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Nidium – A new browser engine

nidium.com

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Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#81

Post by coldtea »

rorrr2 wrote: post #63
terhechte wrote: post #49

I for one, like this. Now, the video & music are awful and definately do not support the overall presentation, but from what I understood, this seems to be pretty cool. Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background. I do like this idea. Even better, it would allow to write applications in ClojureScript or some of the…

> Imagine being able to use Javascript for actual desktop application development, without having to resort to tons of html and css in the background You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D libraries.

>You already can do it. Canvas, WebGL, SVG, and a bunch of 2D and 3D libraries.

Sure, and you can even do it with a brainfuck to js transpiler.

But I think he meant do it EASILY, without first hacking a full GUI stack from a 2D/3D primitives library.

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#82

Post by coldtea »

nine_k wrote: post #71
paraboul wrote: post #61

I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information. In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of: (1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine (2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing browser. Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a…

There is a well-known engine with interesting graphics, audio, video, and network capabilities, also programmable in JS. It's installed on almost every PC for the last decade; it is called Flash. Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash? Because we remember other nice engines of this kind, e.g. Silverlight.

>Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash?

It being built on standard web technologies, instead of in a proprietary engine, with a proprietary authoring environment, horrible security, subpar performance and CPU utilization and crappy or no GUI support (so you have to built everything on your own).

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#83

Post by da_n »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #80
da_n wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on the Desktop was a bug until Mark Cuban closed it (controversially). I'm not sure why referring to it as a bug is disturbing.

It implies that privacy is somehow wrong, as opposed to a perhaps fundamental right.

The lack of privacy is a bug which needs to be fixed, I don't believe the OP means a users right to privacy is a bug.

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#84

Post by coldtea »

streptomycin wrote: post #69
sker wrote: post #17

File I/O alone is a good enough reason for this kind of projects to exist. I've always wanted to be able to use the power of the browser for standalone, cross-platform desktop applications. I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. Each browser has its own hackish way of doing something like that, but they're…

I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. You can access a database locally, at least as of the past couple years. It's called IndexedDB. People quibble about the API, the features, the browser support (Firefox, Chrome and IE10 only), etc... but it is a real database you can use locally.

Not locally: in the browser. He wants to connect it to a LOCAL db (on his desktop).

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#85

Post by Keyframe »

paraboul wrote: post #61

I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information. In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of: (1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine (2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing browser. Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a…

Looks really interesting. What is that node based editor shown?

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#86

Post by streptomycin »

coldtea wrote: post #84
streptomycin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was shocked when I discovered I couldn't write a simple JS/HTML application and connect it to a local DB like SQLite without going through a server. You can access a database locally, at least as of the past couple years. It's called IndexedDB. People quibble about the API, the features, the browser support (Firefox, Chrome and IE10 only), etc... but it is a real database you can use locally.

Not locally: in the browser. He wants to connect it to a LOCAL db (on his desktop).

In the browser is local. Local, as opposed to remote.

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#87

Post by WayneDB »

paraboul wrote: post #61

I understand that it may be a little confusing, so here is more information. In the teaser video all visible parts are direct screen recordings of: (1) existing 2D canvas or WebGL demos ported to NiDIUM engine (2) shots and images from the native embedded UI Framework Do not expect NiDIUM to read HTML pages or to compete with any existing browser. Instead, expect a solution to build (and browse) applications, with a…

Will there be support for languages other than Javascript?

Also, are you planning on wrapping native GUI/forms elements or rendering your own via your abstract drawing layer (or both)?

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#88

Post by dkersten »

It sounds to me a little bit like Qt Quick (ie QML + JS + remote QML files + Canvas + SVG) with WebGL added on[1], perhaps designed a little more specifically for remote files than Qt Quick is.

I really like Qt Quick, so this seems interesting too.

[1] Qt Quick supports OpenGL ES (the entire QML rendering system is written as an OpenGL-based scene graph), but I don't think you can make direct OpenGL calls without dropping to C++... You can add shaders to components from within QML though.

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#89

Post by paraboul »

k4st wrote: post #77

What is the memory model of the NiDIUM js with native threading support?

The memory is obviously not shared (handling memory barrier / mutex in JS would be too annoying). However, it uses inter-thread communication using structured clone (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/DOM/The_s...) or object stealing where you send an object to a thread with a zero-copy advantage but lose its content/ability to use it from the "sending thread"

Re: Nidium – A new browser engine

#90

Post by nine_k »

coldtea wrote: post #82
nine_k wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a well-known engine with interesting graphics, audio, video, and network capabilities, also programmable in JS. It's installed on almost every PC for the last decade; it is called Flash. Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash? Because we remember other nice engines of this kind, e.g. Silverlight.

> Can you mention a couple of key things that make your product diferent and desirable, instead of Flash? It being built on standard web technologies, instead of in a proprietary engine, with a proprietary authoring environment, horrible security, subpar performance and CPU utilization and crappy or no GUI support (so you have to built everything on your own).

Great!

I wish I could read it on project's web site. I's literally 2 more lines.

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