Web Browsers And Packages

Release: 2010-07-13
Jump to Web Standards Articles TOC

Apple Safari and other Apple WebKit based browsers

 Apple's WebKit version 533 is an open-source, Crystal Level web platform originally based on KHTML and KJS parts of the K Desktop Environment (KDE). WebCore layout engine provides the HTML, XML and CSS while the Nitro scripting virtual machine provides JavaScript support. The improved WebKit provides cutting-edge, web-standards support available for web browsers and web-enabled applications. WebKit 533 supports:

• HTML 4.01 (HyperText Markup Language);
• HTML 5 'Subset';
• label attribute for option elements;
• Ruby Annotation (HTML 5) (WebKit 533);
• HTML 5's <meta charset="">;
• ' named character reference;
• HTML 5's section, article, aside, nav, header, footer and hgroup elements (WebKit 533);
• keygen element;
• HTML 5 Forms's <input type="range"> and <input type="search">, form validation support for extra types;
• contenteditable and spell checking support (but not spellcheck attribute);
• canvas Element;
• HTML 5's audio, video and source elements;
• HTML 5 Offline Web Applications support (AppCache, applicationCache API and Events, manifest attribute, manifest format, navigator.onLine property, 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 (and .icns in Mac OS X only)), 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 (as of WebKit 522), TextEvents DOM 3 (as of WebKit 523), Bits of DOM 5 HTML exposes documents to scripting interaction;
• JavaScript 1.4, and as of WebKit 420, JavaScript 1.6 (without multiple catches) and since WebKit 533: 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 children property (523);
• In WebKit 525, to compliment cookies, Web SQL Database Storage allow local database performance and capacity with SQLite, and its support for SQL, to store information beyond the abilities of cookies;
• In WebKit 530, Web Storage's sessionStorage and localStorage allow local database performance and capacity with SQLite for name/value pairs.

Canvas feature support includes:

• Stroke and fill colours;
• Rectangles;
• Paths;
• rgba/hsla colours;
• Text;
• Shadows (not on objects with gradients);
• 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 (since WebKit 533);
• Multiple Background Images and the opacity property for full gradient transparency;
• some -webkit- properties such as -webkit-border-radius, -webkit-box-sizing;
• (WebKit 525:) Multiple Column Layout, CSS Gradients, Masks, Box Reflections, Animation, Transitions, 2D Transforms and some 3D Transforms support with -webkit- prefix;
• text-shadow, -webkit-box-shadow;
• ::selection pseudo-element selector, Structural pseudo-class selectors (like :nth-child, :not, :empty, :first-of-type, etc), :enabled, :disabled and :checked UI state pseudo-class selectors, :target selector;
• @font-face At Rule with multiple src values, local() and format() functions (support for TrueType, OpenType fonts plus SVG Fonts since WebKit 533 on the desktop. Support for SVG Fonts only on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad);

Native Media format support includes:

• MPEG4 Video;
• H.264 Video;
• AAC / M4A Audio
• MP3 Audio
• Wave Audio
• AIFF Audio
• Apple Lossless Audio

SVG support includes:

• Groups, Titles, Descriptions, metadata, defs and use;
• Stroke and fill colours;
• 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);

In the realm of XML:

• eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 and 1.1 with Namespaces & XML-Stylesheet Processing Instruction (PI);
• eXtensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0, 1.1 (without Ruby Annotation) and Basic 1.0 (Earlier WebKit (419): did not support XHTML named entities beyond XML's built-in five.);
• 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 (WebKit 420+), now with advanced text (WebKit 525) and supports declarative and scripted animation (WebKit 530), does not support Filters;
• RSS and Atom news feed support (WebKit 419+);

provides an excellent platform for experiencing the World Wide Web.

WebKit 533 passes the Acid 2 Test which tests Cascade Stylesheet (CSS) support. More about the Acid 2 Test from the Web Standards Project (WASP).

WebKit 533 also clocks 100 out of 100, passing all tests and one test took 45 attempts, from the Acid 3 Test which 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) Safari and possibly other WebKit based UserAgents provide the following: On MS Windows you can tab through form controls in general. In order to tab through links and form controls in general you tick the Tab to highlight all items on a web page checkbox in the Safari Advanced Preferences. 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 either use option+tab or tick the Tab to highlight all items on a web page checkbox in the Safari Advanced Preferences.

Safari , iCab , Shiira , OmniWeb , Epiphany (WebKit Edition).

Copyright ©2005-2010 Legend Scrolls and Peter Davison. Konqueror logo from the Oxygen Icon Theme, LGPL, and PNG version of the Konqueror logo in the Oxygen Icon Theme from kde-look.org, GPL. All rights reserved.