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
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. 
|
