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Show HN: Vaev – A browser engine built from scratch (It renders google.com)

(github.com)
233 points monax | 1 comments | 18 May 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

We’ve been working on Vaev, a minimal web browser engine built from scratch. It supports HTML/XHTML, the CSS cascade, @page rules for pagination, and print-to-PDF rendering. It even handles calc(), var(), and percentage units—and yes, it renders Google.com (mostly).

This is an experimental project focused on learning and exploration. Networking is basic (http:// and file:// only), and grid layouts aren’t supported yet, but we’re making progress fast.

We’d love your thoughts and feedback.

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khimaros ◴[18 May 25 20:30 UTC] No.44024102[source]▶
i find myself requesting this whenever i see a new minimalist browser pop up:

it would be great to standardize alternative browsers on a consistent subset of web standards and document them so that "smolweb" enthusiasts can target that when building their websites and alternative browsers makers can target something useful without boiling the ocean

i personally prefer this approach to brand new protocols like Gemini, because it retains backward compatibility with popular browsers while offering an off ramp.

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userbinator ◴[18 May 25 21:30 UTC] No.44024442[source]▶
The subset could just be an older version of the spec, e.g. HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.1.

(My opinion as another one who has been slowly working on my own browser engine.)

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robocat ◴[18 May 25 22:48 UTC] No.44024884[source]▶
Pick a subset aimed directly at accessibility.

The least-needed features are often accessibility nightmares (e.g. animation - although usually not semantic).

The accessible subset could then be government standardized and used as a legal hammer against over-complex HTML sites.

For a while search engines helped because they encouraged sites to focus on being more informative (html DOCUMENTS).

I think web applications are a huge improvement over Windows applications, however dynamic HTML is a nightmare. Old school forms were usable.

(edited to improve) Disclosure: wrote a js framework and SPA mid 00's (so I've been more on the problem side than the solution side).

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1. GoblinSlayer ◴[19 May 25 15:39 UTC] No.44030991[source]▶
Styles can be provided as client-side dependencies instead of free form CSS:

   <meta name="dependencies" content="mathjax/1.1 highlightjs/2.0 navbar/5.1"/>
then browser decides how to resolve them.