[webkit-dev] WebKit on Windows(?)

[Darin Adler]

On Jan 18, 2006, at 1:33 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:

> Recently, there has been some chatter about getting webkit ported  
> to windows (not just JavaScriptCore, but the higher levels). Is the  
> motivation for this project coming from any of the Apple  
> maintainers? Or is this strictly coming from the community? Can  
> somebody summarize the status, goals, and players, and to what  
> degree the Apple folks are involved? I am interested in the end  
> result and am trying to gauge the likelihood of this happening.

It's not just chatter. We're improving the structure of the WebKit  
code and working on portability. The basic road map from this web  
page is still pretty accurate:

     <http://webkit.opendarwin.org/projects/portability/index.html>

I recommend reading that to get an idea of what the WebKit folks are  
doing. The only thing out of date there is that I don't think anyone  
is working to integrate the GTK+ port.

As you mentioned, JavaScriptCore is working pretty well on platforms  
other than OS X. It's working on Unix for the KDE folks and on Windows.

There's more work to do at the WebCore level. We're doing a lot to  
make a better separation between the platform-independent vs.  
platform-specific bits. For example, we're replacing the old "KWQ"  
layer (which had API "kind of like" Qt, but was really trying to be a  
platform abstraction among other things) with a new structure where  
platform-independent code is more cleanly separated. And we want to  
create a cleaner relationship between WebKit and WebCore on OS X. As  
far as specific platforms are concerned, we'd like to get in good  
shape to merge in the work from the Symbian port, make it possible to  
port to KDE and Linux at some point, and we're super-excited about  
the possibility of having a way to look at web pages using WebKit on  
Windows that would allow a lot of contributors to join in that like  
to program on Windows and don't have Macs.

Engineers from Apple are leading this effort to improve the structure  
of the code and its portability. The best way to find out more about  
who's working on what and how you can contribute is to stop by in  
#webkit and talk to people about what they're up to.

     -- Darin