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WebRender newsletter

142 points by aorth 9y ago

mintplant 9y ago
For anyone else wondering about the difference between "gfx.webrender.enabled" and "gfx.webrendest.enabled": https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1365418 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1365418 "gfx.webrender.enabled" enables WebRender and "gfx.webrendest.enabled" toggles on some more advanced features on top of the base level.
- Gankro 9y ago
  even more clearly: webrender is "the stuff that works pretty ok and we can run through CI". In principle enabling webrender should get you the ~same results as not having it on, visually, modulo a few known bugs. webrendest is "everything we're working on, no matter how broken" It's a pretty big project so there's lots of stuff in tree that's barely functional (especially true with the layers-free pivot).
eridius 9y ago
Suggestion: The first paragraph of every newsletter should have a brief one-or-two-line description of what WebRenderer is. I clicked on the Quantum Flow and Photon newsletters and those don't describe what they are at all. I have a general idea of what Quantum Flow is already, but I have no idea what Photon is.
- the8472 9y ago
  Isn't a newsletter for those who already know about it and what it is and want to be informed about its progress? Just because it gets linked from HN doesn't mean it has to act as introductory page.
  - plorkyeran 9y ago
    Good newsletters that excite the recipients will inevitably get linked to people not already familiar with the topic, and by ignoring them you're passing up on one of the best ways to get new people excited about your thing. A 1-2 line blurb can be very effective and there's really no reason not to do it.
- canuckistani 9y ago
  Sorry about that. Photon is a Design and User Experience refresh for Firefox 57, currently available in nightly builds.
readams 9y ago
For those that might not know WebRender is the project to merge the Rust-based parallel GPU-based web rendering backend from the experimental Servo browser with Firefox. This should ultimately result in greatly improved rendering speed for Firefox.
- JasonSage 9y ago
  A few nits on your description: WebRender is the library which performs parallel GPU-based rendering of web content and was initially developed as an experimental backend for Servo. Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox.
  - gsnedders 9y ago
    > Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox. Quantum is more general than that: it's a project that aims to vastly improve Gecko through incremental improvement. Some of that involves taking Servo components, but other parts don't. (including Quantum DOM, separating JS runtimes into different threads instead of having one per content process; and Quantum Flow aiming at user-perceived performance).
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    That's really interesting. I was curious about Servo, but it ultimately ran terribly for me and so I (in my bustle) deigned it an experiment too early to spend time assessing -- since I'm not very experience with Rust. Do you have any good resources here -- if for nothing else but to feed my, and anybody else's curiosity?
    - buster 9y ago
      I was particularly impressed by the short rendering demos in this talk: https://youtu.be/UGl9VVIOo3E?t=977 https://youtu.be/UGl9VVIOo3E?t=977 I really hope Servo will be the next generation browser engine.
      - 9y ago
_frog 9y ago
For those not following Firefox development too closely, there's a few major projects in the works right now: - Stylo, the new CSS styling engine currently enabled for a percentage of Nightly users - WebRender, a new GPU-based rendering engine that's currently in much earlier stages - Quantum, an initiative to improve Firefox's real and perceived performance (there's a bunch of smaller initiatives that compose this, like Quantum Flow and Quantum DOM) - Photon, a project to redesign and modernise the Firefox UI Most (but not all) of these projects are aiming to ship with Firefox 57 later this year, but you can check them out now in Nightly. I've been using it for a few weeks and the difference is really night and day, huge props to all the Firefox contributors.
- nnethercote 9y ago
  Strictly speaking, Stylo and WebRender fall under the Quantum project umbrella, as "Quantum CSS" and "Quantum Render", respectively. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum has details. (The names are definitely confusing!) Also, Quantum Flow is not so small! It's actually now the part of Quantum that's getting the highest priority and most resources. It doesn't involved any single component, but is rather a focused effort to relentlessly profile Firefox on real-world workloads and eliminate as many noticeable slowdowns (jank, stutters, pauses, spinning beachballs, etc.) as possible. It's been hugely effective, with noticeable speed-ups in each release from Firefox 54 to 57. Ehsan Akhgari's blog has more details: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog
jayflux 9y ago
For anyone wandering what WebRender actually is or does https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki

142 points by aorth 9y ago

For anyone else wondering about the difference between "gfx.webrender.enabled" and "gfx.webrendest.enabled": https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1365418 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1365418 "gfx.webrender.enabled" enables WebRender and "gfx.webrendest.enabled" toggles on some more advanced features on top of the base level.

Gankro 9y ago
even more clearly: webrender is "the stuff that works pretty ok and we can run through CI". In principle enabling webrender should get you the ~same results as not having it on, visually, modulo a few known bugs. webrendest is "everything we're working on, no matter how broken" It's a pretty big project so there's lots of stuff in tree that's barely functional (especially true with the layers-free pivot).

eridius 9y ago

Suggestion: The first paragraph of every newsletter should have a brief one-or-two-line description of what WebRenderer is. I clicked on the Quantum Flow and Photon newsletters and those don't describe what they are at all. I have a general idea of what Quantum Flow is already, but I have no idea what Photon is.

the8472 9y ago
Isn't a newsletter for those who already know about it and what it is and want to be informed about its progress? Just because it gets linked from HN doesn't mean it has to act as introductory page.
- plorkyeran 9y ago
  Good newsletters that excite the recipients will inevitably get linked to people not already familiar with the topic, and by ignoring them you're passing up on one of the best ways to get new people excited about your thing. A 1-2 line blurb can be very effective and there's really no reason not to do it.
canuckistani 9y ago
Sorry about that. Photon is a Design and User Experience refresh for Firefox 57, currently available in nightly builds.

readams 9y ago

For those that might not know WebRender is the project to merge the Rust-based parallel GPU-based web rendering backend from the experimental Servo browser with Firefox. This should ultimately result in greatly improved rendering speed for Firefox.

JasonSage 9y ago
A few nits on your description: WebRender is the library which performs parallel GPU-based rendering of web content and was initially developed as an experimental backend for Servo. Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox.
- gsnedders 9y ago
  > Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox. Quantum is more general than that: it's a project that aims to vastly improve Gecko through incremental improvement. Some of that involves taking Servo components, but other parts don't. (including Quantum DOM, separating JS runtimes into different threads instead of having one per content process; and Quantum Flow aiming at user-perceived performance).
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  That's really interesting. I was curious about Servo, but it ultimately ran terribly for me and so I (in my bustle) deigned it an experiment too early to spend time assessing -- since I'm not very experience with Rust. Do you have any good resources here -- if for nothing else but to feed my, and anybody else's curiosity?
  - buster 9y ago
    I was particularly impressed by the short rendering demos in this talk: https://youtu.be/UGl9VVIOo3E?t=977 https://youtu.be/UGl9VVIOo3E?t=977 I really hope Servo will be the next generation browser engine.
    - 9y ago

_frog 9y ago

For those not following Firefox development too closely, there's a few major projects in the works right now: - Stylo, the new CSS styling engine currently enabled for a percentage of Nightly users - WebRender, a new GPU-based rendering engine that's currently in much earlier stages - Quantum, an initiative to improve Firefox's real and perceived performance (there's a bunch of smaller initiatives that compose this, like Quantum Flow and Quantum DOM) - Photon, a project to redesign and modernise the Firefox UI Most (but not all) of these projects are aiming to ship with Firefox 57 later this year, but you can check them out now in Nightly. I've been using it for a few weeks and the difference is really night and day, huge props to all the Firefox contributors.

nnethercote 9y ago
Strictly speaking, Stylo and WebRender fall under the Quantum project umbrella, as "Quantum CSS" and "Quantum Render", respectively. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum has details. (The names are definitely confusing!) Also, Quantum Flow is not so small! It's actually now the part of Quantum that's getting the highest priority and most resources. It doesn't involved any single component, but is rather a focused effort to relentlessly profile Firefox on real-world workloads and eliminate as many noticeable slowdowns (jank, stutters, pauses, spinning beachballs, etc.) as possible. It's been hugely effective, with noticeable speed-ups in each release from Firefox 54 to 57. Ehsan Akhgari's blog has more details: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog

jayflux 9y ago

For anyone wandering what WebRender actually is or does https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki