Paihia web browser progress
  • Cocoon
    Cocoon
    smithy
    Posts: 49 from 2003/12/30
    From: Tyneside, England
    Lots of people have been asking how Paihia is progressing. So here is a quick progress report:

    XML
    Apart from DTD support, all elements (pun not intended) of XML are now complete. The XML processor is a superfast, hand-coded jobbie that generates a DOM tree (more on DOM later), but differs to many DOM parsers in that processing and displaying can begin before the tree is fully built. Currently, the procoessor treats all documents as anonymous and doesn't validate their structure. DTD parsing is currently being worked on, and should enable Paihia to display the quasi-XML that MS Word generates, as well as any other XML document that supplies a CSS file, including, of course, XHTML files.

    DOM
    Work on Level 3 Core has begun. Support for document features not yet specified (DOM Style, DOM HTML, etc..) in DOM 3 will be implemented using the DOM 2 specs for now. Once the DOM Load and Save module has been completed, we'd like to release a standalone XML/DOM shared library.

    CSS
    Progress has been slower than planned due to bugs in our relayouter. The biggest part of CSS left to implement is Table Model. This is expected to take some time. Other smaller pieces, such as user interface styles, stacking boxes and backgrounds are yet to be implemented too. We are implementing CSS2.1, rather than CSS3 as the latter is in a state of flux and looks like it may be some years before it is published. Overall, we think the CSS support is around 50% complete.

    XHTML
    All visual aspects covered by a default stylesheet. Forms and frames not begun.

    HTML
    If you're keen, you may have noticed that there is no HTML parser. This is because Paihia is a XHTML/CSS browser. However, as badly written HTML is the essence of the web, I've added a few specialisms to the XML processor that will convert HTML into XHTML and switch the processor into a super-tolerant mode, completely invisible to the user and all while appearing to be a genuine HTML browser.

    Javascript
    Not begun.

    Networking
    Might use cURL, but not begun.

    Client-side features
    (Bookmarks, tabs, etc..)
    Not begun.

    Overall
    Paihia has been in development for over 12 months now. Much blood, sweat and stress has been invested into it! On a personal note, Paihia has become something of an obsession for me. I use my holidays from work to program instead of lying on a white beach in New Zealand, and even I've been neglecting my girlfriend and my personal hygiene! (she's managed to get me to agree to a week's holiday in Italy, although I may take my laptop).

    There is probably another 9-12 months of work left before we reach a beta stage, but as we've seen in Amiga circles, there is no quick route to a modern web browser.

    Thanks to everyone for their support, it's really appreciated :-)
  • »15.03.05 - 08:54
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Robin
    Posts: 741 from 2003/2/24
    This project is really great to see !
    Thanks for the info :-)
  • »15.03.05 - 09:00
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    SoundSquare
    Posts: 1213 from 2004/12/1
    From: Paris, France
    impressive ! big up !!

    just keep an eye on your gf mate ... :-D
  • »15.03.05 - 09:02
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  • Butterfly
    Butterfly
    Druideck
    Posts: 82 from 2003/5/6
    From: Canada
    This is a great project, keep it up.
    Who needs holidays and/or personal
    hygiene when a new browser is concerned?
    Easy for me to say, eh? :)

    Thanks for the update.
  • »15.03.05 - 09:04
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Velcro_SP
    Posts: 929 from 2003/7/13
    From: Universe
    That's really great. I didn't know about this one. You didn't link your own project page though. It sounds like you plan many modern features. Can you add tabbed browsing to the list?

    Smithy, we don't want you to neglect your personal hygiene and girlfriend, man! Take a bath and shave, would you? ;) And please, start flossing again! You can leave the laptop when you go to Italy, there are such things as Internet cafes if you need a fix there.

    Good luck with this great project and post some screenshots when you can!
    Pegasos2 G3, 512 megs RAM
  • »15.03.05 - 09:08
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  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Zylesea
    Posts: 2057 from 2003/6/4
    A man with passion - that is what's needed. Thumbs up mate! But as others said already, don't forget your life beside your Pahia obsession.
    --
    http://via.bckrs.de

    Whenever you're sad just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.
    ...and Matthias , my friend - RIP
  • »15.03.05 - 09:27
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    poundsmack
    Posts: 1346 from 2003/6/8
    From: USA California
    very very cool
    "Poundsmack, official morphzone thread creator" -LorD
    "Wanna be lord of the avatars." -JKD
  • »15.03.05 - 10:11
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    brotheris
    Posts: 142 from 2003/2/24
    From: Vilnius, Lithu...
    Just don't overburn yourself. Good luck in making it happen :-}
    Home sweet home is Pegasos User Group Lithuania
  • »15.03.05 - 10:12
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  • Moderator
    guruman
    Posts: 461 from 2003/7/21
    Good to hear this work is progressing! And good luck for future developments. The biggest achievements in our community have always been made by madmen with a vision and some passion, and here I see both of them. ;-)
    Quote:

    smithy wrote:
    she's managed to get me to agree to a week's holiday in Italy, although I may take my laptop

    Just out of curiosity, where in Italy?

    Kind regards,
    Andrea
  • »15.03.05 - 10:16
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    jcmarcos
    Posts: 1178 from 2003/3/13
    From: Pinto, Madrid ...
    I just wanted to add myself to the congratulating crowd. Very impressive and very brave indeed.
    I've red In the web page that you are a couple of guys. May we have the real name of our heroes?
  • »16.03.05 - 08:04
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Posts: 979 from 2003/6/28
    Very interesting, some news about the project? What about accepting more programmers into the project?
  • »15.04.05 - 16:23
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  • Cocoon
    Cocoon
    smithy
    Posts: 49 from 2003/12/30
    From: Tyneside, England
    Hey timofonic,

    Quote:


    timofonic wrote:
    Very interesting, some news about the project? What about accepting more programmers into the project?


    A status report was posted just 1 month ago. Since then work has been continuing in a similar manner. In the last month I've begun work on Javascript. I balked at the thought of writing yet another parser, so I wrote a backtracking parser framework, similar to Boost.Spirit, in that it creates a parser at runtime. Then used my new framework to generate a ECMAScript 262 (Javascript 1.5ish) parser from the EBNF, and since then been working on a runtime environment for scripting.

    I'm probably going to use this funky new framework to replace the XML and CSS parsers - it should eliminate the few stubborn bugs still lying around in the hand-written lexers.
  • »16.04.05 - 09:50
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  • Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
    Velcro_SP
    Posts: 929 from 2003/7/13
    From: Universe
    Go Smithy go! Hopefully you will get to a stage soon where you release a screen-shot.
    Pegasos2 G3, 512 megs RAM
  • »16.04.05 - 10:31
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