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Here is a small summary of this project that should answer most of your questions. If you still have any questions, please contact us.

  Project goal

The primary goal is to have a NetPositive (2.2) clone.

  Why I have started this project

I am not sure Net+ will be developed any futher and w3m lacks... images :-); I don't like Mozilla. (Don't get me wrong, I respect the work done by the Bezilla team. But Mozilla is not the browser I want.) More generally, there is a lack of competition in browser area.

Also it is generally believed that a web browser (even simple) is a huge project. I didn't think so before starting this project; I still don't think so. I just wanted to see by myself.

  What is this browser based on?

  • BeOS and its fabulous Translation Kit (for images)
  • libMagick (from ImageMagick project on Unix)
  • NJS is the JavaScript engine we use
  • "moderated" C++

No mozilla code, no konqueror code, nothing.

  Why is it so slow? Is it possible to get it faster?

The two main reasons, NetO seems slow are

  • the http engine is too basic (only one request at a time which is sub-optimal)
  • the whole document is loaded before displaying it.

It's not too difficult to make these two point faster but I need some time to do it. My primary focus is html rendering.

  What are the available and missing features?

Basic HTML rendering is implemented.

You can also drop a Bookmark from NetPositive or from Tracker.

No CSS at this time. JavaScript still need much work.

  Why did I provide you with this preview?
  • to see if there is any interest from the BeOS community about another browser.
  • to see if some other developpers share the same idea about browsers.
  • don't like to test software?
  Future : Technical point of view

    Work in progress

  • Javascript
  • Cookies

    Short term

  • Forms
  • Improve basic html rendering (lists, <cite>, ...)
  • Improve http support (keep-alive connections, ...) (1/2 done)
  • Implement http & http-proxy authentication
  • Improve cache handling (with expiration date, ...)
  • User feed-back (eg mouse cursor change, Status bar, ...)
  • Ensure xhtml works (any url ?) (1/2 done : works mostly, needs some tweaks).

    Mid term

  • Http redirect
  • Improve Table rendering (again...)
  • Improve history (implement global history)
  • Support for alignments (<center>, <img align="left", ...)
  • image map support.
  • Frames
  • Provide some kind of BHtmlView.

    Long term

  • CSS (humm, css is still a bit obscure to me but I definitly like content/presentation separation)
  • Plug-ins.
  Thanks to

Guillaume Maillard for his work on the user interface.

Roger Andre Lassen for his icons.



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Page last updated 22 February 2002