Re: [jbosstools-dev] Do we still need Xulrunner in Devstudio?

Hello, I'm in the process of migrating Webkit1 to Webkit2 in SWT. This also includes porting the BrowserFunction. In regards to: On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 6:28 AM, Ilya Buziuk <ibuziuk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote: > Hi, Aleksandr > Alexey has already moved this discussion to jbosstools-dev. > > Unfortunately, I do not have Webkit POC ready to hand, but I think I > remember the approach. Basically, the WebKit based transformation was done > via SWT BrowserFunction[1] and the performance was much worse in comparison > with the DOM API. If you want to figure out how the current Xulrunner based > implementation work, you should probably start with tests[2] that cover > things like mapping between source jsf / jsp tags and visual part via DOM > API. However, I still want to put my 2 cents in this discussion. > Would you happen to have a snippet lying around that uses BrowserFunction that I could use to evaluate Webkit2 performance? I'm implementing a few bits in native C, which could potentially speed things up a bit. Or at least I could keep performance in mind during the port in case you guys do end up choosing to go down the Webkit route. Regards Thank you Leo > Let's face the bullet - JSF is dying technology, and spending any time on > new development is simply nonsensical IMO. Even if eventually a better > WebKit based VPE will be created (which is doubtful because it was > developed by big team ~ 10 developers for a couple of years) it will have > very little value for both community and business. For now the only request > from the community was - "please, leave it as is". > > If SWT will drop GTK 2 support than we will have to deprecate it on this > Linux. But it worth mentioning that all Linux distros are just a couple of > percents of the tools user base and our target audience ~ 85 - 90 % is > Windows developers. For me it is also not clear why it is important to > deprecate it right now ? We already had this discussion and decided not to > do it in 2015, so I can not come up with a reason why should it be done in > 2016. Just to be clear, I am not against deprecation, I am just saying that > we should think twice before doing it and get some agreement about > Xulrunner future, so that we will not be returning to this discussion again > and again. > > [1] http://help.eclipse.org/kepler/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.ec > lipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fapi%2Forg%2Feclipse%2Fs > wt%2Fbrowser%2FBrowserFunction.html > [2] https://github.com/jbosstools/jbosstools-vpe/blob/ > master/tests/org.jboss.tools.vpe.base.test/src/org/jboss/ > tools/vpe/base/test/VpeTest.java#L340 > > On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 8:07 AM, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com > > wrote: > >> Adding Max and Alexey (maybe we should move to the mailing list?) and >> dropping Jeff to not spam him. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> > From: "Aleksandar Kurtakov" <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > To: "Ilya Buziuk" <ibuziuk(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > Cc: "Nick Boldt" <nboldt(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Leo Ufimtsev" < >> lufimtse(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Jeff Johnston" <jjohnstn(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > Sent: Thursday, 29 September, 2016 9:04:42 AM >> > Subject: Re: Do we still need Xulrunner in Devstudio? >> > >> > >> > >> > ----- Original Message ----- >> > > From: "Ilya Buziuk" <ibuziuk(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > To: "Aleksandar Kurtakov" <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > Cc: "Nick Boldt" <nboldt(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Leo Ufimtsev" < >> lufimtse(a)redhat.com&gt;, >> > > "Jeff Johnston" <jjohnstn(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > Sent: Wednesday, 28 September, 2016 8:23:47 PM >> > > Subject: Re: Do we still need Xulrunner in Devstudio? >> > > >> > > Basically, jsf tags can not be displayed as-is and be parsed >> correctly in >> > > browser like html, due to the fact that it is server side >> technology. So, >> > > the algorithm for VPE is the following: the content is rendered and >> all >> > > jsf tags are parsed through a set of templates via the native DOM >> API which >> > > is available only in particular older versions of XULRunner. So, in >> order >> > > to use Webkit or other engine and migrate all VPE features, >> reimplementing >> > > all of those temlpate transformations is required. Plus not to >> forget the >> > > performance thing - processing might take a long time (I think we >> had some >> > > WebKit POC but performance was just unacceptable). This is not a >> trivial >> > > task at all and I do believe that we have no resources for doing it >> - VPE >> > > component's code base is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) >> across >> > > tools. >> > >> > That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for. Can you point me to >> the >> > transformations used for the xulrunner? Sorry for being lazy but it's >> > foreing land for me so I would rather not lose time lurking around. >> > Do you have a pointer to the WebKit POC? It might be interested to >> reach out >> > to the desktop team (there is webkit developer there) with all the >> info so >> > maybe they can hint us how to achieve what's needed if latest webkit >> doesn't >> > fullfill the needs. >> > >> > > In a nutshell - after reimplementing there will be the same, or less >> > > powerful, VPE with more bugs and poor performance. >> > >> > That might be true now but you should think a bit further in time. In >> the not >> > so distant future (2018 release most probably, if not 2019 for sure) >> SWT >> > itself will drop support for running on GTK 2.x and that would be >> > effectively the end of this plugin if no action taken. >> > >> > >> > > >> > > On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 6:42 PM, Aleksandar Kurtakov < >> akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > wrote: >> > > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > ----- Original Message ----- >> > > > > From: "Ilya Buziuk" <ibuziuk(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > > > To: "Nick Boldt" <nboldt(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > > > Cc: "Aleksandar Kurtakov" <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Leo Ufimtsev" >> < >> > > > lufimtse(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Jeff Johnston" >> > > > > <jjohnstn(a)redhat.com&gt; >> > > > > Sent: Wednesday, 28 September, 2016 7:19:24 PM >> > > > > Subject: Re: Do we still need Xulrunner in Devstudio? >> > > > > >> > > > > Actually, we planned to remove xulrunner and deprecate VPE some >> time >> > > > > ago >> > > > > and leave only VPV as a WYSIWYG html editor. >> > > > As someone not familiar with the topic I don't see xulrunner and >> VPE >> > > > deprecation that closely coupled. What is the reason for that? >> What's >> > > > preventing to achieve it with webkit? Do you extend SWT Browser API >> > > > somehow? >> > > > Please give all the details you can think of so I can get better >> > > > understanding of the issue/reasons. >> > > > >> > > > > However, as soon as we gave a >> > > > > shout out about this on tools.jboss.org the first comment was: >> > > > > >> > > > > Nice. The reason I used JBoss Tools was the Visual Editor for >> JSF, >> > > > > > especially for the Visual parts, which was not perfect but was >> good >> > > > enough >> > > > > > to have it. Will you have alternatives for that ? [1] >> > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > It was decided that we need to slow down with this process. I >> can not >> > > > > say >> > > > > if it is a high time for doing this assuming that some people >> actually >> > > > use >> > > > > it. Furthermore, some people treat it as a killer feature for >> JSF that >> > > > only >> > > > > one IDE is providing. So, we need to think twice before doing it. >> > > > > >> > > > > [1] http://tools.jboss.org/blog/2015-04-02-devstudio-8.1.0.GA- >> > > > for-luna.html >> > > > > >> > > > > On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 5:40 PM, Nick Boldt <nboldt(a)redhat.com&gt; >> wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > > On the Eclipse team call today, the question of why we need >> Xulrunner >> > > > > > was brought up again. >> > > > > > >> > > > > > As I understand it, the only reason we still include Xulrunner >> is for >> > > > > > the Visual Page Editor. But Alex pointed out today that >> Xulrunner >> > > > > > only >> > > > > > works on GTK2, which means a user has to explicity disable >> GTK3 in >> > > > > > order for Xulrunner to be used, as these days GTK3 is the >> default >> > > > > > OOTB >> > > > > > implementation on the platforms we support (Fedora 24/25, >> RHEL7, >> > > > > > etc.). >> > > > > > >> > > > > > So... is it time to remove Xulrunner from the Devstudio >> dependencies, >> > > > > > if most people are not even seeing it used? >> > > > > > >> > > > > > Alex suggested it might be useful to set up a call to discuss >> this in >> > > > > > more depth. Is there a good time tomorrow or Friday you guys >> would >> > > > > > like to meet to discuss this, if it can't be resolved >> asynchronously >> > > > > > via email? >> > > > > > >> > > > > > Whatever we decide here, we should make sure we announce this >> on the >> > > > > > jbosstools-dev@ list. >> > > > > > >> > > > > > -- >> > > > > > Nick Boldt :: JBoss by Red Hat >> > > > > > Productization Lead :: JBoss Tools & Dev Studio >> > > > > > http://nick.divbyzero.com >> > > > > > >> > > > > >> > > > >> > > > -- >> > > > Alexander Kurtakov >> > > > Red Hat Eclipse team >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > -- >> > Alexander Kurtakov >> > Red Hat Eclipse team >> > >> >> -- >> Alexander Kurtakov >> Red Hat Eclipse team >> > >