Mozilla kills embedding support for Gecko

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-kills-embedding-support-for-Gecko-layout-engine-Update-1218990.html

"How the end of support will affect other applications which use Gecko, such as ... K-Meleon ... is currently unknown."

The support for embedding on some tiers & for some applications/testbeds was already stopped with the GRE change to 1.9.1.x. The screenshot shows the folder where cocoaembed, os2embed & mfcembed (the application on which k-meleon was based) used to be. Note that wxembed did AFAIK not get updates & was defunct since long.




So it is possibly no April foolsday prank.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2011 12:10PM by guenter.

As Camino developers said, is time to migrate to WebKit engine.
Better for us, worst for Mozilla.

K-Meleon in Spanish

Quote
desga2
As Camino developers said, is time to migrate to WebKit engine.
Better for us, worst for Mozilla.

desga2,

Is it doable? I lack the tech skill to properly analyze this.

N

Yes it is, other Gecko browser migrated to Webkit engine; Epiphany, Flock, and the next are Camino and K-Meleon. Technically the migration is possible.

This announcement changed our future "roadmap":

K-Meleon 1.6.x => Seamonkey 2.0.x, Firefox 3.5.x => Gecko 1.9.1.x
K-Meleon 1.7 => Firefox 3.6.x => Gecko 1.9.2.x
K-Meleon 1.8? => Seamonkey 2.1.x?, Firefox 4.0.x? => Gecko 2.0.x?
K-Meleon 2.0? => Based in Webkit engine?

All this is a supposition, we don't know if will there are developers needed to migrated the project to Webkit engine.
Almost is possible that we have to renamed the project (or created a new project) because K-Meleon is by definition a Gecko embed browser project and not a Webkit embed browser project.

K-Meleon in Spanish

Quote
desga2
Yes it is, other Gecko browser migrated to Webkit engine; Epiphany, Flock, and the next are Camino and K-Meleon. Technically the migration is possible.

This announcement changed our future "roadmap":

K-Meleon 1.6.x => Seamonkey 2.0.x, Firefox 3.5.x => Gecko 1.9.1.x
K-Meleon 1.7 => Firefox 3.6.x => Gecko 1.9.2.x
K-Meleon 1.8? => Seamonkey 2.1.x?, Firefox 4.0.x? => Gecko 2.0.x?
K-Meleon 2.0? => Based in Webkit engine?

All this is a supposition, we don't know if will there are developers needed to migrated the project to Webkit engine.
Almost is possible that we have to renamed the project (or created a new project) because K-Meleon is by definition a Gecko embed browser project and not a Webkit embed browser project.

desga2,

Flock didn't rename itself when it made the move and name recognition is important. I spent a lot of years in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather and that is the central core premise of that biz.

IF KKO's superb macro language can be adapted to WebKit, you would be a step up on all the others, as that single change made my day with KM.

I've read all the online justifications from Mozilla and don't get their reasoning, except to note that they probably look at K-Meleon, Camino and Galeon as gadflys they'd just as soon do without, as they are a constant reminder that there is another way to go with Gecko browsers than XUL/XPI emulation that is faster with operating system specific APIs.

SIGH

N



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2011 03:25PM by ndebord.

Quote
ndebord

Quote
desga2
Almost is possible that we have to renamed the project (or created a new project) because K-Meleon is by definition a Gecko embed browser project and not a Webkit embed browser project.

Flock didn't rename itself when it made the move and name recognition is important.

except to note that they probably look at K-Meleon, Camino and Galeon as gadflys they'd just as soon do without, as they are a constant reminder that there is another way to go with Gecko browsers than XUL/XPI emulation that is faster with operating system specific APIs.

K- & Something was Christofe's Idea for a skinable browser. K- & something as trademark, he used that system for other proects too. Winembed was his gadget. The project later chanced to mfcembed, which Mozilla does not support anymore. By chance Christofe's toy was Gecko based because that was the fashionable freeware HTML-enjine of that time.

IMHO For K-Meleon identity it is not essential what html engine drives him but his look, feel, easy handling and changing things.

When the project moves to another html-engine, the project will take these ideas and concepts along (hopefully), what better name can the browser have but the old fitting name, K-meleon, with its brand recognition. Epiphany, Flock, Camino,... Maxton... do/did not rename when they change their html-engine because they have had well established brand names.

The end users does not care what engine drives the vehicle.

So the name should be taken along if the project has to change the engine.

Epiphany, Camino and K-Meleon are the senior stepbrothers of Firefox that mother Mozilla does not want anymore because Firefox is her cashcow.

The three projects have IMHO shown that even with limited resources the native API browsers can compete with their XUL based clone.

p.s. winembed is still (sort off) supported until GRE 2.0 Firefox 4; Maybe after that? Maybe use more elements of that?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2011 09:42AM by guenter.

Guenter,

Perhaps the most indignant reaction to Mozilla's decision to kill off embedding.

http://np237.livejournal.com/31026.html

N

Quote
desga2
As Camino developers said, is time to migrate to WebKit engine.
Better for us, worst for Mozilla.

My other browser is QtWeb 3.7 with AppleWebKit/533.3 -- unfortunately WebKit does not support Java. For example, I cannot use Landgate Property Finder, which works reasonably well in KM, and very well in IE6.

As the cat said to the rodents: "Don't be in too much of hurry to jump overboard -- there's only one of me, but lots of sharks out there..."

Don't get me wrong -- QtWeb is a nice browser which handles most mapping sites very well. But...

Gordon.

____________________
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic. [Florence Ambrose, "Freefall" 01372 January 22, 2007 http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fv01372.htm]

Quote
guenter
When the project moves to another html-engine, the project will take these ideas and concepts along (hopefully), what better name can the browser have but the old fitting name, K-meleon, with its brand recognition. Epiphany, Flock, Camino,... Maxton... do/did not rename when they change their html-engine because they have had well established brand names.

The end users does not care what engine drives the vehicle.

So the name should be taken along if the project has to change the engine.

I second that.

dropping winembded in itself shouldn't really kill kmeleon as long as they release xulrunner sdks which shouldn't be a problem as long as mozilla is opensource, kmeleon can still be devleoped.. camino was programmed based on the sdk, there wasn't a cocoalib embed either for it.
they are delivering a parting shot to gtk projects, mainly killing linux gecko browsers that aren't xul like galeon(practically dead) and in-house projects like gtk firefox offshoots and songbird- a disaster anyways
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/gecko_sdk

building on webkit may not be possible or easy using mfc and will probably need to replaced by qt which means losing kmeleon's essence. epiphany or camino can easily move to qt while keeping 'nativeness' but it's not the same as mfc libs on windows

Quote
gordon451

Quote
desga2
As Camino developers said, is time to migrate to WebKit engine.
Better for us, worst for Mozilla.

My other browser is QtWeb 3.7 with AppleWebKit/533.3 -- unfortunately WebKit does not support Java. For example, I cannot use Landgate Property Finder, which works reasonably well in KM, and very well in IE6.

As the cat said to the rodents: "Don't be in too much of hurry to jump overboard -- there's only one of me, but lots of sharks out there..."

Don't get me wrong -- QtWeb is a nice browser which handles most mapping sites very well. But...

Gordon.

This website work fine with Java in Iron browser that use WebKit.
QtWeb is yet uncompleted for this features.
And other Webkit browser as Google Chrome/Chromium based browser work fine with Java.

WebKit and Chromium can be embedding in a MFC application:
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
http://magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50

K-Meleon migration is lees complicated than other projects because we aren't using XUL for the GUI (only Preferences panel and some extensions).

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2011 03:29PM by desga2.

Quote
desga2

K-Meleon migration is lees complicated than other projects because we aren't using XUL for the GUI (only Preferences panel and some extensions).

Keep enough parts of the old Gecko engine for handling prefs panel - and change what handles web pages. So to save all we have and have a new HTML-engine.

Gecko 1.9.2.x still builds the embed infrastructure that K-Meleon needs.

For Gecko 2.0 that code has been removed. I have looked. But it does not look like much great changes yet. What it wants is that the components are registered in a new way.

So it is IMHO not cetain what path is easier after 1.6 or maybe 1.7.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2011 07:02PM by guenter.

Quote
desga2
WebKit and Chromium can be embedding in a MFC application:
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/
http://magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=50

K-Meleon migration is lees complicated than other projects because we aren't using XUL for the GUI (only Preferences panel and some extensions).

that sounds promising but i'm still biased towards gecko..they are many xul extensions now :d

Quote
desga2
This website work fine with Java in Iron browser that use WebKit.
QtWeb is yet uncompleted for this features.
And other Webkit browser as Google Chrome/Chromium based browser work fine with Java.

Yes, you are right. However, QtWeb is the only WebKit browser which runs in W2K... (I have suggested that the next version should include Java as an urgent necessity.) And there's no way on this planet I'm going to downgrade to XP/Vista/7 just to get Java enabled. I suppose I may have no choice left but to change to the Haiku OS in a couple of years :O

I guess I'm also saying this is one of the reasons I like K-Meleon: KM is happy with older OSes and gives us current technology :cool: -- I'd like to think it will continue this habit.

Gordon.

____________________
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic. [Florence Ambrose, "Freefall" 01372 January 22, 2007 http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fv01372.htm]

Quote
gordon451
Yes, you are right. However, QtWeb is the only WebKit browser which runs in W2K...

but other webkit based browsers (Safari/Chrome) require more "modern" versions of Windows like XP/Vista/Seven and won't work with older versions of Windows; a big drawback when switching entirely to webkit.

I just hope when K-meleon sticks to Gecko, it keeps up with the "modern" versions of the Gecko engine featured in Firefox/Seamonkey/Thunderbird.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 04:18PM by 4td8s.

Webkit is compiled with VC8 alternatively VC9 that means NT based systems anyway.

K-Meleon can only stick with WinME/98 up to version 1.5.4.
After that it means kernelx or no Windows 9x support.

The question is not so much what the developers want but what Windows SDK and compilers support legacy windwos versions. And it is the compilers or better the runtimes and development kits that do not support win 98/ME anymore - thx to MS.

The next generation of OSes that will not be supported by the MS SDKs anymore are Win2000 & XP SP2.

Since SDK for Windows 7

Quote
MS SDK 7
supports x86, x64, and IA64 platform architectures for building and running applications on Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2011 07:21PM by guenter.

I found this: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Embedding/NewApi

Quote
Mozilla Wiki Documentation
Embedding/NewApi
==================
Getting the code
---------------------
The code currently lives outside the main tree in a separate Mercurial repository (http://hg.mozilla.org/incubator/embedding/).

I think this is the last embedding code; last changed: 2010-09-02
http://hg.mozilla.org/incubator/embedding/file/29ac0fe51754

K-Meleon in Spanish

Hi, I have a question: "Can K-Meleon use the newest Gecko of Firefox 7.0 ?"
I read this and this, but still don't know what it mean ? I'm not a developer, so I really don't know about that : (

I think newer Gecko version will be better, faster, I will glad if K-Meleon can integrate it.

Quote
Cattleya
Hi, I have a question: "Can K-Meleon use the newest Gecko of Firefox 7.0 ?"

I read this and this, but still don't know what it mean ? I'm not a developer, so I really don't know about that : (

I think newer Gecko version will be better, faster, I will glad if K-Meleon can integrate it.

I do only know from hearsay I am no developer.

1.) Dorian build K-Meleon successfully with Gecko 1.9.2.x (Firefox 3.6.x). But AFAIK that is the newest Gecko engine that has been used for a K-Meleon build. Currently nobody seems to know whether it is possible to go to newer GRE than that. & More big code changes will be needed to port K-Meleon to Gecko 4 - 7. The changes will probably need much developing time.

2.) Your links contain old information how to adapt and develop applications like K-Meleon that use Mozilla.orgs's Gecko engine. The information is partly outdated. Mozilla.org does not support embedding any more.

3.) Newer GRE are better and faster but nobody currently seems to know whether it is possible to use them.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2011 01:09PM by guenter.

Quote
desga2
Yes it is, other Gecko browser migrated to Webkit engine; Epiphany, Flock, and the next are Camino and K-Meleon. Technically the migration is possible.

This announcement changed our future "roadmap":

K-Meleon 1.6.x => Seamonkey 2.0.x, Firefox 3.5.x => Gecko 1.9.1.x
K-Meleon 1.7 => Firefox 3.6.x => Gecko 1.9.2.x
K-Meleon 1.8? => Seamonkey 2.1.x?, Firefox 4.0.x? => Gecko 2.0.x?
K-Meleon 2.0? => Based in Webkit engine?

All this is a supposition, we don't know if will there are developers needed to migrated the project to Webkit engine.
Almost is possible that we have to renamed the project (or created a new project) because K-Meleon is by definition a Gecko embed browser project and not a Webkit embed browser project.

Is K-Meleon still in development? Is there a K-Meleon build (1.8? 2.0?) with an up-to-date GRE? If not, will there by any?

Quote
Peter Sauer

Quote
desga2
Yes it is, other Gecko browser migrated to Webkit engine; Epiphany, Flock, and the next are Camino and K-Meleon. Technically the migration is possible.

This announcement changed our future "roadmap":

K-Meleon 1.6.x => Seamonkey 2.0.x, Firefox 3.5.x => Gecko 1.9.1.x
K-Meleon 1.7 => Firefox 3.6.x => Gecko 1.9.2.x
K-Meleon 1.8? => Seamonkey 2.1.x?, Firefox 4.0.x? => Gecko 2.0.x?
K-Meleon 2.0? => Based in Webkit engine?

All this is a supposition, we don't know if will there are developers needed to migrated the project to Webkit engine.
Almost is possible that we have to renamed the project (or created a new project) because K-Meleon is by definition a Gecko embed browser project and not a Webkit embed browser project.

Is K-Meleon still in development? Is there a K-Meleon build (1.8? 2.0?) with an up-to-date GRE? If not, will there by any?

No KM 1.8xxx yet and nobody knows if there will be one. KM 1.6 beta 3 is due out any day now and it is said that KM 1.7 ix being worked on and if you like homebrew, then Fred's variation on KM 1.7 is worth a look with the caveat that some things don't work there, but most does.

N

Webkit tools, if one wanted to try and change the HTML engine for K-Meleon



http://www.webkit.org/building/tools.html

N



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2012 06:22PM by ndebord.

Is it still possible to continue use gecko engine even it is not available? Like the Avant browser which it have the Firefox 8.0.1 embedded..

Quote
c933103
Is it still possible to continue use gecko engine even it is not available?

Probably - if You can code c++ well.