Cross platform application embedding Webkit with WebGL support

Question

I need to create a cross platform (Win, Mac and Linux) application embedding a WebKit browser with HTML5 and WebGL support. So far I used Java/SWT way, however using webkit on windows is only partially possible (win32 only, safari 5 only) and has limited html5 support, no 3D at all.

In linux I successfully embedded webkit2gtk3 with WebGL support in vala like this:

using GLib;
using Gtk;
using WebKit;

public class Browser : Window {
    private const string URL = "http://lo-th.github.io/Oimo.js/index.html";

    public Browser() {
        this.add(this.create_web_window());

        this.destroy.connect(Gtk.main_quit);
    }

    private ScrolledWindow create_web_window() {
        var view = new WebView();
        view.get_settings().set_enable_webgl(true);
        view.load_uri(Browser.URL);

        var scrolled_window = new ScrolledWindow(null, null);
        scrolled_window.set_policy(PolicyType.AUTOMATIC, PolicyType.AUTOMATIC);
        scrolled_window.add(view);

        return scrolled_window;
    }

    public static int main(string[] args) {
        Gtk.init(ref args);

        var browser = new Browser();
        browser.resize(800,600);
        browser.show_all();

        Gtk.main();

        return 0;
    }
}

compiled with

valac --vapidir=. --pkg gtk+-3.0 --pkg webkit2gtk-3.0 --thread hellowebkit.vala

I also had success with python like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import gtk, webkit

w = gtk.Window()
w.set_title("Example Editor")
w.connect("destroy", gtk.main_quit)
w.resize(800,600)

scroll = gtk.ScrolledWindow()
w.add(scroll)

browser = webkit.WebView()
browser.get_settings().set_property("enable-webgl", True)
scroll.add(browser)

w.show_all()

browser.open("http://lo-th.github.io/Oimo.js/index.html");

gtk.main()

So the question now is: Is there any chance (and documentation) to get any of the above (compiling) and running in Win32/64 and OSX with WebGL support too?

Answer 1

Probably this could help

https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit

App runtime based on Chromium engine and node.js. Supports HTML5, CSS3, JS and WebGL. Did try it for a simpler project without WebGL, worked smooth. Very easy to setup too.

Check this slideshare, might help in deciding whether it is relevant

https://speakerdeck.com/zcbenz/node-webkit-app-runtime-based-on-chromium-and-node-dot-js

UPDATE: Found a couple of more alternatives to do similar stuff, not tried yet

1. https://github.com/milani/appjs
2. https://www.tidekit.com/

Another stackoverflow thread which might help Alternatives to node webkit? (filesize of importance)