5 ms·

Node-Chimera: headless Webkit in Node.js

72 points by albertzeyer 14y ago

albertzeyer 14y ago
Btw., along the lines, I just figured out that via Qt Platform Abstraction (former Qt Lighthouse project) (since Qt 4.8), you can have a real headless Qt WebKit now. (Earlier, it always was some headless X-server in between - much heavier.) Some links: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9213215/how-to-use-qwebpage-in-a-non-gui-application/15471433#15471433 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9213215/how-to-use-qwebpa... Esp. this PhantomJS commit is interesting: https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/c78ae190a9 https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/c78ae190a9
- niggler 14y ago
  I thought PhantomJS 1.5 got rid of the X dependency ...
  - edwinnathaniel 14y ago
    Either that or 1.6, but yeah, they did.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
edwinnathaniel 14y ago
This looks nice with a few exception: 1) Still no Qt version / WebKit features enabler One of the problems using the "port" version from Qt is that both projects stuck with that version until Qt releases updates. This means that you cannot enable/disable WebKit features (i.e.: navigation timing API) as you build your own Chimera/PhantomJS and this has been one of the most sought after feature request in PhantomJS project. 2) Memory usage (?) PhantomJS uses about 40-50MB for a simple website like Twitter.com main login page (we're not talking about the whole Twitter.com but just the login page). Not sure if this is because it is piggy backing on Qt or something else? 3) [Varies] Code-style wise It takes a while to get used to PhantomJS/CasperJS coding style (based on Promises for CasperJS) and it looks like it is due to the nature of the interaction of the browser and the programmable API/tooling.
- baudehlo 14y ago
  The Qt port of webkit is also really unstable. Quite a surprising number of web sites cause PhantomJS to segfault.
  - edwinnathaniel 14y ago
    Haven't stumbled upon any of those issues (and we test PJS to a number of different websites ranging from Sharepoint-type, Drupal, Wordpress, etc).
kanakiyajay 14y ago
Hope they add native binaries for windows soon
deleted 14y ago
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woah 14y ago
Great stuff! Me and a pen-tester friend may use this to build online scanning tools. We were going to use phantom, but this should be easier.
tantalor 14y ago
Since this embeds QtWebKit which uses JavaScriptCore, does that mean that JavaScript in the browser will be running in a completely different environment? i.e., JavaScriptCore instead of node (V8). If so: yo dawg

72 points by albertzeyer 14y ago

Btw., along the lines, I just figured out that via Qt Platform Abstraction (former Qt Lighthouse project) (since Qt 4.8), you can have a real headless Qt WebKit now. (Earlier, it always was some headless X-server in between - much heavier.) Some links: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9213215/how-to-use-qwebpage-in-a-non-gui-application/15471433#15471433 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9213215/how-to-use-qwebpa... Esp. this PhantomJS commit is interesting: https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/c78ae190a9 https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/c78ae190a9

niggler 14y ago
I thought PhantomJS 1.5 got rid of the X dependency ...
- edwinnathaniel 14y ago
  Either that or 1.6, but yeah, they did.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

edwinnathaniel 14y ago

This looks nice with a few exception: 1) Still no Qt version / WebKit features enabler One of the problems using the "port" version from Qt is that both projects stuck with that version until Qt releases updates. This means that you cannot enable/disable WebKit features (i.e.: navigation timing API) as you build your own Chimera/PhantomJS and this has been one of the most sought after feature request in PhantomJS project. 2) Memory usage (?) PhantomJS uses about 40-50MB for a simple website like Twitter.com main login page (we're not talking about the whole Twitter.com but just the login page). Not sure if this is because it is piggy backing on Qt or something else? 3) [Varies] Code-style wise It takes a while to get used to PhantomJS/CasperJS coding style (based on Promises for CasperJS) and it looks like it is due to the nature of the interaction of the browser and the programmable API/tooling.

baudehlo 14y ago
The Qt port of webkit is also really unstable. Quite a surprising number of web sites cause PhantomJS to segfault.
- edwinnathaniel 14y ago
  Haven't stumbled upon any of those issues (and we test PJS to a number of different websites ranging from Sharepoint-type, Drupal, Wordpress, etc).

kanakiyajay 14y ago

Hope they add native binaries for windows soon

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

woah 14y ago

Great stuff! Me and a pen-tester friend may use this to build online scanning tools. We were going to use phantom, but this should be easier.

tantalor 14y ago

Since this embeds QtWebKit which uses JavaScriptCore, does that mean that JavaScript in the browser will be running in a completely different environment? i.e., JavaScriptCore instead of node (V8). If so: yo dawg