In general, we've avoided using WebKit code in what we call the browser process (that's the main process in chrome). I'm not sure how firm that policy is. If we were to utilize significant amounts of webcore code in the browser process, we'd have an interesting conundrum about which thread we'd have webkit consider its "main" thread. For appcache purposes, this would ideally be some background thread, for other purposes this would ideally be what we call the UI thread in the browser process.

Ultimately, I think an arrangement that you're alluding to would be the best answer. A common implementation of the AppCache with clean dependencies and interfaces such that it can be re-used in different environments.

I was not gunning to take that on as part of my project in the near term as I think that would be disruptive to Chrome and WebKit alike. But down that road, this is an intriguing idea.

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Darin Adler <darin@apple.com> wrote:

On Apr 7, 2009, at 10:52 AM, Michael Nordman wrote:

We've decided to hoist most the functionality provided by the app cache into Chrome's main browser process,

Perhaps other WebKit ports will want a similar structure. Is there a way this code in the main browser process could still be WebKit code, or does it have special requirements that make it need to be Chrome-specific?

-- Darin