[maemo-developers] Webkit based browser on N800

[From: Alp Toker]

Oliver Dole wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It's my pleasure to announce that we just released OWB, a webkit-based
> browser which aim is to present an abstraction layer for different
> parts of the browser architecture, making porting effort smoother and
> faster.
> For instance, we have an abstraction for network part (currently curl
> based) or for graphics part (currently sdl based).

WebKit already has an abstraction layer for networking backends, for 
which Mac, Qt, Win32 and curl (which I help maintain) ports exist. It 
also has an abstraction layer for drawing and graphics which has Qt, CG, 
Wx and Cairo (which I work on) implementations.

Can you explain what's wrong with the existing abstraction layers? 
They've served us well.

> This project is known to compile and run fine for N800... The drawback
> is that the current port is SDL based. This implementation raises some
> troubles like text input inside the browser which are for now
> impossible since the keyboard does not show up.
> If you want to have a look to OWB, you can check http://www.sand-labs.org/owb/
> To checkout the sources: svn checkout http://www.sand-labs.org/svn/trunk/
> Further information on how to compile OWB for N800 can be found at
> this location: http://www.sand-labs.org/owb/wiki/OwbN800
> 
> We also  plan to start a GTK port in order to get OWB running on
> GTK/Hildon but I don't really have a timeframe about that, so if some
> people are willing to see webkit on N800 / GTK, please show up, any
> help is greatly encouraged :)

We have been working on porting WebKit to Gtk+ for some time. The source 
code is available at svn.webkit.org since we work directly with the 
upstream code base rather than branching it. If you made your branch 
five months ago, it's possible you've missed out on a lot of development 
to enhance WebKit on mobile platforms.

WebKit/Gtk+ builds and runs fine on the N800. Integration work with 
Hildon and Nokia's EAL (Engine Abstraction Layer) is ongoing, and we're 
encouraging its adoption by the GNOME mobile community.

Regards.