6 ms·

Awesomium (embeddable browser)

39 points by llambda 15y ago

Jarred 15y ago
Looks interesting, it could be done well with existing development tools for current platforms (i.e WPF, Cocoa) to have dirt simple cross-platform UI's. At first by "embeddable browser" I thought that it would let you embed a web browser with javascript or with the embed HTML tag, but that's just my association with the word 'embed'
- chc 15y ago
  This already exists for Cocoa, as WebView.
  - zarvox 15y ago
    And every other platform that Qt supports (rather a lot), as QWebView. http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qwebview.html http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qwebview.html
  - keeeeeeeeen 15y ago
    Not quite. What the project accomplishes is the ability to embed a fully functional and interactive web browser into another application (e.g. a game), with complete control over the pixels. Accomplishing the same functionality with a WebView, while theoretically possible, would be slow, clunky, and suffer from crashes (should the browser crash), as the rendering engine is running in the same process. It's my understanding that this will be rendered nearly obsolete with widespread Webkit2 adoption, but for now, it does provide a significant benefit (in terms of stability and usability) over a Cocoa WebView.
  - wslh 15y ago
    And UIWebView on iOS
DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Seems interesting. Besides the fact that it is not open source, I'd like to know how it compares with Phantomjs: http://code.google.com/p/phantomjs/ http://code.google.com/p/phantomjs/ Edit: Guess the most important difference is that Awesomium is embeddable gui browser, while Phantomjs is headless, more suited to using the browser as a library, and suited for programns to to browse the web, not users.
- adamkhrona 15y ago
  Not exactly-- awesomium can be used for both headless rendering and embedded GUI rendering. It outputs to a BGRA 32-bit pixel-buffer; it's the embedder's job to display it in their respective UI framework.
devmach 15y ago
http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ What's the main difference between this project and awesomium ?
- sjs 15y ago
  I'm not familiar with either project but a big one is that Awesomium has a C# and .NET API. That alone could be reason for some to choose it.
  - adamkhrona 15y ago
    Indeed-- there's a lot of demand for this kind of component in .NET (especially considering the limitations of the built in WebBrowser class). Our .NET wrapper is open-source and up on GitHub: https://github.com/khrona/AwesomiumSharp https://github.com/khrona/AwesomiumSharp Btw, AwesomiumSharp has recently been re-written and now includes a drop-in WebControl component for WPF that you can hook up to your application with XAML. We're about to stage a major re-launch of the wrapper + new 1.6.2 SDK release in a couple days.
- evmar 15y ago
  (I am a Chrome developer.) As far as I know we've never heard from the Awesomium developers; they don't mention which version of Chrome they're based on which makes me suspect they're not staying in sync with trunk. That suspicion comes from the fact that the Chromium Embedded developer does participate in Chrome development -- to the extent that he keeps his project working -- and occasionally pops up on our mailing list discussing API changes that would benefit embedding. PS: wonder whether the Awesomium people are doing the right thing by WebKit's LGPL license, hmm...
  - adamkhrona 15y ago
    I'm the main Awesomium developer-- the 1.6 branch is based off a stable revision from April 2010. We've recently updated to the latest Chromium trunk and will be launching an experimental, public build of our 1.7 branch soon. (Would have happened sooner but we've been focusing more on getting the library stable rather than absorbing new features.) By the way, we do participate in the development of Chromium (albeit, rather covertly in IRC), I personally have been a long-time lurker of the mailing-list since the first month it opened. :-) Regarding WebKit's (or, more specifically, WebCore's) LGPL license-- we've sought legal counsel on this and believe we've satisfied the conditions. We are, nonetheless, planning to package up WebKit into a separate dynamic library in the near future.
adamkhrona 15y ago
Hey guys, thanks for the interest in our library! We're actually getting ready to launch a massive update (1.6.2) to Awesomium in a couple days (new tutorials, new SDK, new .NET wrapper, new samples, etc.) Stay tuned. :-)
niktech 15y ago
I've had the experience of embedding Awesonium as a GUI system for an educational game/project I worked on back in college. http://sourceforge.net/projects/learn-cnc-game/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/learn-cnc-game/ The project is based on the Quest3D engine, so a wrapper had to be written to expose Awesonium in the engine. The whole thing is open-sourced, so feel free to use the wrapper for your own Quest3D projects. The biggest advantages that we found when using Awesonium as a GUI rendering system are the following: - Support for highly interactive Flash GUI components. In fact, we embedded Flash videos/lessons directly in the game and let Awesonium do the rendering through its Flash plug-in. - Seamless migration of the GUI content from the game's lesson browser to the internet. All HTML/Flash lessons can be accessed in the game as well as just online through a regular browser with no changes in the code.

39 points by llambda 15y ago

Looks interesting, it could be done well with existing development tools for current platforms (i.e WPF, Cocoa) to have dirt simple cross-platform UI's. At first by "embeddable browser" I thought that it would let you embed a web browser with javascript or with the embed HTML tag, but that's just my association with the word 'embed'

chc 15y ago
This already exists for Cocoa, as WebView.
- zarvox 15y ago
  And every other platform that Qt supports (rather a lot), as QWebView. http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qwebview.html http://doc.qt.nokia.com/latest/qwebview.html
- keeeeeeeeen 15y ago
  Not quite. What the project accomplishes is the ability to embed a fully functional and interactive web browser into another application (e.g. a game), with complete control over the pixels. Accomplishing the same functionality with a WebView, while theoretically possible, would be slow, clunky, and suffer from crashes (should the browser crash), as the rendering engine is running in the same process. It's my understanding that this will be rendered nearly obsolete with widespread Webkit2 adoption, but for now, it does provide a significant benefit (in terms of stability and usability) over a Cocoa WebView.
- wslh 15y ago
  And UIWebView on iOS

DanielRibeiro 15y ago

Seems interesting. Besides the fact that it is not open source, I'd like to know how it compares with Phantomjs: http://code.google.com/p/phantomjs/ http://code.google.com/p/phantomjs/ Edit: Guess the most important difference is that Awesomium is embeddable gui browser, while Phantomjs is headless, more suited to using the browser as a library, and suited for programns to to browse the web, not users.

adamkhrona 15y ago
Not exactly-- awesomium can be used for both headless rendering and embedded GUI rendering. It outputs to a BGRA 32-bit pixel-buffer; it's the embedder's job to display it in their respective UI framework.

devmach 15y ago

http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ What's the main difference between this project and awesomium ?

sjs 15y ago
I'm not familiar with either project but a big one is that Awesomium has a C# and .NET API. That alone could be reason for some to choose it.
- adamkhrona 15y ago
  Indeed-- there's a lot of demand for this kind of component in .NET (especially considering the limitations of the built in WebBrowser class). Our .NET wrapper is open-source and up on GitHub: https://github.com/khrona/AwesomiumSharp https://github.com/khrona/AwesomiumSharp Btw, AwesomiumSharp has recently been re-written and now includes a drop-in WebControl component for WPF that you can hook up to your application with XAML. We're about to stage a major re-launch of the wrapper + new 1.6.2 SDK release in a couple days.
evmar 15y ago
(I am a Chrome developer.) As far as I know we've never heard from the Awesomium developers; they don't mention which version of Chrome they're based on which makes me suspect they're not staying in sync with trunk. That suspicion comes from the fact that the Chromium Embedded developer does participate in Chrome development -- to the extent that he keeps his project working -- and occasionally pops up on our mailing list discussing API changes that would benefit embedding. PS: wonder whether the Awesomium people are doing the right thing by WebKit's LGPL license, hmm...
- adamkhrona 15y ago
  I'm the main Awesomium developer-- the 1.6 branch is based off a stable revision from April 2010. We've recently updated to the latest Chromium trunk and will be launching an experimental, public build of our 1.7 branch soon. (Would have happened sooner but we've been focusing more on getting the library stable rather than absorbing new features.) By the way, we do participate in the development of Chromium (albeit, rather covertly in IRC), I personally have been a long-time lurker of the mailing-list since the first month it opened. :-) Regarding WebKit's (or, more specifically, WebCore's) LGPL license-- we've sought legal counsel on this and believe we've satisfied the conditions. We are, nonetheless, planning to package up WebKit into a separate dynamic library in the near future.

adamkhrona 15y ago

Hey guys, thanks for the interest in our library! We're actually getting ready to launch a massive update (1.6.2) to Awesomium in a couple days (new tutorials, new SDK, new .NET wrapper, new samples, etc.) Stay tuned. :-)

niktech 15y ago

I've had the experience of embedding Awesonium as a GUI system for an educational game/project I worked on back in college. http://sourceforge.net/projects/learn-cnc-game/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/learn-cnc-game/ The project is based on the Quest3D engine, so a wrapper had to be written to expose Awesonium in the engine. The whole thing is open-sourced, so feel free to use the wrapper for your own Quest3D projects. The biggest advantages that we found when using Awesonium as a GUI rendering system are the following: - Support for highly interactive Flash GUI components. In fact, we embedded Flash videos/lessons directly in the game and let Awesonium do the rendering through its Flash plug-in. - Seamless migration of the GUI content from the game's lesson browser to the internet. All HTML/Flash lessons can be accessed in the game as well as just online through a regular browser with no changes in the code.