I lost my QHtmlBrowser Widget, anyone seen it?

[katrina]

I SSSSSSOOOOOO wish there was an HTML browser widget that wasn't OS specific. I know I _could_ use a text browser, but it seems that it's HTML support is pretty limited. I would love to have something like that which can run javascript... that would ROCK! Anyone ever seen something like that for Qt?

Katrina

[wysota]

Try embedding gecko (mozilla engine).

[yop]

Try embedding gecko (mozilla engine).

Have you succeeded doing something like that? I'm more than intrested. I'm using KHtml for now but I don't really like it

[wysota]

Have you succeeded doing something like that? I'm more than intrested. I'm using KHtml for now but I don't really like it

I haven't tried, although I heard people did it. There is even some kind of receipe in the net on embedding gecko.

[Brandybuck]

Chiming in late here, but I had a conversation with a customer yesterday on this very topic. What is wanted by the commercial Qt user isn't an HTML widget, but Internet Explorer. You can do this in Windows, because there is a real explorer component to use. But it doesn't exist elsewhere.

The reason is simple: plugins. Nobody cares about HTML/CSS anymore, they want to use proprietary plugins, particularly Flash v8+. Even if you took KHTML, Gecko, WebKit or something else and created a 100% compliant ACID2 passing HTML/CSS/ECMA browser, it still won't be good enough. The customer I was working with was pissed at Apple WebKit, because the Flash plugin was flaky (basically it's a Carbon window embedded in Cocoa WebKit embedded in Carbon QWidget).

[wysota]

Gecko should be able to use Netscape plugins (including Flash). Unfortunately Flash 8 is off limits for Linux+Firefox now, but this will hopefully change.

[Valheru]

Chiming in late here, but I had a conversation with a customer yesterday on this very topic. What is wanted by the commercial Qt user isn't an HTML widget, but Internet Explorer. You can do this in Windows, because there is a real explorer component to use. But it doesn't exist elsewhere.

The reason is simple: plugins. Nobody cares about HTML/CSS anymore, they want to use proprietary plugins, particularly Flash v8+. Even if you took KHTML, Gecko, WebKit or something else and created a 100% compliant ACID2 passing HTML/CSS/ECMA browser, it still won't be good enough. The customer I was working with was pissed at Apple WebKit, because the Flash plugin was flaky (basically it's a Carbon window embedded in Cocoa WebKit embedded in Carbon QWidget).

Nobody cares about HTML/CSS anymore? Good luck getting a webpage to look like anything resembling a webpage without them.

[kroenecker]

Yeah I find it hard to believe that a customer who understands the Internet doesn't respect CSS/XHTML.

[wysota]

I think the point is not that he does or does not respect css/xhtml but that he requires something more than html support from a html browser (I know this sounds silly).

[katrina]

Gotta love it when your dreams come true ;-)
Yay for QtWebKit!

[high_flyer]

Hey Katrina,

I must say I am not sure what (Qt)WebKit is - all though I read through what I could find...:-\
Is it meant as a framework to write browsers and HTML/Other scripts - aware applications (that run web applications), or is it a framework for building web applications (maybe a bit like Cocoon/Tomcat)?

Can you clarify that for me please?
Thanks!

[katrina]

There seems to have been a lot of confusion about this going around.

QtWebKit is basically a web browser widget (although a bit more robust than just that) so that you can write apps that can view HTML/Javascript/etc documents.
QtWebKit does not make Qt apps into web apps.

[high_flyer]

Ah! Thanks!

QtWebKit does not make Qt apps into web apps.

Is there anything else that you know of besides Wt that allows coding C/C++ for web applications? (I ask since it seems you are well versed in the subject)

[katrina]

Yep! I sent you a private message about it because its not announced yet. :-)

[wysota]

QtWebKit is basically a web browser widget (although a bit more robust than just that) so that you can write apps that can view HTML/Javascript/etc documents.
QtWebKit does not make Qt apps into web apps.

QtWebKit is a port of WebKit which is an Apple project used by their Safari browser and is in turn a port of KHTML (used by Konqueror) which is based on Qt - "Ashes to ashes, Qt to Qt"

[high_flyer]

I know that, Witek, THAT was clear from the wiki site, but I didn't know what it is really for...

[katrina]

"Ashes to ashes, Qt to Qt"

Very nice quote!

BTW, there is a really great QtWebKit example in the Qt-4.4.0-tp1 download, its in demos/browser. Its actually a decent (although simple) web browser - with tabs, a page inspector, and such. Also *cough* it doesn't suffer from some of Konqueror's rendering bugs (although I did notice a couple rendering bugs of its own - but they seem to be fewer)

[Brandybuck]

I'm hoping that there will be plugin support for Webkit/QtWebKit. Because as I remarked up above, many potential Qt clients will be specifying Flash v9+ support for their apps.

[katrina]

Hmmm, I have not chcked yet if there is any built-in support for loading extensions, but I am sure if there isn't that someone will release something to do it pretty quickly; that seems like it would be a very in-demand feature.

[wysota]

I'm hoping that there will be plugin support for Webkit/QtWebKit. Because as I remarked up above, many potential Qt clients will be specifying Flash v9+ support for their apps.

I assume Safari supports it, so sooner or later we will probably have support for plugins in WebKit as well.