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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: 0.735s | 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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Inviz ◴[19 May 25 02:17 UTC] No.44026019[source]▶
Cat is out of the bag. nobody wants their CSS without flexbox anymore. It has to include that.
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1. WorldMaker ◴[19 May 25 16:13 UTC] No.44031377[source]▶
Everything flexbox can do, CSS Grid can do, with easier/better/cleaner support for the second axis. At this point, I'd be interested in dropping flexbox entirely for CSS Grid.

("I don't need to worry about the second axis" seems to be a "not thinking fourth dimensionally enough" excuse to me today. You haven't considered enough responsive breakpoints or you haven't considered future features or future expanded data or future localizations, yet.)