KDE browser work team

[Lubos Lunak]

On Thursday 02 of July 2009, Adam Treat wrote:
> On Thursday 02 July 2009 04:47:23 am Lubos Lunak wrote:
> >  If Arora becomes a more popular KDE browser than Konqueror, will there
> > be actually still any major use for KParts? My biggest problem with
> > quickly dismissing Konqueror is that a lot of work has been invested into
> > it, and you don't often noticed that until you start missing things.
> > Konqueror used to have only the very simple image viewer part that was
> > annoying to use, until the Gwenview KPart came (and in KDE4 it's not what
> > it used to be, since KDE3 Gwenview was scrapped for KDE4). How long did
> > it take until most people stopped complaining about Plasma, two years
> > (and I still run into things here and there I wish I had the time to do
> > something about)? And so on. Do we want to repeat that with the
> > webbrowser?
>
> Again, I'm not pushing for anything.  If people like and want to use Arora,
> then I don't see any problem with that.  If Arora popularity grows to
> become more and more popular amongst KDE users through natural growth and
> choice, then what have you lost?

 All of the features of Konqueror that have been developed over the time (some 
of those mine, and I don't feel like coding them again)? I am just trying to 
understand the desire for going with something else than Konqueror, and so 
far I don't see anything convincing, so I am looking for the reasons.

 And I personally am concerned about the current situation because it reminds 
me a similar one a while back: KWin vs Compiz. Before KDE4 Compiz was the new 
kid on the block, it had bling, developer community, youtube videos, people 
were saying how it was the best technology ever with modules and what not, 
and how KDE and GNOME should adopt it. KWin was the neglected old thing with 
just one developer occassionally keeping an eye on it and it looked like its 
days were counted. Do you know what we would have now if we went that way? We 
would depend on a window manager with bling, a very unclear future, rotten 
poor codebase, dying developer community, 1.0 release nowhere in sight and no 
stability or feature parity with the previous solution.

 I'm afraid I won't have the time to do much about this browser problem 
myself :-/, but I would like to see people consider possibilities before 
something gets in practice thrown out because of a new kid on the block. 
Arora or Rekonq may look nice at the moment, but right now they seem more 
like hobby projects to me, and who says they still will look that nice when 
they reach the status when they will be a Konqueror replacement?

 That is why I would like to know the technical reasons.

> >  Moreover, I don't know Konqueror very well, but could somebody point out
> > how Konqueror is tied to KHTML? I thought Konqueror was mostly a shell
> > that didn't care that much about what the part does. Grepping the sources
> > for KHTML doesn't show anything interesting. There is
> > KParts::BrowserExtension used a lot, but I don't see anything overly
> > complex there. So where is all the deep integration with KHTML?
>
> Try looking at the settings for one.  That is all heavily tied to KHTML.

 I'm confused. Do you mean the configuration modules? If yes, then I really 
expected better than that. That would be like claiming that Konqueror was too 
deeply integrated with the Konqueror fileview KPart and that the DolphinView 
KPart was woefully insufficient. How is adjusting or rewriting kcm modules 
more work than writing a new webbrowser? Please explain what you mean.

 And, BTW, you are now pushing for something, whether you like it or not, 
because you have made it to OSNews as the expert on the issue who knows that 
it is not worth to work on WebKit integration in Konqueror. So is it not, 
really?

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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