Advogato blog for csv

Wed 2013/May/15

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:10:25 GMT

Iago has written a fantastic blog post explaining his and Dape's work getting WebKitGTK+ and Epiphany to run on top of Wayland. They've even cooked a nice demo! You should check it out if you haven't already, it's hot stuff.

Fri 2013/Apr/26

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:11:07 GMT

Oh the WebKits! During the past few weeks, thanks to Igalia's collaboration with the good folks at Bloomberg, I have descended from the heights of Epiphany and WebKitGTK+ to the depths of WebCore, that obscure but cleverly assembled part of WebKit that magnificently takes care of the logic inherent to layouting, rendering, and the inner representation of HTML documents. A fascinating aspect of WebCore is that its architecture, completely decoupled from the actual implementation in the different WebKit ports, means that any change to its parts will affect all ports and browsers built upon this marvelous piece of engineering. Let me assure you, dear reader, the challenges this implies are comparable only to the joy it brings to this humble hacker, as the following will reveal!

Among the many duties of WebCore lies controlling the logic behind user interaction with HTML documents — something that has changed considerably in recent years. While originally, most interactive editing in the web was limited to plain and boring web forms, in this brave new world of ours it is also possible to build complete HTML editors using nothing but HTML and JavaScript access to the DOM. Have you seen Wordpress' fantastic editor? Then you shall agree with me that this is an extremely powerful feature.

But with great power comes great responsibility, as the old saying goes. And with great responsibility come bugs, says a more recent variation of the same maxim. And where bugs are to be found, relentless minds work tirelessly in order to ensure that your browsing experience never ceases to improve. This is one of the goals that Igalia, humbly but boldly, pursues with utmost seriousness. And so it has been that I, your humble servant, have spent countless hours mastering my way through the DOM and editing features of WebCore. Bugs have been fixed already — some affecting editing in Windows, others affecting editing in GNU/Linux, and others affecting all platforms equally. More will be fixed in the forthcoming weeks. I can only attempt to share my excitement through these words, for I am unable to express it in a way that would do it justice.
As a side note, I am a committer to the WebKit project for a little while now. This is pretty cool, as it means I get a direct chance to break your browser. Or unbreak it, shall it be the case. I try to lean towards the latter but trust me, it is not an easy task!

Tue 2012/Dec/11

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:09:28 GMT

The WebKitGTK+ hackfest has been ongoing for the last three days in the Igalia offices in the not-that-rainy city of A Coruña. We're over twenty people here and we've been hacking, discussing, and ranting over whatnot -- all to make sure that your browsing experience in the forthcoming years will be better than it has ever been. Here's a brief summary of what's been going on hitherto:
- Mario has been working on the insecure content API for WK2GTK.
- Jon has been rocking in Epiphany by improving the creation of Web Applications by sniffing icons and application names and revamping our Find bar.
- Carlos has been improving the DOM bindings to make them shareable between webkit1 and webkit2, adding WebKit API to set a SSL errors policy, and working in documents integration in Epiphany through libevince.
- Diego has been working on the Web UI/UX from the distant Lima: Adding undo close tab (ctrl+shift+t) and preventing empty download-only (target=_blank) windows.
- Xan has been reviewing patches like a madman, making EphySession suck less, and he even started implementing the first bits towards incognito browsing mode (for secure, ahem, netbanking.)
- Martin has switched WKGTK+ to use Harfbuzz to render complex text and deleted the old Pango complex text backend. He also worked on adding authentication support to DRT and WTR.
- Philippe has been porting the WebAudio backend to GStreamer 1.0.
- Berto has been cleaning up the WebKit code and fixing WebAudio bugs.
- Joone has been working on Accelerated Compositing with Clutter and fixing common bugs in EFL and GTK+ ports.
- Gustavo has released WKGTK+ 1.10.2, packaged it and uploaded it to Debian along with Epiphany 3.6.1. He has also landed multipart/x-mixed-replace, reviewed a bunch of patches, and worked on improving how clicked links are opened in epiphany.
- Dan has been stabilized the unstable libsoup APIs, and he is now debugging and unskipping HTTP tests.
- Alex has been working in 2D-canvas accelerated support using cairo-gl and discussing with others threaded models for coordinated graphics.
- Andy has been working hard on decreasing the world's entropy by decreasing V8's memory usage. He is also fighting Capitalism from within.
- Xabier has been revamping the HTML5 media controls in WebKit and occasionally breaking the bots like a champ.
- Žan has been working with Xabier in the media controls and has been also improving our testing infrastructure.
- Simón has been improving the WK2GTK+ documentation.
- Alejandro and Joanie have been working on decreasing the number of accessibility tests skipped/failing on the ATK implementation.
- Claudio has been finishing the WK2GTK+ API for snapshotting, reviewing Epiphany patches, and testing the netbanking mode.
There is, of course, much more going on and it's hard to keep track of the activity of these brave and energetic hackers. Yours truly has had a hard time distracting them from their relentless hacking in order to compile this report -- rest assured that there is probably much more happening between these four walls than what you have just read here. Nevertheless, we all want to thank the GNOME Foundation and all the sponsors who have made this gathering possible.

Mon 2012/Dec/03

Mon, 3 Dec 2012 10:09:51 GMT

Igalia is looking for a Free Software enthusiast living in the San Francisco Bay Area to work with us in the role of Sales Engineer. If you're reading this, chances are that I don't need to tell you who we are, what we do, how we do it, and what our core values are, nevertheless, if you want to know more, please read the job opening in our webpage.

If you have specific inquiries don't hesitate to contact any of us through the usual channels!

Mon 2012/Sep/03

Mon, 3 Sep 2012 06:09:05 GMT

On Friday I landed into Epiphany master the first iteration of a new feature that us the Igalia webkit hackers and the GNOME design team have been collaborating on for a while. We codename this feature the overview but, in its first iteration, you can think more of it as a speed dial for new pages, that will allow you to quickly jump to the pages you frequent more often when opening a new tab or window.

This will certainly be the most prominent new feature of Epiphany in GNOME 3.6, and we believe you'll love it. Personally, I think that this is a huge usability improvement, but I'm much more excited about the possibilities this brings from here on. For 3.8, our plans are more ambitious, but I guess that we will talk more about it when the time is due.

Sat 2012/May/26

Sat, 26 May 2012 20:08:07 GMT

Monte do Gozo, near Santiago de Compostela, back in November:

Polbo á Feira in A Coruña after the WebKitGTK+ hackfest back in December:

Alvar Aalto fascination at home:

A boat by Töölönlahti in early Spring:

Wed 2012/Feb/08

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 22:41:13 GMT

Si la lluvia llega hasta aquí Voy a limitarme a vivir. Mojaré mis alas como el árbol o el ángel o quizás muera de pena.
Luis Alberto Spinetta — Canción para los días de la vida

Thank you for everything, Flaco.

Thu 2011/Oct/06

Thu, 6 Oct 2011 13:06:45 GMT

Most of us who work in technology, secretly wish that one day, something we've created will change the world in a positive way, or that we will be able to look back at some point and realize that we've contributed somehow to make this world a better place. For many of us, this is the driving force that put us in this field in the first place, even when we rarely admit it to each other, let alone to anyone else.
Some of us get to achieve it, one way or another. In an anonymous way, most likely in the form of one single link in a chain of events that, individually, might seem insignificant, but altogether, represent the continuous and dynamic steering of human progress. Our names will not be remembered, neither will our individual contributions, but they will be there for others to build upon, one link at the time, one step after another.
And then there are those who manage to envision that things are possible in ways that would be unthinkable for the rest of us, and not only that, strive to make them happen. They don't work alone and rely on others, that's certain, yet it's their unique inspiration, persistence, and the exceptional love for what they do what motivates others to flock along them and help them change the world. Steve Jobs was probably one of the most remarkable examples in the latest times of this rare but wonderful people, and we've been lucky to be challenged with his contributions to technology. I am not sure whether being in this industry would be so challenging and exciting as it is, if he hadn't been around.

Sat 2011/Sep/24

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:06:55 GMT

After three years in Finland, I finally spent a weekend in a traditional mökki, with wood stove sauna, makkara, mushroom picking, midnight drunken cold-lake skinny dipping, rowing, and getting up with dawn for the sole purpose of getting gems like this one:

Since it was the weekend of el dieciocho, I made some pisco sour, too.

Wed 2011/Sep/21

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:09:37 GMT

Let's say, you have a product that relies on a free software platform. Let's say, you want to add a particular feature to that product for differentiation, but you know that the free software community is not very keen of your practices of keeping code in-house. So you want to give back, at least to avoid some criticism. How to make it so, that the feature is still exclusive to your new product?

Well, it's very easy. Wait until the free software platform where you added that feature is already in code freeze, and only then do a code drop in their bugzilla. That way, you make sure that they won't be releasing it until at least 6 months after your product is already on the market. Touché.

Cynicism in this entry is for free and any resemblance with reality is merely coincidental and should not be taken very seriously.