User Interface
Netsurf is divided into a series of frontends which provide a user interface around common core functionality. Each frontend is a distinct implementation for a specific GUI toolkit.
Because of this the user interface has different features in each frontend allowing the browser to be a native application.
Frontends
As GUI toolkits are often applicable to a single Operating System (OS) some frontends are named for their OS instead of the toolkit e.g. RISC OS WIMP frontend is named riscos and the Windows win32 frontend is named windows.
amiga
Frontend specific to the amiga
atari
Frontend specific to the atari
beos
Frontend specific to the Haiku OS
framebuffer
There is a basic user guide for theframebuffer
gtk
Frontend that uses the GTK+2 or GTK+3 toolkit
monkey
This is the internal unit test frontend.
There is a basic user guide monkey
riscos
Frontend for the RISC OS WIMP toolkit.
windows
Frontend which uses the Microsodt win32 GDI toolkit.
User configuration
The behaviour of the browser can be changed from the defaults with a configuration file. The core user options of the browser are common to all versions and are augmented by each frontend in a specific manner.
Development
Working with the team
Generally it is sensible to check with the other developers if you are planning to make a change to NetSurf intended to be merged.
We are often about on the IRC channel but failing that the developer mailing list is a good place to try.
All the project sources are held in public git repositories
Compilation environment
Compiling a development edition of NetSurf requires a POSIX style environment. Typically this means a Linux based system although Free BSD, Open BSD, Mac OS X and Haiku all known to work.
Toolchains
Compilation for non POSIX toolkits/frontends (e.g. RISC OS) generally relies upon a cross compilation environment which is generated using the makefiles found in our toolchains repository. These toolchains are built by the Continuous Integration (CI) system and the results of the system are published as a convenience.
Quick setup
The quick start guide can be used to get a development environment setup quickly and uses the env.sh script the core team utilises.
Manual setup
The Manual environment setup and compilation method is covered by the details in the netsurf libraries document for the core libraries and then one of the building documents for the specific frontend.
These documents are sometimes not completely up to date and the env.sh script should be considered canonical.
Logging
The logging interface controls debug and error messages not output through the GUI.
Documented API
The NetSurf code makes use of Doxygen for code documentation.
There are several documents which detail specific aspects of the codebase and APIs.
Core window
The core window API allows frontends to use generic core code for user interface elements beyond the browser render.
Source object caching
The source object caching provides a way for downloaded content to be kept on a persistent storage medium such as hard disc to make future retrieval of that content quickly.
Javascript
Javascript provision is split into four parts:
- An engine that takes source code and executes it.
- Interfaces between the program and the web page.
- Browser support to retrive and manage the source code to be executed.
- Browser support for the dispatch of events from user interface.
Library
JavaScript is provided by integrating the duktape library. There are instructions on how to update the library.
Interface binding
In order for javascript programs to to interact with the page contents it must use the Document Object Model (DOM) and Cascading Style Sheet Object Model (CSSOM) API.
These interfaces are described using web Interface Description Language (IDL) within the relevant specifications (e.g. https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/).
Each interface described by the webIDL must be bound (connected) to the browsers internal representation for the DOM or CSS, etc. The process of writing bindings is ongoing.
