RE: JavaScript functions?

You can extract the Mozilla JavaScript engine and integrate it into your own
browser: we investigated doing this when I worked at Spyglass on the Device
Mosaic browser. We also looked at the Nombas stuff, but decided against it
because it had some serious memory leak issues. This was over a year ago,
however, so YMMV. As it was we had integrated Microsoft's JScript engine,
which used a lot of memory but worked pretty well.

There is a lot more to integrating a scripting engine into a browser than
just getting the engine. You need to implement and maintain the DOM, and
your rendering model must be able to handle the fact that the JavaScripts
could be generating content which needs to be redrawn. There are some nasty
scoping issues related to frames and tables and such: retrofiting the DOM
into your content model can be tricky.

Beyond that you need to draw a line in the sand a decide which "dialect" of
JavaScript you are going to use: Netscapes? Microsofts? ECMAscript? There
are differences.

I'd have to agree with Raffaele: adding support for JavaScript will quickly
move your browser from simplified to complex and hairy.

	-tree

-----Original Message-----
From: Raffaele Sena [mailto:raff@nuvomedia.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 11:49 AM
To: J.K. Lin; www-lib@w3.org
Subject: Re: JavaScript functions?


>   I am writing a simplified web browser.  My trouble now is
>about JavaScript code embedded in HTML pages.  Does
>anybody knows how I can get any source code of JavaScript
>interpreter/parser so that I can embed it in my browsing
>functions?  (If necessary, I am willing to pay for it. :-)

I think there was some work done in the KDE File Manager (that is an HTML
viewer).
I don't know what the status of JavaScript in Mozilla is, and how easy it is
to use
it in another applicationl.

If you want a commercial implementation, check out Nombas ScriptEase
(http://www.nombas.com/).
No idea of the current pricing, and it's not the easiest thing to add to a
web
browser, but
it's doable. Just be prepared to add a lot of stuff to you browser
(callbacks,
lists of HTML objects
and such). And at the end it will not be a simplified web browser anymore :)

-- Raffaele

Received on Wednesday, 26 January 2000 12:16:13 UTC