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maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)
-   MeeGo / Harmattan (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=45)
-   -   Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit? (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=47446)

ARJWright 2010-03-16 12:19
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qole (Post 568702)
ARJWright: So you think it would actually be better for Mozilla if the Gecko-based browser in Maemo/MeeGo was replaced with a Webkit one? That's an interesting view.

I can see what you mean, though. By offering the Firefox-branded browser to MeeGo as a separate product, Mozilla can have much more control over the experience.
Pretty much. With Mozilla having to play the role of owning the product that's not installed by default, they would have to show forth a product that's head and shoulders in UI and UX better than the default browser. This speaks well for developers and users, and keeps Mozilla on the side of "freedom of choice is good" which is in many ways how they approached the desktop.

MeeGo having a base platform that's using a different engine offers a chance to do enhancements to the browser that might not be directed by the browser engine. And - hopefully - a browser that doesn't turn stagnant because its OEM/ODM controlled.

daperl 2010-03-16 13:39
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
I think Mozilla's significance is more important than it's ever been. IE has been handed its hat on the desktop by a one-two Gecko-Webkit punch, but now all eyes are on handhelds. Webkit branches sharply at the UI level, and thus, so do plenty of features. We're the big winners here so far, and as long Nokia continues to use Mozilla for the flagship browser we'll stay that way. It's a very good, yet bizarre twist of fate with all things considered. Either that, or Nokia is alot smarter than most of us give them credit for.

ARJWright 2010-03-16 13:56
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by daperl (Post 569154)
I think Mozilla's significance is more important than it's ever been. IE has been handed its hat on the desktop by a one-two Gecko-Webkit punch, but now all eyes are on handhelds. Webkit branches sharply at the UI level, and thus, so do plenty of features. We're the big winners here so far, and as long Nokia continues to use Mozilla for the flagship browser we'll stay that way. It's a very good, yet bizarre twist of fate with all things considered. Either that, or Nokia is alot smarter than most of us give them credit for.
However, while Nokia uses a Gecko-engined browser, they aren't using one that seems to use the better user-facing aspect of it - extensions (edit: extensions which are cross-device and platform compatible). If that piece of things were more in sync with Mozilla's Firefox, then I could agree that Nokia is being smarter. At this point, I'm not sure so much that its an issue of being smarter - especially with they have Webkit already in-house and on their other, larger platforms.

daperl 2010-03-16 14:15
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ARJWright (Post 569178)
At this point, I'm not sure so much that its an issue of being smarter - especially with they have Webkit already in-house and on their other, larger platforms.
Smart, as in they're simultaneously championing both technologies. Maybe smart's not the exact word I was looking for. But I'm a big OSS person, so watching Nokia step into Google's shoes to foster good, clean competition is a good thing. Maybe that's the word I was looking for: Good. As in good vs. evil. Nothin' like a little drama on a Monday morning!

qole 2010-03-16 15:35
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by lma (Post 568775)
We've had two for quite some time now: gecko for the browser (OK, and maps in Fremantle) and gtkhtml for everything else (email, rss etc). Seems to me like webkit will take the place of the latter as a somewhat lightweight engine embeddable in whatever app needs it.
I wish they were using something fast and lightweight for rendering the Conversations window. As soon as you start tweaking the CSS of the page (for instance, to make speech bubbles), the rendering grinds to a crawl.

The smart guys over in the Customize N900 Conversations thread say that it is being rendered with a Gecko engine. Makes me wonder about the pervasiveness of the Gecko engine throughout the UI...

daperl 2010-03-16 17:16
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qole (Post 569347)
I wish they were using something fast and lightweight for rendering the Conversations window. As soon as you start tweaking the CSS of the page (for instance, to make speech bubbles), the rendering grinds to a crawl.

The smart guys over in the Customize N900 Conversations thread say that it is being rendered with a Gecko engine. Makes me wonder about the pervasiveness of the Gecko engine throughout the UI...
On the technical side, they probably had to go a route like this because all rows in the standard GTK list widgets have to be the same height. And you nailed it: It's a speed thing. These are inexcusable, but known weaknesses of GTK. But I'm still not sure using the Gecko engine was necessary. Currently, I'm recreating some of the mediaplayer functionalty, and I'm using JSON config files to expose Pango markup that I then use in a kind of variable argument printf statement. Here's a clip:

Code:
"list-store" : [
      {"type":"pixbuf",
      "value":["pixbuf","thumbnail-uri",5]},
      {"type":"text",
      "value":["<span size=\"13200\">%s\n","title",3,
                "<span foreground=\"#a0a0a0\">%s</span></span>","duration",4]}]
I'm sure I could recreate the Conversations UI using a similar technique combined with GtkTables instead of GtkTreeViews. I also combine those JSON config files with GtkBuilder files. This leaves plenty of room for customization and fast scrolling. And no HTML/CSS overkill.

javispedro 2010-03-16 20:16
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qole (Post 569347)
The smart guys over in the Customize N900 Conversations thread say that it is being rendered with a Gecko engine. Makes me wonder about the pervasiveness of the Gecko engine throughout the UI...
From looking at the "rtcom-messaging-ui" package dependencies, they seem to use browser-neteal (aka the rendering engine abstraction layer).
So theoretically you could even plug Webkit or Opera in ;)

daperl 2010-03-16 20:20
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Whoa, I just took a long look over at the conversations thread. It must be Gecko. Well, welcome to the WRT preview. I don't think this is a good direction. If you think people are complaining about speed and battery consumption now... Until Javascript is in its 2nd or 3rd generation of multi-threading support, I will probably be steering clear. Currently, it's the wrong tool for the job. I'm a little concerned. The latency of dbus asynchronous communication is plenty for me, thanks. Don't we all have enough bad experiences with crappy Javascript and websites? If WRT is suppose to be the answer for opening up the platform to gather more developers, are these the types of developers we want for front facing apps? I say no. And f*ck no. I was all ready for Qt and hardcore C++ programmers.

Does Nokia have it backwards? The OS is suppose to be easy and joyful to use. I'm going to paraphrase Einstein: Make API's and programming languages as easy as possible, but no easier. Isn't WebOS the only example we need of what not to do? It's a beautiful OS that seems to be choking on Javascript. Oh, the virus of the browser. Me frightened. Rant over.

byte_76 2010-03-16 21:02
Re: Meego: Goodbye Mozilla, hello Webkit!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by daperl (Post 569512)
On the technical side, they probably had to go a route like this because all rows in the standard GTK list widgets have to be the same height. And you nailed it: It's a speed thing. These are inexcusable, but known weaknesses of GTK. But I'm still not sure using the Gecko engine was necessary. Currently, I'm recreating some of the mediaplayer functionalty, and I'm using JSON config files to expose Pango markup that I then use in a kind of variable argument printf statement. Here's a clip:

Code:
"list-store" : [
      {"type":"pixbuf",
      "value":["pixbuf","thumbnail-uri",5]},
      {"type":"text",
      "value":["<span size=\"13200\">%s\n","title",3,
                "<span foreground=\"#a0a0a0\">%s</span></span>","duration",4]}]
I'm sure I could recreate the Conversations UI using a similar technique combined with GtkTables instead of GtkTreeViews. I also combine those JSON config files with GtkBuilder files. This leaves plenty of room for customization and fast scrolling. And no HTML/CSS overkill.
It would be great if you could recreate conversations with speech bubbles using the techniques that improve performance / scrolling while providing room for customization.

Master of Gizmo 2010-03-16 21:17
Re: Meego: Goodbye Gecko, hello Webkit?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qole (Post 568179)
Why do I say this? Nokia has clearly stated that they will be supporting the Nokia WRT (Web RunTime) engine based on WebKit in Harmattan forward. Why would they have two big bulky browser engines on a limited-resources device?
Uhm, today they have gtkhtml (doing e.g. the html email rendering) and microb. Why shouldn't they have webkit and microb in the future?


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