[webkit-gtk] Kiosk-style mouse

[Gavin Lambert]

On 23 September 2014 17:36, quoth Carlos Garcia Campos:
> El mar, 23-09-2014 a las 13:14 +1200, Gavin Lambert escribió:
> > I have a kiosk-style application that displays a browser view full
> > screen, using a bit of JavaScript to periodically update the display.
> > It's currently using WebKit/GTK 1.8.1.  (ie. WebKit1; I haven't
> > migrated to
> > WebKit2 because the multi-process model seems too much of a pain in
> > the neck for this application.)
> 
> All 2.0 versions until 2.6 include both WebKit1 and WebKit2 APIs, so you
> can use WebKit1 API with 2.4.5, for example, instead of using 1.8.1 that
> is very old.

1.8.1 is the version that comes bundled with the Linux distro that I'm using (Debian wheezy), and thus far it has not presented any obvious bugs in the application I'm using, so I'm sticking with that out of simplicity (unlike when I was using squeeze, which bundled something older than 1.4 and which didn't work so well, so I had to build 1.4 myself).

> Have you actually tried WebKit2 API? Why is that a pain in the neck for
> your application? What do you mean exactly?

The main app injects some image resources and other data into the page via a custom URI scheme (implemented by intercepting resource-request-starting and translating to data: URIs), and also has a JS object for more complex data exchanges.  In the multiprocess model these things would have to be in the web process and would have to communicate somehow back to the UI process.  I know there are mechanisms for doing this (extension API etc) but I don't see any advantages (and several drawbacks, in code complexity and in memory usage) in going down this path.

In a "real" browser, sure, multiprocess is a good thing that helps insulate against crashes etc particularly with multiple tabs and with plugins.  But like I said this is a kiosk application that's only going to have one tab open to one site with no plugins and fairly simple content (and running on a single core system); and it just doesn't seem worthwhile changing it, particularly since what I have now works. :)

But no, I haven't actually tried it; so perhaps I have a false impression of something.  But that's my current reasoning.