GTK - WLX - wlxwebkit_gtk3

[advice2020]

wlxwebkit_gtk3

I was able to test out this plugin and have some things to share if anyone is interested.
This post will mainly be about viewing mhtml files.
I made a separate post for this plugin regarding its ability to view pdf files.

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ISSUE 1
Some mhtml files show up as a blank white pane when using the QPP.

Another thing that I noticed about this issue that could be a little confusing is that if you should move your cursor to an mhtml file that DOES WORK, and then move your cursor to an mhtml that DOES NOT WORK, the previous mhtml that was viewed before, remains visible still, so it produces an inaccurate result of the mhtml filename that is highlight verse what is being shown in the QPP.

In other post of mine Skif-off mentioned he noticed a possible cause of this was mhtml files that contain the following text towards the top
Content-Type: text/html = pages that work
Content-Type: multipart/related = pages that do not work
I was not able to experience the same consistency as he did.
The pages with and without issues seemed to show the same Content-Type
Unless I am not viewing/understanding this correctly?

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ISSUE 2
I mentioned this in my pdf viewer post about this plugin that there is a slight animation/movement that occurs when using UP/DOWN ARROW keys and more noticeable when using PAGEUP/PAGEDOWN keys.
Might occur in the mhtml viewer as well but not as noticeable as it is in the pdf viewer.
Again if there is any known way to turn this off, I would be interested.

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POSSIBLE UPDATE 1
If you add the following MIME types to the plugins
Detect String:
|(EXT="MHTML")|(EXT="PDF")
this allows this plugin to view mhtml and pdf files.

This plugins readme.md file shows the following line at the top

This plugin allows you to view HTML/XHTML files. It is based on webkit2gtk engine.

I would maybe would consider replacing this line
with the following two lines

This plugin allows you to view HTML/XHTML/MHTML/PDF files.
It is based on webkit2gtk engine.

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POSSIBLE UPDATE 2
At first this would not compile.
This plugin mentions it requires this dependency
webkit2gtk-4.0
My repo only had the following dependency available
webkit2gtk-4.1

The terminal compiling error mentioned that this dependency was not found
webkit2gtk-4.0

I open this plugins Makefile and replaced this line
libs := pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0 webkit2gtk-4.0
with this line
libs := pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0 webkit2gtk-4.1
and then was able to complete the compile.

If possible, please update this plugins Makefile to maybe make it make it more forgiving if possible? So that it is not linked to just one specific version of dependency.

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Thank you to anyone who reads this

[j2969719]

like most of my plugins, this one doesnt do anything itself. It simply embed webkit widget into the viewer window, and the mht/pdf processing is handled by webkit itself. not sure about the string detection. added mht in a some recent commit, but since there were issues with it - removed it. as for pdf iirc theres a flag to disable it when building webkit itself

[advice2020]

In my other post I mentioned now that because GTK3 was not being developed anymore that that would mean that this blank page issue that occurs in this webkit/plugin would not be able to be fixed.
I was basing this on little information that I have from the past that was briefly mentioned about GTK2.
My assumption was that because the GTK2 webkit could not be updated anymore because GTK2 was no longer being developed, which is why you started developing the gtk_socket style plugins.
I figured that that would also mean that now that GTK3 was no longer really being developed, that this would mean that a GTK4 version webkit would be needed (which DC GTK3 would then not be able to use).
However this assumption is not true, must just be that the webkit eventually stopped supporting GTK2 at some point, I think similar situation to what I will share below.

I randomly looked this up and found this page, which I believe is the same webkit being used by this plugin
https://webkitgtk.org/

The version offered in Debian 13 based repos is something like 2.50.6?
The newest version currently on this site is 2.53.1

I also found this explaination on a different page

WebKitGTK has a bunch of different confusing API versions. Here are the three API versions that are currently supported by upstream:

webkitgtk-6.0: This is WebKitGTK for GTK 4 (and libsoup 3), introduced in WebKitGTK 2.40. This is what’s built by default if you build WebKit with -DPORT=GTK.

webkit2gtk-4.1: This is WebKitGTK for GTK 3 and libsoup 3, introduced in WebKitGTK 2.32. Get this by building with -DPORT=GTK -DUSE_GTK3=ON.

webkit2gtk-4.0: This is WebKitGTK for GTK 3 and libsoup 2, introduced in WebKitGTK 2.6. Get this by building with -DPORT=GTK -DUSE_GTK3=ON -DUSE_SOUP2=ON.

So the webkit itself is of course still being developed and these new developments are still supported by GTK3 applications. Meaning the webkit itself has not stopped support for it being used within GTK3 based applications (like how GTK2 was).

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QUESTIONS
1.)
As I mentioned webkit2gtk-4.0 is what you set this plugin to use/require.
Not sure what Skif used, but I mentioned that I only had webkit2gtk-4.1 available in my repo.
Shown above there is a difference between the two, 4.0 uses libsoup 2 and 4.1 uses libsoup 3
Even though I looked it up, I still do not know what library is used for.
Does anyone know if this difference in libsoup has anything to do with the blank page issue?

2.)
(If has nothing to do with version 4.0 / 4.1 libsoup question mentioned above)
Do either of you think/know that this blank page issue is due to something with this webkit being implemented as a WLX plugin, or with a bug that is in the webkit itself?
I was just wondering if there would be any chance in the future that maybe this blank page issue would be able to be solved. Maybe it already has been fixed?
If you look into the release section on the right side of link I mentioned "more"
There have been many fixes between version 2.50.6 and the newest current version 2.53.1

j2969719
I apologize if you already said this, but have you experienced this QPP mhtml blank page issue at all on your system?
Being that you are using Arch you probably have access to newer version of webkit then Skif and myself do at this moment. Wonder if maybe this has already been fixed?

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Again another situation where we are aware of an issue, yet have to try to predict the future.
This is the QT6 webengine all over again! :)

If anyone has any information about this topic, please let me know.

[j2969719]

when webkit cant load something, nothing loads and the page remains blank, regardless of where its called from or what type of file is loaded. eg mht.tar.gz seem to load correctly for me. im not a webkit developer etc and wont fix anything even if theres an issue, and not a policy-thing with specific files. all i can do with my birdbrain is try to preconvert it to html and load it instead which is..
for me easier and faster to do this in a python script, since similar things for other file types already happens eg in gtk_socket_tst

[Skif-off]

@advice2020

WebKitGTK supports not all MHT/MHTML variants, see some details here. In a few words: this is not a bug, just some file types have been disabled in the WebKitGTK's source code (long ago).

but I mentioned that I only had webkit2gtk-4.1 available in my repo.

Just use webkit2gtk-4.1 in this case, forget about libsoup ;)

[advice2020]

I just remembered I forgot to try mht.tar.gz examples

@Skif-off
I am trying, but it just sounds so delicious ;)

Link page has changed.
So this is not a bug that can ever get fixed?
I did not know there were different "variants" of mhtml
Being specifcally a webkit, why would they choose not to support some "variants".
Why would they do this Skif? :)

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Here is a new test if anyone is interested in trying....
Strange result

I tried saving some Github pages.

In DC QT QPP webengine plugin, Github pages look as they do in web browser.

When load Github page in this GTK plugin it looks more like an html page but with some minor visual icons here and there.
But all the text is in more of a list format.
Strange, does anyone else experience this.

I can't believe this actively developed GTK3 webkit is this incompatible.
On top of that, strange that web based stuff (which is its main use case) does not work and yet as I mentioned in other post, it has a ton of PDF viewing capabilities / features.

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Does anyone know, did they give a reason why certain variants are not supported?
I was going to try and ask
I found this
https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit
but of course they do not have an Issues section.
They say you can sign into their Bugzilla page using Github, did not realize their was any connection between these sites?
The fact that you mentioned that this was stopped being supported a long time ago is a concern because probably not going to consider anything I would say.

I can't believe this, I was excited about GTK3 version becoming a reality but stuff like this probably means that I am going to have to continue using QT based version.

[Skif-off]

@advice2020

Being specifcally a webkit, why would they choose not to support some "variants".

63#discussioncomment-16572419.