This Is Cool: An HTML5 Back-End For GTK3

[phoronix]

Phoronix: This Is Cool: An HTML5 Back-End For GTK3

Version 3.0 of GTK+ that is set for introduction with GNOME 3.0 already boasts a bold feature set. GTK+ 3.0 is less dependent on X11 (meaning it can work with Wayland and better support on Mac OS X, etc), provides X Input 2 support, uses Cairo more for drawing, eliminates DirectFB support, and boasts cleaner rendering. A new feature though for GTK+3 is being worked on and its quite interesting: an HTML back-end that allows GTK applications to run natively within a HTML5 web-browser off a web server...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODgzMA

[rohcQaH]

aww, I was hoping for some mapping of layouts and form elements to native html5-elements + autogenerated javascript.

This is basically "vnc on your webbrowser". A bit more efficient because image-data can be grabbed earlier and smarter, a bit less flexible because it's limited to a single app without a window-manager and cannot use GPU rendering.

Cute toy, but I don't see it becoming more than that. Apparently, neither does the author

[V!NCENT]

Yes that's what I thought, too. But it's a start...

[89c51]

something like that would be cool if it could move further down the stack ie make wayland (and with it all the toolkits) accessible from a browser

but i have no idea if this is feasible or possible

[jlmolero]

Somebody says Google Chrome OS

Wow, this are very good notices,GTK apps will be run natively in Google Chrome OS

[Nobu]

If you abstracted the code a bit (maybe you don't even need to do that) you could probably create a client that could interface with it from outside of a web browser. I don't see why not, anyway.

[V!NCENT]

Yeah if Gtk would abstract, it could do html5 and Windows. It would be cool if Qt and Gtk would then work nicely together and over athe network by means of a FreeDesktops.org colaboration

[Maxim Levitsky]

Wayland networking using this?

This could easily replace X networking and finally put a last nail to X coffin.

[korpenkraxar]

This could easily replace X networking and finally put a last nail to X coffin.

There sure is great potential here.

[Delgarde]

This could easily replace X networking and finally put a last nail to X coffin.

Precisely. With all the Wayland discussions, there's been that big hole - how to provide network transparency for those of us who actually need it. And while rendering to an HTML canvas is a bit of a gimmick, it does demonstrate that providing a network-transparent backend to gtk+ is quite feasible.