Web Browsers And Packages
Release: 2010-07-13
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Google Chrome and other Chromium based browsers
Google Chrome 5 is a Chromium 5 web browser which is mostly based on Apple's WebKit version 533.4 with some replaced and missing components. This is an open-source, Crystal Level web browser with the WebCore layout engine providing the HTML, XML and CSS while instead of WebKit's new Nitro scripting virtual machine, Chrome uses Google's updated V8 scripting virtual machine which provides high performance JavaScript support. Chrome provides web-standards support for web applications and web pages.
Google Chrome 5 supports:
- HTML 4.01 (HyperText Markup Language);
- HTML 5 'Subset';
labelattribute foroptionelements;- Ruby Annotation (HTML 5) (Chrome 4);
- HTML 5's
<meta charset="">; 'named character reference;- HTML 5's
section,article,aside,nav,header,footerandhgroupelements (Chrome 4); keygenelement;- HTML 5 Forms's
<input type="search">and<input type="range">, form validation support for some extra types; - contenteditable and spell checking support (but not spellcheck attribute);
canvasElement;- HTML 5's
audio,videoandsourceelements; - HTML 5 Offline Web Applications support (AppCache,
applicationCacheAPI and Events,manifestattribute, manifest format,navigator.onLineproperty, online and offline body events); - Sandboxed iframes;
- WAI-ARIA adds support for Accessible Rich Internet Applications;
- Cascade StyleSheets (CSS) level 1, Visual & Interactive and partial Paged level 2.1 provides a realistic way of adding presentation and layout to your document structures;
- Some main and experimental CSS level 3 features;
- The ability to style and script with unknown markup;
- For image support we have GIF89a, JPEG, PNG, Icons (.ico, .png, .jpg, .gif), BMP (Windows Bitmap), XBM (X Bitmap), XPM (X Pixmap) and SVG 1.1;
- Document Object Model (DOM) level 1 (HTML, XML), 99% of level 2 (Core, HTML, XML, Views, Stylesheets, CSS, CSS2, Events, UIEvents, MutationEvents, MouseEvents, HTMLEvents, Traversal, Range), bits of Core DOM 3, XPath DOM 3, TextEvents DOM 3, Bits of DOM 5 HTML exposes documents to scripting interaction;
- JavaScript 1.6 (without multiple
catches) and since Chrome 5: some JavaScript 1.8.1 such as trimRight; - GeoLocation support;
- Drag and Drop API;
- Selectors API level 1 allows an easier way to access parts of the DOM using CSS-like selectors;
- Element Traversal API and the
childrenproperty; - Chrome has Google's Gears (Windows edition only, Gears will be removed in a later build) providing Database Storage to allow local database performance and capacity with SQLite, and its support for SQL, to store information beyond the abilities of cookies. Plus local web caching and various extra APIs;
- Also since Chrome 3, to compliment cookies and Gears, Web SQL Database Storage support allow local database performance and capacity with SQLite, and its support for SQL, to store information beyond the abilities of cookies;
- Plus since Chrome 4, support for Web Storage's
localStoragefor name/value persistent data; - And since Chrome 5, support for Web Storage's
sessionStoragefor name/value per session data.
Canvas feature support includes:
- Stroke and fill colours;
- Rectangles;
- Paths;
- rgba/hsla colours;
- Shadows;
- Text;
- Linear and radial gradients;
- Patterns;
- Translations, rotation and scale;
- Bring in pixel images;
CSS level 3 features supported includes:
-
hsl(),rgba(),hsla()functions; - Namespaces Module, most of Media Queries;
- Proper
border-radius; - Multiple Background Images and the
opacityproperty for full gradient transparency; - some
-webkit-properties such as reflections(-webkit-box-reflect),-webkit-border-radius,-webkit-box-sizing; - Multiple Column Layout, CSS Gradients, Masks, Animation, Transitions, 2D Transforms and some 3D Transforms support with
-webkit-prefix; -
text-shadow,-webkit-box-shadow; -
::selectionpseudo-element selector, Structural pseudo-class selectors (like:nth-child,:not,:empty,:first-of-type, etc),:enabled,:disabledand:checkedUI state pseudo-class selectors,:targetselector; -
@font-faceAt Rule with multiplesrcvalues,local()andformat()functions (support for TrueType (Chrome 4), OpenType (Chrome 4), SVG Fonts);
Native Media format support includes:
- OGG Theora Video;
- MPEG4 Video;
- H.264 Video;
- OGG Vorbis Audio;
- AAC / M4A Audio;
- MP3 Audio;
SVG support includes:
- Groups, Titles, Descriptions, metadata, defs and use;
- Stroke and fill;
- Basic shapes (Rectangles, Rounded Corner Rectangles, Lines, Circles, Ellipses, Polylines and Polygons);
- Paths;
- Opacity;
- Text;
- Text on a path;
- Hyperlinkg;
- Clipping, Masks, Markers, Patterns;
- Linear and radial gradients;
- Translations, skews, rotation and scale;
- Bring in pixel images;
- Conditional switch;
- SVG declarative animation;
foreignObject;- Supports XHTML video;
- SVG Fonts;
- CSS support;
- SVG Views;
- Scripting support;
- Scripted animation;
- SVG does not integrate with webpage (has white matte background);
- Most SVG Filters (no lighting filters) (Chrome 5);
In the realm of XML:
- eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 with Namespaces & XML-StyleSheet Processing Instruction (PI);
- eXtensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0, 1.1 and Basic 1.0;
- eXtensible StyleSheet Language Transformations (XSLT) 1 & eXtensible Path Language (XPath) 1 provides the ability to convert extensible document structures into other document structures;
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 for ultimate 2-dimensional vector image display, with advanced text and declarative animation & scripted animation, does not support Lighting Filters;
provides an excellent platform for experiencing the World Wide Web.
Chrome passes the Acid 2 Test which tests Cascade Stylesheet (CSS) support. More about the Acid 2 Test from the Web Standards Project (WASP).
Chrome also clocks 100 out of 100, passing all tests, from the Acid 3 Test. Acid 3 tests DOM, scripting, HTML, SVG and various other technologies for Web 2.0. More about the Acid 3 Test from the Web Standards Project (WASP).
In order to allow users to navigate and use interactive webpage features using the keyboard (part of making webpages accessible) Google Chrome provide the following: On MS Windows and Linux you can tab through links and form controls in general. On Apple Mac OS X you can tab through form text boxes and select popup lists only by default. In order to tab through links and form controls in general you need to select All controls in Mac OS X's Keyboard System Preferences on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
Chrome Features
Google Chrome has reached version 5 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Chrome provides a simplistic user interface with ideas from Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Apple Safari such as duplicate tabs, web address and search suggestions for the single combined web address / search bar. Plus extra Googleness such as create shortcuts which allow you to add desktop shortcuts to any web application such as Gmail, Google Calendar, etc (but not limited to Google Services). Under the hood are components from Mozilla and Apple's WebKit with more Googleness such as Gears.
Since version 3, Chrome supports both Gears and Web Database Storage for local SQL-powered data storage, since Chrome 4, name/value localStorage and since Chrome 5, sessionStorage for web applications. Also supports HTML 5 Native Media such as the video element.
Tabs are first class citizens in Chrome with each protected by a sandbox to prevent unwarranted scripts and programs interacting with other tabs or the operating system. It improves memory management too as each tab is handled by its own computer process rather than one process for the whole browser. If one Chrome tab crashes, the rest of the browser continues to run. Anti-phishing and Anti-Malware is also supported. An Incognito tab allows private browsing without any history saved.
For Web Authors you can use the WebInspector (right click some text on the webpage and click Inspect Element) to view syntax coloured source code of webpages, stylesheets and scripts; view the webpage as a full Document Object Model and applied styles lists. In 'Pages' toolbar button, Developer menu are the JavaScript Console, debug JavaScript, View Source, etc.
If you opt-in, Google Chrome can collect information to improve searches and browsing.
Plus extensions and themes support as well as a built in Flash Player 10.1.
Version 6 will have support for WebM audio and video.
Other Chromium based browsers
Iron is a browser from the German company SRWare. It is currently version 5 for Windows, 4 for Linux and so based on Google's Chromium 5 and 4 open source project. Iron 5 is a Crystal Level browser. There is a beta for the Mac..
This browser has support for full SVG Filters, Chromium Extensions, Ad Blocking, but does not support Web Storage's sessionStorage. Also Iron only has OGG Theora and Vorbis for Native Media support.
Features that urgently need to be added to the Chromium Project
- Expose HTML 5 Native audio and video to the keyboard for accessible controls.
Features that need to be added to the Chromium Project
- For CSS:
- Support for Web Open Font Format (.woff);
- From HTML 5:
- SVG inline in text/html documents;
- Transparent background of SVG Documents brought in with
objectneeds to allow HTML webpage background through instead of white matte; - More HTML 5 Forms extra
inputtypes and improved form validation support; mark,time,progress,meter,figure,figcaption,detailsandsummaryelements;- Seamless iframes;
- From SVG:
- Support for rest of Filters;
- Support for more XHTML in SVG;
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