13 ms·

Nidium – A new browser engine

156 points by paraboul 13y ago

etherealG 13y ago
is this any different from what mozilla are doing already with their open source engine? why separate yourself from that? is your code available? if not why not?
rorrr2 13y ago
Apart from local file I/O, there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do. Good luck with the adoption of that thing.
pwpwp 13y ago
I recommend seriously shortening the intro to the video, and showing the goods immediately. Only really interested people on the web have the attention span to watch 30 seconds of uninformative intro.
- bennyg 13y ago
  I wasn't really interested and I liked the video. As long as it looks decent and isn't a powerpoint slide of stuff, I'm cool with it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
aeon10 13y ago
Can someone please explain to me in short what this does?
xal 13y ago
So this is supposed to be a portable browser engine that can be directly embedded into (opengl) video games? This could be great.
- skyebook 13y ago
  There's already a couple of these: awesomium (proprietary) and berkelium (open) that basically render Chromium to OpenGL and pass it the HID events you send. That said, they seem to specifically say it's not an actual browser engine..
lukio 13y ago
The future is here.
duiker101 13y ago
I.... what is this trying to accomplish? Is it like a browser without all the features except opengl? I am confused can someone explain?
Refefer 13y ago
I really don't get a sense of what NiDIUM actually _does_. Is it a framework? A platform? A library? Where does it run? How am I supposed to deploy it? What use case does it solve that doesn't already have existing solutions?
ThomPete 13y ago
I find it saddening that the primary response from a crowd normally considering themselves visionaries and pushers, seems to be ridiculing other peoples hard work. I cannot for the life in me understand how introducing a new browser engine deserves this kind of welcoming.
- CRidge 13y ago
  I don't ridicule the work that's gone into this - I just don't get what it is... A browser engine which doesn't use HTML/CSS and which isn't in competition with Chrome/Firefox/IE...? We would just like a better explaination :) (Edited to remove JS from the "doesn't use" list - my bad)
  - klibertp 13y ago
    > A browser engine which doesn't use HTML/CSS/JS It uses pure JS, without HTML and CSS. It's basically a LightTable creator's dream. I don't get what's there not to get.
    - CRidge 13y ago
      I stand corrected about JS - updated comment above. I still don't understand what this is, though.
- duiker101 13y ago
  I think that people here are mostly confused. There is not really a clear explanation of what this does or anything. We are just presented with a video of things that are not exactly revolutionary and said that this is the future. This leave most of the community puzzled I would say. It is ok to create hype for a product that is not out yet but still we would have to know what we should get hyped on.
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    I thought the up votes were meant to serve a way to filter out the good for the bad. If something got to the front thats outright bad then it should be flagged. Otherwise questions can be asked.
jordanmoore_ 13y ago
And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shots and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the effort in a project such as this. If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come across as a bit of a dick. Thanks.
- masklinn 13y ago
  And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shot and shows complete lack of understanding for comments expressing confusion over a cryptic, unclear and fluff-filled page. If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come across a bit of a dick. Thanks.
  - jordanmoore_ 13y ago
    Very clever, the ol' switcheroo. I'm not talking about the comments from genuinely confused people, I'm talking about the nastier snipes which seem to have conveniently disappeared after myself and others called them out on it. Here's one that's still floating around: "there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do". And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that? Come on, please. I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding any value to the conversation either, I'm just saying we aren't doing much in creating an environment where people are confident in sharing their work without fear of hours of work being instantly dismissed by snarky commenters. I'm sure you wouldn't like it.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      > Very clever, the ol' switcheroo. There's little cleverness in reminding you of the plank you've got in your eye when you're looking at the dust in your brother's, but thanks nonetheless. > Here's one that's still floating around: "there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do". The presentation is bad, and aside from this value judgement the comment expresses confusion over the improvements of the project over existing browsers. > And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that? I don't know, were you calling people dicks? So your comment was not just advising, it was passive-aggressively insulting third parties? > I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding any value to the conversation either Indeed, have you considered practicing what you preach and leading by example? > I'm just saying we aren't doing much in creating an environment where people are confident in sharing their work without fear of hours of work being instantly dismissed There's little evidence of such a thing here, there's a marketroid video with a fluffy and empty title. Meanwhile a few links below on the front page (at this time) you've got https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730 which shows an actual project with a number of interested comments, none of them negative as far as I can see. Even https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310 which looks nothing special at first glance garners mostly positive comments (or more neutral ones talking about the space/ecosystem, wondering about it v alternatives, etc...) with a downvoted negative comment whose author readily agreed being wrong when his mistake was pointed out. > I'm sure you wouldn't like it. I don't mind marketing copy and email harvesting schemes getting slammed. Especially when advertised as a "show HN" with no show and little tell.
ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
Based on the name, I'd say it's a web browser that uses crappy, old, rechargeable batteries?
klrr 13y ago
The web is weird, it feels like HTML is meant more for documents than for actual social platforms and dynamic content... If you think about it, is the web really sane?
- mbrock 13y ago
  Nothing is sane, just more or less functional and workable. The web seems to be ticking on just fine. There are problems, but also a lot of development. HTML is designed for more or less static content, but the DOM itself seems well adapted for dynamic content. Since it comes out of a tradition of streaming over slow connections, it's made to be dynamically rendered. The content layout is flexible and somewhat intuitive. Compared to something like Swing or Cocoa, the only drawback seems to be the paucity of widgets -- we basically just have basic inputs and scroll bars, the rest is app-specific. But that also brings a certain flexibility. I think an update to the table element would be great, perhaps with support for streaming data and more flexible layout.
  - klrr 13y ago
    But if you want a program you can install one, why access programs through bloated obscure web browsers? The web is a great place for sharing text of information. But why not learn from the mobile phones which provides native consistent programs for what many people have to access through some web 2.0 crap?
    - mbrock 13y ago
      I don't really understand your objection...
sker 13y ago
File I/O alone is a good enough reason for this kind of projects to exist. I've always wanted to be able to use the power of the browser for standalone, cross-platform desktop applications. I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. Each browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're far from a complete solution. So far I have my eyes on node-webkit[1], which does everything I need it to do, but I welcome every option in this space. [1] https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
- masklinn 13y ago
  > Each browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're far from a complete solution. How is the File API "hackish", let alone each browser having its own way of doing it?
  - sker 13y ago
    Does the File API give you full access to the file system? Last time I checked it didn't.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      > Does the File API give you full access to the file system? The File API gives you access to the files the user has selected for your access. No website-accessible API will ever give full access to anything for rather good reasons.
      - sker 13y ago
        Yes, that's why it isn't a good replacement for something like WPF, Qt, wxWidgets, etc. node-webkit and NiDIUM fix that problem.
        bankIsSketch 13y ago
Gatsky 13y ago
Just some feedback - This video reminded me of the demo scene circa 1990. This might lead some to think that the project has been under development for 20+ years and is still in alpha...
- zeroDivisible 13y ago
  Or it might be developed by the same guys who were doing demo scene then. Either way, I'd like to wait and see that one in action - really like the idea.
saejox 13y ago
This does not look like a browser. It's a gui application framework, that happens to be using javascript as the preferred programming language. A lot like https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
- masklinn 13y ago
  Or using QtWebkit or a Cocoa WebView, possibly with limited glue for exposing host objects.
- pgz 13y ago
  They claim no HTML in the video though, so I expect to be more like programming a GUI toolkit than a web application.
shadowmint 13y ago
I'd venture to guess from the presentation and the site that this is basically trying to be Node.js with a graphics engine attached. ie. Throw away the browser DOM and provide a bunch of new apis (and maybe a few existing ones which already seem ok, like the canvas stuff). I'm curious what you get as a benefit of doing this instead of just using Node itself and providing an api to work with the graphics/sound/whatever engine. No HTML or CSS renderering -> A considerably more plausible project, and certainly one that won't complete with existing browsers in the short term.
binaryorganic 13y ago
So the only thing clear from the comments is that the folks behind this are going to have to work on their communication game. The video was obviously created to tease the product a bit, which is hard when nobody knows exactly what thye're looking at, but even when I went to sign up for updates I see: "We will send you a maximum amount of spam as soon as possible."
- chii 13y ago
  indeed - the video is flashy, but i only watched less than 1 minute of it, because after 1 minute, i still have no idea what they are going on about, and my time is more precious than that. Pressed stop.
  - kleiba 13y ago
    Right. You need your precious time to tell everyone on HN that you pressed stop.
    - nine_k 13y ago
      ...so that others don't sink their time, too? Sounds legit.
      - kleiba 13y ago
        But what if someone else posts that they watched all the way to the end??
- pcx66 13y ago
  The product description indeed is a bit vague, though you get the gist of what they are trying to accomplish. You might want to ask more specific questions instead of just ridiculing them. Some of us are not good at PR and those of us who are good should help others.
lampe3 13y ago
I just wanne know one thing: Will this work with older Browser? and with older browser i mean the browser we have right now. How hard will it be to adapt Browser vendors? or can i run it ontop like google chrome frame ?
TeeWEE 13y ago
All those demo's run very nice in my google chrome browser. What is nidium exactly? Sorry for having a negative tone, but its a valid question isnt it?
nanofortnight 13y ago
If I were to guess this is a performance-oriented version of CEF with additional functionality exposed to the JavaScript engine, would I be anywhere in the right ballpark?
terhechte 13y ago
I for one, like this. Now, the video & music are awful and definately do not support the overall presentation, but from what I understood, this seems to be pretty cool. Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background. I do like this idea. Even better, it would allow to write applications in ClojureScript or some of the other compile-to-javascript frameworks). Of course, there're other frameworks that utilize javascript for scripting needs or for desktop development (http://www.tidesdk.org/ http://www.tidesdk.org/) (https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/) (https://github.com/appjs/appjs https://github.com/appjs/appjs) (http://www.appcelerator.com/ http://www.appcelerator.com/) and of course Adobe Air, but all of them just basically open a webview, give you some html that looks a bit like native controls, and let you write html / css / javascript in there with limited access to filesystem or, god forbid, the graphics card. What I understood this project is, is that it allows me to use javascript to drive my native UI elements, access my full system resources, etc. Basically full native development, only Javascript instead of C++. Maybe a bit like Qt QML (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML) (and I'd like to see a comparison between these two). I'm really looking forward to this, though I have to admit that the website lacks details, and the video isn't particularly good. This looks a bit too much like demo scene hacking.
- rorrr2 13y ago
  > Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D libraries.
  - nine_k 13y ago
    Trying to imitate the drawing of native components and emulate their behavior is not impossible, but is excessively burdensome (platforms x versions x options quickly becomes large). See Java. Having an ability to use platform-specific native components is a definite win.
  - coldtea 13y ago
buro9 13y ago
What makes the web great is that anyone can author a page. We pushed the problem of handling these authored pages to the browser, and as a result the web flourished as millions authored content. Where will the content come from when the browser does not do HTML and CSS, and is instead a native client for OpenGL? The only way I believe this will work is for the authoring tools to lower the barrier so far that anyone can create content for this.
drivingmenuts 13y ago
It's interesting, but the trend toward making everything a web application is even more disturbing to me, given the revelation of how deep the security rot goes these days. The net is pretty much unavoidable, unless you're pretty hardcore, but I, for one, am hoping for focus on pulling things back to the user end at some point.
- pcx66 13y ago
  I think the rush to make everything 'web' is primarily because we finally are building an open, free, accessible, write-once-run-everywhere platform. That's the most exciting part of the web, and privacy is a bug we still have to fix. EDIT: When I say 'privacy is a bug', I mean the ability to provide privacy is still immature, and susceptible of exploits.
  - drivingmenuts 13y ago
    That privacy is viewed as a bug is even more disturbing.
    - da_n 13y ago
      Linux on the Desktop was a bug until Mark Cuban closed it (controversially). I'm not sure why referring to it as a bug is disturbing.
      - drivingmenuts 13y ago
        It implies that privacy is somehow wrong, as opposed to a perhaps fundamental right.
        da_n 13y ago
        The lack of privacy is a bug which needs to be fixed, I don't believe the OP means a users right to privacy is a bug.
beyondcompute 13y ago
It looks like a promising first step towards the great thing we clearly need: an alternative to web. Get rid of HTTP, CSS, and HTML (well, HTML can be useful when we deal with actual _hypertext_). It would be nice to support some languages that are friendlier than JS (i.e., almost any one) though.
thepumpkin1979 13y ago
Interesting, I initially thought that Javascript was the bottleneck in the web client-stack, not the DOM. May be both?
leke 13y ago
I'm not sure how to feel about this. In some ways, I think things like HTML5, angularjs, node, and CSS3 has made coding in the browser bareable again.
paraboul 13y ago
I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information. In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of: (1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine (2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing browser. Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a fast and unified look and feel. So: * Yes, it's a browser, in a sense that it can loads remote "apps/code" via HTTP using URLs (and somehow link them) * Almost everything is integrated and highly customizable (like the integrated UI Framework) * Cool APIs like plain-socket UDP/TCP (client and server), GLSL postprocessing on every canvas, layer, etc... * We've made our best to be compliant with existing APIs (context2D, webgl, commonjs, etc...) * It ditches HTML & CSS in favor of new things (NML and NSS, we will communicate on this later) * Low Latency Audio and DSP (and yes, one of us come from the demo scene, hence the poor soundchip music ;-) ) We designed almost everything from scratch, but the whole thing is still at an early stage. And to relate with tranding topics today about "english accent", we made this video a bit "old school" because we're not native english speaker (french) and a bit afraid of making "talkative" videos. We will post updates as soon as possible!
- Raphael_Amiard 13y ago
  Thanks for this update ! Looks like an interesting project, although i think this kind of information should really be on your website, and not lost in some HN comment, rather sooner than later if you want to create a bit of interest around your project. Catchy videos are good, but in the case of projects such as yours, an associated architectural overview would be much appreciated !
- nine_k 13y ago
  There is a well-known engine with interesting graphics, audio, video, and network capabilities, also programmable in JS. It's installed on almost every PC for the last decade; it is called Flash. Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash? Because we remember other nice engines of this kind, e.g. Silverlight.
  - 13y ago
asadotzler 13y ago
How about some "native" browser engine video instead of Flash? Seeing all this "native" browser stuff playing in the least native format possible is not inspiring.
k4st 13y ago
What is the memory model of the NiDIUM js with native threading support?
- paraboul 13y ago
  The memory is obviously not shared (handling memory barrier / mutex in JS would be too annoying). However, it uses inter-thread communication using structured clone (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_structured_clone_algorithm https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_s...) or object stealing where you send an object to a thread with a zero-copy advantage but lose its content/ability to use it from the "sending thread"
  - k4st 13y ago
    Thanks for the explanation / link :-)
GhotiFish 13y ago
the site is clearly intended to MARKET this browser. Market. They are marketing a browser. I should hope the world has learned its lesson as to why a commercial browser with that kind of branding is the worlds worst horse to bet on.
dkersten 13y ago
It sounds to me a little bit like Qt Quick (ie QML + JS + remote QML files + Canvas + SVG) with WebGL added on[1], perhaps designed a little more specifically for remote files than Qt Quick is. I really like Qt Quick, so this seems interesting too. [1] Qt Quick supports OpenGL ES (the entire QML rendering system is written as an OpenGL-based scene graph), but I don't think you can make direct OpenGL calls without dropping to C++... You can add shaders to components from within QML though.
Fingel 13y ago
Demoscene wetdream
lnanek2 13y ago
It's great that people are trying to innovate in this area. That said, I write a web app because I want the accessibility that anyone with a browser already downloaded can come use it easily. It seems to me like this would require downloading a thick client different browser to use web apps written for it. If it could be rewritten to be started from a JS include on a web page, that would be ideal. Second best would be if it ran from Flash, a plugin that is still widespread. Next best is if it were a plugin itself, but very few users are willing to install a plugin, so that is already unusable for me. Next best is a downloadable separate app, but that's even worse in terms of the number of users who will go through the trouble to use it, so again is not something I would use at this point. Good luck! I, for one, like the scene style demo vid! Although it didn't tell me if the engine would be open source or not, which is also a big thing with me. Coding for a closed source engine and being beholden to someone else to figure out and fix bugs in it when my webapp is having trouble is very painful.
aeden 13y ago
Interesting. I spoke about this concept at Speakerconf Munich in 2012. I'm happy someone is working on it and at the same time surprised that someone was bold enough to try. :-)
Siecje 13y ago
) The problem I see with the browser is that: 1) It takes up hotkeys. (mouse and keyboards) 2) It can look different for different browsers 3) You have extra UI.
throwaway997 13y ago
Most of the visuals in the video are webgl demos: http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0 http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0 apple by iq http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0 http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0 by tigrou http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html by paulo falcão http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particles3.html http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particle...
ris 13y ago
Every place you see "native" in their video, substitute "security nightmare".
- ris 13y ago
  Also, if you're going to create a "browser" that throws almost everything out, why make javascript one of the things you keep?
angersock 13y ago
So, this is basically Qt/GtK/<game engine here>, but in Javascript? (Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind! Just would've been a lot simpler than claiming to be a browser, and would've been less confusing.)

156 points by paraboul 13y ago

is this any different from what mozilla are doing already with their open source engine? why separate yourself from that? is your code available? if not why not?

rorrr2 13y ago

Apart from local file I/O, there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do. Good luck with the adoption of that thing.

pwpwp 13y ago

I recommend seriously shortening the intro to the video, and showing the goods immediately. Only really interested people on the web have the attention span to watch 30 seconds of uninformative intro.

bennyg 13y ago
I wasn't really interested and I liked the video. As long as it looks decent and isn't a powerpoint slide of stuff, I'm cool with it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

aeon10 13y ago

Can someone please explain to me in short what this does?

xal 13y ago

So this is supposed to be a portable browser engine that can be directly embedded into (opengl) video games? This could be great.

skyebook 13y ago
There's already a couple of these: awesomium (proprietary) and berkelium (open) that basically render Chromium to OpenGL and pass it the HID events you send. That said, they seem to specifically say it's not an actual browser engine..

lukio 13y ago

The future is here.

duiker101 13y ago

I.... what is this trying to accomplish? Is it like a browser without all the features except opengl? I am confused can someone explain?

Refefer 13y ago

I really don't get a sense of what NiDIUM actually _does_. Is it a framework? A platform? A library? Where does it run? How am I supposed to deploy it? What use case does it solve that doesn't already have existing solutions?

ThomPete 13y ago

I find it saddening that the primary response from a crowd normally considering themselves visionaries and pushers, seems to be ridiculing other peoples hard work. I cannot for the life in me understand how introducing a new browser engine deserves this kind of welcoming.

CRidge 13y ago
I don't ridicule the work that's gone into this - I just don't get what it is... A browser engine which doesn't use HTML/CSS and which isn't in competition with Chrome/Firefox/IE...? We would just like a better explaination :) (Edited to remove JS from the "doesn't use" list - my bad)
- klibertp 13y ago
  > A browser engine which doesn't use HTML/CSS/JS It uses pure JS, without HTML and CSS. It's basically a LightTable creator's dream. I don't get what's there not to get.
  - CRidge 13y ago
    I stand corrected about JS - updated comment above. I still don't understand what this is, though.
duiker101 13y ago
I think that people here are mostly confused. There is not really a clear explanation of what this does or anything. We are just presented with a video of things that are not exactly revolutionary and said that this is the future. This leave most of the community puzzled I would say. It is ok to create hype for a product that is not out yet but still we would have to know what we should get hyped on.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  I thought the up votes were meant to serve a way to filter out the good for the bad. If something got to the front thats outright bad then it should be flagged. Otherwise questions can be asked.

jordanmoore_ 13y ago

And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shots and shows a complete lack of appreciation for the effort in a project such as this. If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come across as a bit of a dick. Thanks.

masklinn 13y ago
And once again our community snipes, takes cheap shot and shows complete lack of understanding for comments expressing confusion over a cryptic, unclear and fluff-filled page. If you have nothing of value to add, just keep quiet. Otherwise you can come across a bit of a dick. Thanks.
- jordanmoore_ 13y ago
  Very clever, the ol' switcheroo. I'm not talking about the comments from genuinely confused people, I'm talking about the nastier snipes which seem to have conveniently disappeared after myself and others called them out on it. Here's one that's still floating around: "there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do". And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that? Come on, please. I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding any value to the conversation either, I'm just saying we aren't doing much in creating an environment where people are confident in sharing their work without fear of hours of work being instantly dismissed by snarky commenters. I'm sure you wouldn't like it.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > Very clever, the ol' switcheroo. There's little cleverness in reminding you of the plank you've got in your eye when you're looking at the dust in your brother's, but thanks nonetheless. > Here's one that's still floating around: "there's nothing in that horrible presentation that a modern browser can't do". The presentation is bad, and aside from this value judgement the comment expresses confusion over the improvements of the project over existing browsers. > And you're calling me a dick for calling out comments like that? I don't know, were you calling people dicks? So your comment was not just advising, it was passive-aggressively insulting third parties? > I realise that my original comment AND this comment aren't adding any value to the conversation either Indeed, have you considered practicing what you preach and leading by example? > I'm just saying we aren't doing much in creating an environment where people are confident in sharing their work without fear of hours of work being instantly dismissed There's little evidence of such a thing here, there's a marketroid video with a fluffy and empty title. Meanwhile a few links below on the front page (at this time) you've got https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314730 which shows an actual project with a number of interested comments, none of them negative as far as I can see. Even https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6314310 which looks nothing special at first glance garners mostly positive comments (or more neutral ones talking about the space/ecosystem, wondering about it v alternatives, etc...) with a downvoted negative comment whose author readily agreed being wrong when his mistake was pointed out. > I'm sure you wouldn't like it. I don't mind marketing copy and email harvesting schemes getting slammed. Especially when advertised as a "show HN" with no show and little tell.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago

Based on the name, I'd say it's a web browser that uses crappy, old, rechargeable batteries?

klrr 13y ago

The web is weird, it feels like HTML is meant more for documents than for actual social platforms and dynamic content... If you think about it, is the web really sane?

mbrock 13y ago
Nothing is sane, just more or less functional and workable. The web seems to be ticking on just fine. There are problems, but also a lot of development. HTML is designed for more or less static content, but the DOM itself seems well adapted for dynamic content. Since it comes out of a tradition of streaming over slow connections, it's made to be dynamically rendered. The content layout is flexible and somewhat intuitive. Compared to something like Swing or Cocoa, the only drawback seems to be the paucity of widgets -- we basically just have basic inputs and scroll bars, the rest is app-specific. But that also brings a certain flexibility. I think an update to the table element would be great, perhaps with support for streaming data and more flexible layout.
- klrr 13y ago
  But if you want a program you can install one, why access programs through bloated obscure web browsers? The web is a great place for sharing text of information. But why not learn from the mobile phones which provides native consistent programs for what many people have to access through some web 2.0 crap?
  - mbrock 13y ago
    I don't really understand your objection...

sker 13y ago

File I/O alone is a good enough reason for this kind of projects to exist. I've always wanted to be able to use the power of the browser for standalone, cross-platform desktop applications. I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. Each browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're far from a complete solution. So far I have my eyes on node-webkit[1], which does everything I need it to do, but I welcome every option in this space. [1] https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit

masklinn 13y ago
> Each browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're far from a complete solution. How is the File API "hackish", let alone each browser having its own way of doing it?
- sker 13y ago
  Does the File API give you full access to the file system? Last time I checked it didn't.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > Does the File API give you full access to the file system? The File API gives you access to the files the user has selected for your access. No website-accessible API will ever give full access to anything for rather good reasons.
    - sker 13y ago
      Yes, that's why it isn't a good replacement for something like WPF, Qt, wxWidgets, etc. node-webkit and NiDIUM fix that problem.
      - bankIsSketch 13y ago

Gatsky 13y ago

Just some feedback - This video reminded me of the demo scene circa 1990. This might lead some to think that the project has been under development for 20+ years and is still in alpha...

zeroDivisible 13y ago
Or it might be developed by the same guys who were doing demo scene then. Either way, I'd like to wait and see that one in action - really like the idea.

saejox 13y ago

This does not look like a browser. It's a gui application framework, that happens to be using javascript as the preferred programming language. A lot like https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit

masklinn 13y ago
Or using QtWebkit or a Cocoa WebView, possibly with limited glue for exposing host objects.
pgz 13y ago
They claim no HTML in the video though, so I expect to be more like programming a GUI toolkit than a web application.

shadowmint 13y ago

I'd venture to guess from the presentation and the site that this is basically trying to be Node.js with a graphics engine attached. ie. Throw away the browser DOM and provide a bunch of new apis (and maybe a few existing ones which already seem ok, like the canvas stuff). I'm curious what you get as a benefit of doing this instead of just using Node itself and providing an api to work with the graphics/sound/whatever engine. No HTML or CSS renderering -> A considerably more plausible project, and certainly one that won't complete with existing browsers in the short term.

binaryorganic 13y ago

So the only thing clear from the comments is that the folks behind this are going to have to work on their communication game. The video was obviously created to tease the product a bit, which is hard when nobody knows exactly what thye're looking at, but even when I went to sign up for updates I see: "We will send you a maximum amount of spam as soon as possible."

chii 13y ago
indeed - the video is flashy, but i only watched less than 1 minute of it, because after 1 minute, i still have no idea what they are going on about, and my time is more precious than that. Pressed stop.
- kleiba 13y ago
  Right. You need your precious time to tell everyone on HN that you pressed stop.
  - nine_k 13y ago
    ...so that others don't sink their time, too? Sounds legit.
    - kleiba 13y ago
      But what if someone else posts that they watched all the way to the end??
pcx66 13y ago
The product description indeed is a bit vague, though you get the gist of what they are trying to accomplish. You might want to ask more specific questions instead of just ridiculing them. Some of us are not good at PR and those of us who are good should help others.

lampe3 13y ago

I just wanne know one thing: Will this work with older Browser? and with older browser i mean the browser we have right now. How hard will it be to adapt Browser vendors? or can i run it ontop like google chrome frame ?

TeeWEE 13y ago

All those demo's run very nice in my google chrome browser. What is nidium exactly? Sorry for having a negative tone, but its a valid question isnt it?

nanofortnight 13y ago

If I were to guess this is a performance-oriented version of CEF with additional functionality exposed to the JavaScript engine, would I be anywhere in the right ballpark?

terhechte 13y ago

I for one, like this. Now, the video & music are awful and definately do not support the overall presentation, but from what I understood, this seems to be pretty cool. Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background. I do like this idea. Even better, it would allow to write applications in ClojureScript or some of the other compile-to-javascript frameworks). Of course, there're other frameworks that utilize javascript for scripting needs or for desktop development (http://www.tidesdk.org/ http://www.tidesdk.org/) (https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/ https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/) (https://github.com/appjs/appjs https://github.com/appjs/appjs) (http://www.appcelerator.com/ http://www.appcelerator.com/) and of course Adobe Air, but all of them just basically open a webview, give you some html that looks a bit like native controls, and let you write html / css / javascript in there with limited access to filesystem or, god forbid, the graphics card. What I understood this project is, is that it allows me to use javascript to drive my native UI elements, access my full system resources, etc. Basically full native development, only Javascript instead of C++. Maybe a bit like Qt QML (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML) (and I'd like to see a comparison between these two). I'm really looking forward to this, though I have to admit that the website lacks details, and the video isn't particularly good. This looks a bit too much like demo scene hacking.

rorrr2 13y ago
> Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D libraries.
- nine_k 13y ago
  Trying to imitate the drawing of native components and emulate their behavior is not impossible, but is excessively burdensome (platforms x versions x options quickly becomes large). See Java. Having an ability to use platform-specific native components is a definite win.
- coldtea 13y ago

buro9 13y ago

What makes the web great is that anyone can author a page. We pushed the problem of handling these authored pages to the browser, and as a result the web flourished as millions authored content. Where will the content come from when the browser does not do HTML and CSS, and is instead a native client for OpenGL? The only way I believe this will work is for the authoring tools to lower the barrier so far that anyone can create content for this.

drivingmenuts 13y ago

It's interesting, but the trend toward making everything a web application is even more disturbing to me, given the revelation of how deep the security rot goes these days. The net is pretty much unavoidable, unless you're pretty hardcore, but I, for one, am hoping for focus on pulling things back to the user end at some point.

pcx66 13y ago
I think the rush to make everything 'web' is primarily because we finally are building an open, free, accessible, write-once-run-everywhere platform. That's the most exciting part of the web, and privacy is a bug we still have to fix. EDIT: When I say 'privacy is a bug', I mean the ability to provide privacy is still immature, and susceptible of exploits.
- drivingmenuts 13y ago
  That privacy is viewed as a bug is even more disturbing.
  - da_n 13y ago
    Linux on the Desktop was a bug until Mark Cuban closed it (controversially). I'm not sure why referring to it as a bug is disturbing.
    - drivingmenuts 13y ago
      It implies that privacy is somehow wrong, as opposed to a perhaps fundamental right.
      - da_n 13y ago
        The lack of privacy is a bug which needs to be fixed, I don't believe the OP means a users right to privacy is a bug.

beyondcompute 13y ago

It looks like a promising first step towards the great thing we clearly need: an alternative to web. Get rid of HTTP, CSS, and HTML (well, HTML can be useful when we deal with actual _hypertext_). It would be nice to support some languages that are friendlier than JS (i.e., almost any one) though.

thepumpkin1979 13y ago

Interesting, I initially thought that Javascript was the bottleneck in the web client-stack, not the DOM. May be both?

leke 13y ago

I'm not sure how to feel about this. In some ways, I think things like HTML5, angularjs, node, and CSS3 has made coding in the browser bareable again.

paraboul 13y ago

I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information. In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of: (1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine (2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing browser. Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a fast and unified look and feel. So: * Yes, it's a browser, in a sense that it can loads remote "apps/code" via HTTP using URLs (and somehow link them) * Almost everything is integrated and highly customizable (like the integrated UI Framework) * Cool APIs like plain-socket UDP/TCP (client and server), GLSL postprocessing on every canvas, layer, etc... * We've made our best to be compliant with existing APIs (context2D, webgl, commonjs, etc...) * It ditches HTML & CSS in favor of new things (NML and NSS, we will communicate on this later) * Low Latency Audio and DSP (and yes, one of us come from the demo scene, hence the poor soundchip music ;-) ) We designed almost everything from scratch, but the whole thing is still at an early stage. And to relate with tranding topics today about "english accent", we made this video a bit "old school" because we're not native english speaker (french) and a bit afraid of making "talkative" videos. We will post updates as soon as possible!

Raphael_Amiard 13y ago
Thanks for this update ! Looks like an interesting project, although i think this kind of information should really be on your website, and not lost in some HN comment, rather sooner than later if you want to create a bit of interest around your project. Catchy videos are good, but in the case of projects such as yours, an associated architectural overview would be much appreciated !
nine_k 13y ago
There is a well-known engine with interesting graphics, audio, video, and network capabilities, also programmable in JS. It's installed on almost every PC for the last decade; it is called Flash. Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash? Because we remember other nice engines of this kind, e.g. Silverlight.
- 13y ago

asadotzler 13y ago

How about some "native" browser engine video instead of Flash? Seeing all this "native" browser stuff playing in the least native format possible is not inspiring.

k4st 13y ago

What is the memory model of the NiDIUM js with native threading support?

paraboul 13y ago
The memory is obviously not shared (handling memory barrier / mutex in JS would be too annoying). However, it uses inter-thread communication using structured clone (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_structured_clone_algorithm https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_s...) or object stealing where you send an object to a thread with a zero-copy advantage but lose its content/ability to use it from the "sending thread"
- k4st 13y ago
  Thanks for the explanation / link :-)

GhotiFish 13y ago

the site is clearly intended to MARKET this browser. Market. They are marketing a browser. I should hope the world has learned its lesson as to why a commercial browser with that kind of branding is the worlds worst horse to bet on.

dkersten 13y ago

It sounds to me a little bit like Qt Quick (ie QML + JS + remote QML files + Canvas + SVG) with WebGL added on[1], perhaps designed a little more specifically for remote files than Qt Quick is. I really like Qt Quick, so this seems interesting too. [1] Qt Quick supports OpenGL ES (the entire QML rendering system is written as an OpenGL-based scene graph), but I don't think you can make direct OpenGL calls without dropping to C++... You can add shaders to components from within QML though.

Fingel 13y ago

Demoscene wetdream

lnanek2 13y ago

It's great that people are trying to innovate in this area. That said, I write a web app because I want the accessibility that anyone with a browser already downloaded can come use it easily. It seems to me like this would require downloading a thick client different browser to use web apps written for it. If it could be rewritten to be started from a JS include on a web page, that would be ideal. Second best would be if it ran from Flash, a plugin that is still widespread. Next best is if it were a plugin itself, but very few users are willing to install a plugin, so that is already unusable for me. Next best is a downloadable separate app, but that's even worse in terms of the number of users who will go through the trouble to use it, so again is not something I would use at this point. Good luck! I, for one, like the scene style demo vid! Although it didn't tell me if the engine would be open source or not, which is also a big thing with me. Coding for a closed source engine and being beholden to someone else to figure out and fix bugs in it when my webapp is having trouble is very painful.

aeden 13y ago

Interesting. I spoke about this concept at Speakerconf Munich in 2012. I'm happy someone is working on it and at the same time surprised that someone was bold enough to try. :-)

Siecje 13y ago

) The problem I see with the browser is that: 1) It takes up hotkeys. (mouse and keyboards) 2) It can look different for different browsers 3) You have extra UI.

throwaway997 13y ago

Most of the visuals in the video are webgl demos: http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0 http://glsl.heroku.com/e#457.0 apple by iq http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0 http://glsl.heroku.com/e#10809.0 by tigrou http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html http://www.backtothepixel.com/demos/js/webgl/704_webgl.html by paulo falcão http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particles3.html http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_custom_attributes_particle...

ris 13y ago

Every place you see "native" in their video, substitute "security nightmare".

ris 13y ago
Also, if you're going to create a "browser" that throws almost everything out, why make javascript one of the things you keep?

angersock 13y ago

So, this is basically Qt/GtK/<game engine here>, but in Javascript? (Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind! Just would've been a lot simpler than claiming to be a browser, and would've been less confusing.)