General/WebCore is a framework for Mac OS X that takes the cross-platform KHTML library (part of the KDE project) and combines it with an adapter library specific to General/WebCore called KWQ that makes it work with Mac OS X technologies. KHTML is written in C++ and KWQ is written in Objective C++, but General/WebCore presents an Objective C programming interface. General/WebCore requires the General/JavaScriptCore framework.
The current version of General/WebCore is based on the KHTML library from KDE 3.0.2. Changes that are specific to General/WebCore are marked with #if APPLE_CHANGES. Other changes to improve performance and web page compatibility are intended for integration into future versions of the KHTML library.
– http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webcore/
General/WebCore is not intended for third party application developers to write directly to. If you just want to drop HTML rendering into your Cocoa application, use General/WebKit - General/WebCore is quite low-level in comparison (the General/OmniGroup use it directly in General/OmniWeb because it gives them greater flexibility, but it took Tim quite a long time to figure it out enough to be able to use it).
It seems that the interesting class is General/WebCoreBridge. You can install it in an General/NSView and tell it to open a URL. Has anyone tried it using yet? –General/PeterLindberg
You can also try running class-dump on General/WebKit.framework and General/WebFoundation.framework inside Safari. They include a subclass of General/NSView to hold HTML rendered content. –General/OwenAnderson
I don’t get it: all headers in General/WebCore.framework are private. How are you supposed to use it? –General/PeterLindberg
If you download the source code, the headers are available. –General/GormanChristian
You can also extract the headers from the binary framework using class-dump. Just include the generated header and link against General/WebCore.framework. –General/OwenAnderson
I realized that you can import the headers even though they are in General/PrivateHeaders, but it doesn’t matter that much: General/WebCoreBridge is an abstract class that is subclassed in General/WebKit, a framework private to Safari. I guess/hope that General/WebKit (or an equivalent) will become a public framework eventually. My take is that they released the framework more as an illustration of what they have done with KHTML. You can’t use (without a lot of trial and error) the framework as it is. –General/PeterLindberg
You can use the class-dump trick on General/WebKit.framework also, and get a complete list of the classes in there. An industrious hacker might be able to assemble something out of it. –General/OwenAnderson
Class dumping and relying on a private framework is not an option for me, especially since Safari is in beta. I guess the rationale of keeping General/WebKit private is that it should stabilize as Safari evolves into 1.0., after which it can be made public. Until then, Apple are free to make dramatic changes to the interfaces. When it is made public, users must be able to rely on the framework, so that a future version doesn’t break their apps. I’m reluctant to use anything but public frameworks. –General/PeterLindberg
See General/SafariAndCocoa for more discussion along the same lines. Something along the lines of General/WebKit is coming to Cocoa, according to the ADC News e-mail (quoted on the other page).
Please elaborate on using a header generated from class-dump. I am interested to hear how that works. Do you just import the gargantuan header file it generates into a PB project and then just link against the framework? Does that give you access to all of the classes and such defined in the “header file”? –General/MarcWeil
Yes. Another option is to split it up into other header files, but that would be tedious, and PB’s class browser is a nice alternative to that.
And General/WebKit itself is indeed going to be released. I don’t know if it too will be open source, but it will eventually at least be a public framework. I posted a little about that (including David Hyatt’s two-sentence reply to my inquiry about that) on the General/SafariAndCocoa page.
– General/AdamAtlas
It looks like General/TheOmniGroup figured it out- General/OmniWeb 4.5 is using it, and they’re already providing semi-functional sneakypeek builds. Hmmm…
– General/AdamAtlas
I think General/OmniGroup has produced a more “pumped up” version of General/WebKit, that General/OmniWeb uses. It to is availble to Users. –General/JoshaChapmanDodson
Where and how? (General/URLs appreciated.)
Check out http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/Source/General/MacOSX/Frameworks/ and download the General/WebCore dmg.