Webkit port: talking to Andrea "xeD" Anzani

Q: Does the browser/project already have a name?

Andrea: A member of our team (Marcus Jacob) has a personal project for the development of a web browser for BeOS/Haiku. The name is WebPositive. This browser will be definitely the first application to benefits the webkit port. The application HaikuLauncher you see in the screenshot is just a basic example on how to use the webkit. We use it only to test the core and I don't think it'll never turn into an complete application.

Q: How did you get involved in the project?

Andrea: Quite easy. I heard about the work Ryan L. was doing and I offered my help. We use a temporally private svn just to work on the project as soon as it can be merged with the official webkit repository.

Q: What is the current development status? In what specific areas of the browser are you coding?

Andrea: Right now we are focused only on the webkit. Ryan did a great job doing the port. All the parts compile and the needed classes are extended to use the Haiku API. Because it's a lot of code, some parts are just empty or incomplete. Personally I'm trying to have a general overview of the whole project and doing so I filled up some missing parts (like adding text rendering, fixing image drawing, adding basic font loading). I think we need some more time to have a single person work on specific parts.

Q: What feature set do you have in mind?

Andrea: For the webkit, just to have it working at it's best. For the browser, we still did not start a discussion about it, but personally I think we should go for trying to put innovations. I'm quite tired about the classical web browser design (top navigation bar, bookmarks, history...), and I would like to experiment new ways of thinking such kind of application.

Q: Do you have plans to demo the browser at BeGeistert/FOSDEM?

Andrea: We don't have a plan but I think three of us (me,stippi and rossi) will be at the next BG in January so maybe something could pop out.