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KDE Gets Gecko/Mozilla Support
Sivar writes "Ars Technica reports that not only has the Gecko engine been ported to Konqueror, but the developers were able to finish the port in only four days during the week-long Akademy conference. With this port, Konqueror users now have a choice between two mature, powerful rendering engines."
Also read this blog entry by one of the developers which answers the most common asked questions.
Perhaps more interesting than porting Gecko to Konqueror is integrating Qt and KDE with Firefox. It sounds like this porting fest has gained a couple of talented developers for the Mozilla project. This is good for both KDE and Mozilla.
The best news here is that Firefox will also now be able to use the native KDE widgets, etc. Sweet.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
Think of Mozilla's platform as Java-lite. You can write very small programs that utilize many built-ins that the browser supports. It has a deployment framework through 'extensions', etc..
.NET or Java in order to do their work.
.NET Runtime ~25MB
.NET installed (trust me from experience, they don't). Less means better in this case. The smaller the release, the more likely an admin would choose your solution.
Not everyone needs a fully library supported language like
As long as you can learn JavaScript, you can write mozilla extensions. I'm just wish that the Mozilla folks would make it easier to find info on how to develop the platform as a platform. From what I've read on their site, they target the 'Mozilla as-a platform' over 'Mozilla is-a platform'. They might find that free/comercial entities could find use in their platform and help develop it if they think there's more for them to use from it.
Think of thin-apps niche for a moment:
Java Runtime ~15MB
Mozilla Runtime ~5MB and that includes a browser
If you want to deploy Thin Client App xyz, which one do you choose? You can't assume that your customer has either Java or
Mozilla has less surface area which means there's less functionality built id but its more simple to develop for. The language is JavaScript which is used by throngs of web developers (the target market of this technology). You can look at the debate over web based Application distribution to see where Mozilla fits into things. (The new MS web services model, Java Web Start, Mozilla)
Bye!
Read the parent post again. He is proposing a modification to the Gecko engine to make it emulate IE5/6's quirks (as well as the IE4 and below quirks that it already emulates in the aptly-named 'quirks mode') so that you can view the page how it would look in IE without using IE. This would be incredibly useful. It's not a new idea by any means, but it would solve your problem.
Fortunately, KPart has emerged as the best of both worlds.
Thesis: small applications doing specific tasks.
Antithesis: large applications that do everything.
Synthesis: apps seamlessly integrated via an open framework.
Indeed. In fact, I'd say that the KPart architecture is actually closer to the Unix philosophy than standalone small apps. KPart reminds me so much of the pipes and output redirection that make Unix shells so good. It's the closest GUI equivalent to the Unix CLI environment that I've seen.
Take Konqueror, for example. By itself, it doesn't do anything--it's just a frame. All the functionality--the file manager, web browser, fish, all the other viewers--are KParts independent of Konqueror. Konqueror is a graphical shell--a frame that holds those KParts, and provides interoperability features.
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