[GNC-dev] WebKitGtk now defaults to Gtk4

[john]

I spent some time this afternoon poking at webkit replacement. The options I found are:
* Keep using WebKitGtk
* Figure out how to wrap a native (meaning Apple AppKit or Microsoft) WebView in a GtkWidget
* Send the HTML/JS/CSS to the default browser. This will lose the links to GnuCash objects like transactions
* Configure a GtkTextView to understand HTML tags. This doesn't support charts, printing, or PDF export.
* Write reports directly to PDF. There are libraries out there but I didn't find any FLOSS ones that mention CSS styling or drawing charts in their feature sets.

Any other ideas?

Regards,
John Ralls

> On Nov 18, 2023, at 11:03, john <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> 
> 
> WebKitGtk. When I wrote that I was thinking Gtk4, but that won't work on Windows because WebKitGtk 2.4, the last release before they ripped out all of the Windows support code, obviously doesn't support Gtk4.
> 
> I don't know that we have until 2026 because I don't know what are the other WebKitGtk based applications Carlos referred to so I don't know where they are on migrating. We know from experience that nobody's going to wait for us.
> 
> I couldn't find the earlier discussion about release cycles either. The options are to keep doing what we're doing or to switch to a more continuous model where stable is the only central branch and feature branches are merged in when they're ready. We'd switch to a year-based versioning similar to Ubuntu's; I proposed YYYY-n, e.g. 2024-1, 2024-2, etc. on the same quarterly schedule. There would be no beta releases; the few users willing to test could do so with nightly builds.
> 
> If we don't change to the continuous model, 6.0 would drop 29 March 2026, see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Release_Schedule#Goals_for_6.0. 8 March is string freeze.
> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
> 
> 
>> On Nov 18, 2023, at 02:54, Robert Fewell <14ubobit at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Can I get clarification, is that migrating to Gtk4 or move away from WebKitGtk ?
>> 
>> I suppose either change would be a major one so that would be version 6.0 I assume.
>> I seem to recall there was a question on release cycles but can not find where, so if 6.0 is that still 08/03/2026 ?
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bob
>> 
>> On Fri, 17 Nov 2023 at 17:15, john <jralls at ceridwen.us <mailto:jralls at ceridwen.us>> wrote:
>>> WebKitGtk 2.43.1 was just released and one of its changes is that it's Gtk4 by default and one must specify a build option, -DGTK4=OFF, to use it with Gtk3. I asked on the webkitgtk mailing list if there's a schedule for dropping Gtk3 support. Carlos Garcia Campos replied "No, but it will take a while I'm afraid. Most of the WebKitGTK based
>>> applications are still GTK3, I think."
>>> 
>>> So we don't have a firm deadline yet, but this is a warning that we need to get serious about migrating.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> John Ralls
>>> 
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