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I don't know electron, but cobalt has some limitations. On page you can find what html5 and css3 tags are supported. List is limited. Cobalt also does not suppo

I don't know electron, but cobalt has some limitations. On page you can find what html5 and css3 tags are supported. List is limited. Cobalt also does not support WebGL. But binary has ~45mb and works really fast compared to other engines on embedded devices. I was not able to run react app on Cobalt, but preact works really well. I've also been doing experiments with the Vue framework and it also works.

egberts1 4y ago
does not support WebGL? thanks, gonna look into that.
c-smile 4y ago
> But binary has ~45mb ... Even this is too much I think. Sciter is 7 Mb on Windows and 11 Mb on RaspberryPi. Extra 3 Mb is Skia for rendering on Vulkan and/or OpenGL. And it supports full set of HTML5 elements. JavaScript is at full ES2020 level. The only reason I think why 45 Mb is there is because of video codecs. Sciter does not have them in core. But as loadable ffmpeg based plugin.
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  I would understand your argument if you were talking about more constrained systems, but RPIs have GOBS of storage and memory. A 45mb executable vs 7mb executable is totally negligible.
  - c-smile 4y ago
    It is not about binary size per se, but of features/binary ratio. Can Cobalt run, say, ChartJS as it is (https://sciter.com/chartjs-in-sciter/ https://sciter.com/chartjs-in-sciter/)? Seems like not as I do not see <canvas> in the list of its supported elements.
    - The_Colonel 4y ago
      Well, does Sciter support CSS Flexbox? It doesn't ... Features which the project actually needs will be decisive. Does the project need Canvas? Sciter is the better choice. Does the project need CSS Flexbox? Cobalt will be a better fit. The binary size may play a role if all else is equal ...
      - c-smile 4y ago
        Sciter supports flex units but not flexbox. Flex units (and grid layouts) are in Sciter since 2007, ~10 years before browsers got them. Flexibility is the must for desktop UIs so it was in the engine from the very beginning. Sciter's flex units + CSS flow property is a superset of flexbox and grid features. For example paddings, margins, border widths, left|right|top|bottom can be expressed in flex units. Everything that can be defined by flexbox can be expressed by flex units / flow: https://terrainformatica.com/w3/flex-layout/flex-vs-flexbox.htm https://terrainformatica.com/w3/flex-layout/flex-vs-flexbox....
        The_Colonel 4y ago
        Sciter does not support CSS Flexbox. It supports a more or less equivalent, but incompatible feature. That's a critical distinction when you want to run the same codebase as you have on the web.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        c-smile 4y ago
        CSS was designed for running on different UAs and there is special mechanism built in it. If you take a look into source of that demo page, you will see: /* browser */ @supports (display:flex) { section { display: flex; } section > * { flex: 1; margin:1em; } ... } /* sciter */ @supports (flow:horizontal) { section { flow:horizontal; } section > * { width:1*; margin:1em; } ... } You should not assume that all browsers support same set of features. And needless to say, that Sciter is not a universal browser. And so is Cobalt in that respect - it is a browser for particular site / application.
- mihashco 4y ago
  Thanks I will check Sciter! I almost forgot, Cobalt has a very well designed porting layer. Therefore, it is relatively easy to run it on custom Linux embedded devices. It also uses Skia as a backend for rasterization. As many people here have already written Cobalt is designed as a youtube player, but it can be successfully used for other purposes.
  - c-smile 4y ago
    Sciter works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and is packaged in two forms: windowed and windowless engines (a.k.a. headless). It supports rendering trough Direct2D/DirectX, GDI+, CoreGraphics, Cairo and (through Skia) DX12, Vulkan, Metal.
syndrig 4y ago
Another data point: Flow's[1] executable is ~20MB on Raspberry Pi (under 26MB for a 64bit build; both are smaller than the ICU data bundled with public releases). WebGL, video playback and Javascript JIT are included. Disclosure: I work at Ekioh. [1] https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/

egberts1 4y ago

does not support WebGL? thanks, gonna look into that.

c-smile 4y ago

> But binary has ~45mb ... Even this is too much I think. Sciter is 7 Mb on Windows and 11 Mb on RaspberryPi. Extra 3 Mb is Skia for rendering on Vulkan and/or OpenGL. And it supports full set of HTML5 elements. JavaScript is at full ES2020 level. The only reason I think why 45 Mb is there is because of video codecs. Sciter does not have them in core. But as loadable ffmpeg based plugin.

hungryforcodes 4y ago
I would understand your argument if you were talking about more constrained systems, but RPIs have GOBS of storage and memory. A 45mb executable vs 7mb executable is totally negligible.
- c-smile 4y ago
  It is not about binary size per se, but of features/binary ratio. Can Cobalt run, say, ChartJS as it is (https://sciter.com/chartjs-in-sciter/ https://sciter.com/chartjs-in-sciter/)? Seems like not as I do not see <canvas> in the list of its supported elements.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
    Well, does Sciter support CSS Flexbox? It doesn't ... Features which the project actually needs will be decisive. Does the project need Canvas? Sciter is the better choice. Does the project need CSS Flexbox? Cobalt will be a better fit. The binary size may play a role if all else is equal ...
    - c-smile 4y ago
      Sciter supports flex units but not flexbox. Flex units (and grid layouts) are in Sciter since 2007, ~10 years before browsers got them. Flexibility is the must for desktop UIs so it was in the engine from the very beginning. Sciter's flex units + CSS flow property is a superset of flexbox and grid features. For example paddings, margins, border widths, left|right|top|bottom can be expressed in flex units. Everything that can be defined by flexbox can be expressed by flex units / flow: https://terrainformatica.com/w3/flex-layout/flex-vs-flexbox.htm https://terrainformatica.com/w3/flex-layout/flex-vs-flexbox....
      - The_Colonel 4y ago
        Sciter does not support CSS Flexbox. It supports a more or less equivalent, but incompatible feature. That's a critical distinction when you want to run the same codebase as you have on the web.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        c-smile 4y ago
        CSS was designed for running on different UAs and there is special mechanism built in it. If you take a look into source of that demo page, you will see: /* browser */ @supports (display:flex) { section { display: flex; } section > * { flex: 1; margin:1em; } ... } /* sciter */ @supports (flow:horizontal) { section { flow:horizontal; } section > * { width:1*; margin:1em; } ... } You should not assume that all browsers support same set of features. And needless to say, that Sciter is not a universal browser. And so is Cobalt in that respect - it is a browser for particular site / application.
mihashco 4y ago
Thanks I will check Sciter! I almost forgot, Cobalt has a very well designed porting layer. Therefore, it is relatively easy to run it on custom Linux embedded devices. It also uses Skia as a backend for rasterization. As many people here have already written Cobalt is designed as a youtube player, but it can be successfully used for other purposes.
- c-smile 4y ago
  Sciter works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and is packaged in two forms: windowed and windowless engines (a.k.a. headless). It supports rendering trough Direct2D/DirectX, GDI+, CoreGraphics, Cairo and (through Skia) DX12, Vulkan, Metal.

syndrig 4y ago

Another data point: Flow's[1] executable is ~20MB on Raspberry Pi (under 26MB for a 64bit build; both are smaller than the ICU data bundled with public releases). WebGL, video playback and Javascript JIT are included. Disclosure: I work at Ekioh. [1] https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/ https://www.ekioh.com/flow-browser/