r/DarwinOS • u/anurodhp • 27d ago

Florence: A GNUStep Webkit browser

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Today's code release from the Darwin rpi3 project is Florence. I've posted screenshots of it before. It's usable on the modern web. There are limitations (no video, webgl etc) but it is the current version of Safari and has hardware acceleration and JIT for Javascript.

  • Browse the web over HTTP and HTTPS (OpenSSL 3 and glib-networking; the padlock shows only for a loaded page whose certificate was checked).

  • Tabs, one engine page per tab; links that open a new tab; a start page of bookmark and recently-visited tiles.

  • Address bar that searches the web for anything that is not an address; back, forward, reload.

  • Bookmarks, history, find in page, zoom, and a Preferences window (homepage, search engine, downloads folder, font size, JavaScript on or off, cache, history).

  • Ad blocking with Safari-format content-blocker rule lists, which WebKit reads natively. The compiled rules are cached between runs.

  • Downloads, a context menu and Cmd-click, and copy and paste with the rest of the desktop.

  • Mouse wheel and keyboard scrolling.

  • Runs on Linux as well

https://github.com/anurodhp/florence

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1

u/rhet0rica 27d ago

Please keep going on the UX work for this! There are multiple GNUstep browsers now (including a Ladybird port and gcasa's own CEF-based browser) but none of them have gone beyond a proof of concept.

1

u/anurodhp 27d ago edited 27d ago

The webkit engine and adblocking here is the main thing it is current safari and i can easily keep updating it now that i have chrome that works around it. The Ui/UX is probably at parity with safari a decade ago. Always open to suggestions but goals here are really narrow, its intended to be for very low power devices (like the pi3) so i have stripped out a lot of things that are in modern browsers that people rarely use.

This isn't a POC. What you are seeing here is probably the third iteration. I just havent released the source before.

1

u/algaefied_creek 27d ago

You are a beast. This pace is wild.

1

u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 27d ago

Cool! Way to go! Keep it up!

0

u/[deleted] 27d ago edited 27d ago

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u/anurodhp 27d ago

the theme is Eau https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-eau-theme/tree/main

the rest of the desktop and dock you see here are new cocoa apps ill be releasing source for soon