Web Apocrypha

This is a follow-up blogpost on our previous Sprocket intro. If you have not read it yet, you can check it out here.

We have decided to divide Sprocket into two parts: featured and core Sprocket. The core branch contains the minimal code required to have a webview inside a window, which is capable of rendering any webpage with GPU acceleration, interpreting JavaScript, or even executing HTML5 games.

The core Sprocket can be used as an embedded browser, or tutorial/example for someone who wants to build a custom browser on top of the Content API.

The following basic functionalities are included in the core:

• Android (ARM) and Linux (ARM, x86_64) support,
• toggle fullscreen,
• sandboxing (Linux).

It has no url bar, no navigation buttons however, so the startup url can only be given through command line parameters.

With core Sprocket, our goal is to give a solid base for further extensions and tutorials for people who are interested in browser development. These tutorials will guide you through how features can be added to the browser, and how such features can be connected to work together with the Content API. One can think of these tutorials as an extension to the documentation / user guide of Chromium’s Content API.

The featured Sprocket (which currently is our master branch) is a good example of what can be achieved with the help of the Content API. It has several features, which have already been mentioned in our previous blog post.

We have also assembled a BuildBot for the core Sprocket.

In the near future we are planning to release pre-built binaries for all supported platforms. So everyone can try out Sprocket with ease.

On behalf of the Sprocket team,

Edit Balint