser, one thing is the
rendering framework.

If you check past discussions on this maiing list, the "gnustep browser" has
always been a hot topic. A lot of ideas where thrown in. As often very
little action happened

About the rendering framework, several options are possible:

1. port gecko
2. port safari
3. port some other engine (omniweb, dillo, links, etc)
4. write your own following the API of some of the above
5. just write your own

At the end, the route chosen was to write our own replacement of WebKit,
this work is being carried over by Nikolaus Schaller.
SimpleWebKit aims to be a pure Obj-c implementatin of a rendering framework,
compatibe at the API level with WebKit. We aim thus to be portable,
maintainable, self-contained (no Obj-C++ needed). Of course we will miss a
lof of the other fun.

Vespucci is a browser which runs on the mac and on GNUstep which bases on
SWK. Currently it is very simple, but functional.
On the mac you can compile it against WebKit or SimpleWebKit, testing the
compatibility of the two frameworks.

The same could be done on GNUstep too, if somebody decided the route of
porting WebKit.

This shows that our road chose remains quite flexible. Unfortunately, as
often in open source projects, there was a lot of talk and writing about the
issue, when the hard work begins, interests disappears or just the writing
continues, but real help. However prigress has been there and steady,
nothing ready for dailu usage, still I am myself impressed.

Riccardo