Improving kdewebkit/webkitpart [Was: KDE Browser work team]

[Ben Cooksley]

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Urs Wolfer<uwolfer at kde.org> wrote:
> On Sunday 02 August 2009 06:11:49 Dawit A. wrote:
>> Now that I have committed my changes, I thought I outline here some of the
>> small progress I have made so far in advancing kdewebkit/webkitpart one
>> step towards being a viable alternative browsing engine for Konqueror and
>> other browsers that want to make use of it. Instead of rehash or debating
>> again the virtues of Konqueror as a web browser or whether or not it is
>> possible to properly to even integrate the webkitpart into konqueror fully
>> using the current configuration settings/dialogs, I rather outline what is
>> currently done and what is missing or needs help and encourage people to
>> either contribute or test it out and provide feedback:
>>
>> What is already completed:
>> =================
>> ** Full KCookiejar integration and by full I mean complete. You can use the
>> current cookie config dialog to set your policy/settings etc...
>>
>> ** Visual notification of SSL sites in konqueror's address bar. (security
>> pad lock icon)
>>
>> ** Configuration changes no longer require restart of the browser.
>>
>> ** Nice error messages like ones shown in KHTML when an error is
>> encountered. Actually the message formatting code was borrowed from KHTML.
>>
>> What is partially done:
>> ==============
>> ** Ad filterting support:
>>   Needs a whole lot of improvements though it now works fine so long as the
>> settings are properly configured.
>>
>> ** Javascript Window policies (open, move, resize, focus, status bar).
>>   Still missing the implementation for "Ask" condition when a javascript
>> open new window is received.
>>
>> ** Almost all Konqueror settings should be honored when using the kdewebkit
>> part with minor exceptions listed here. What is not tested is Java
>> integration because I have no use/need for them...
>>
>> What is still missing:
>> =============
>> ** nsplugin support:
>>    The one included with QtWebKit works fine but causes the browser (read:
>> Konqueror) to crash the minute you navigate away from the site embedding
>> the plugin.
>>    The KDE nspluginviewer part correctly gets embeded and does not crash
>> (at least not for me), but the minute you click to start play, it renders
>> your mouse useless and does not play the video. Have to use the keyboard to
>> kill the nsplugviewer process...
>>
>> ** kwallet integration:
>>   Dunno where to being...
>>
>> ** WebKitSettings:
>>   This class needs to be re-done so that it is flexiable enough to allow
>> application to use their own configuration settings much like how one can
>> set the own implementation of a cookiejar, cache etc in QNetworkManager.
>>
>> My hope here is that this work demonstrate that the task of integrating
>> kdewebkit into Konqueror as an alternate rendering engine is not such a
>> monumental task. In fact were it not for some tricky issues it is down
>> right trivial once one gets a hang of how QtWebKit and and to some extent
>> KParts work. Now if only someone can tell me why ksslinfodialog.h is not
>> installed by default...
>
> Hi Dawit
>
> Thank you very much for the work on kdewebkit! :) Your recent work looks
> great.
>
> Do you know about the KDE WebKit mailinglist (CCed in this mail)? That would
> be the best place to discuss development stuff. I suggest you to subscribe
> there if you not already have done so [1].
>
> I would also appreciate if you could update the TODO list on the TechBase wiki
> page [2].
>
> Btw, one other important issue to fix is the Konqueror history feature; read
> more in point #2 of a mail I have written to the KDE WebKit ml some time ago
> [3].
>
> Since you know KIO quite well, I also would like if you could look into the
> GMail-breaking issue [4]. I have done quite a lot of investigation threre, but
> without success.

Interestingly, GMail works fine in Konqueror with KHTML now, at least
under trunk. ( With the AJAX interface, it works mostly if you set the
user agent to Firefox, but those tiny problems are a different issue
altogther ). It is only Webkit that is affected. Could this be related
to Javascript Cookies?

>
> Bye
> urs
>
> [1] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/webkit-devel
> [2] http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/WebKit
> [3] http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/webkit-devel/2008-October/000005.html
> [4] https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=190480
>

Regards,
bcooksley