KHTML

KHTML was preceded by an earlier engine called khtmlw or the KDE HTML Widget, developed by Torben Weis and Martin Jones,{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tldf1rT0Rn0 |title=Lars Knoll and George Staikos: From KDE to WebKit |date=26 August 2011 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=1 September 2019}}{{cite web |url=https://github.com/KDE/kde1-kdelibs |title=KDE/kde1-kdelibs/khtmlw |website=GitHub |language=en |access-date=2020-01-23}} which implemented support for HTML 3.2, HTTP 1.0, and HTML frames, but not the DOM, CSS, or JavaScript.

KHTML itself came into existence on November 4, 1998, as a fork of the khtmlw library, with some slight refactoring and the addition of Unicode support and changes to support the move to Qt 2. Waldo Bastian{{cite web |url=https://behindkde.org/node/37/ |title=Waldo Bastian | Behind KDE |website=Behindkde.org |access-date=1 September 2019 |archive-date=11 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230411095409/https://behindkde.org/node/37/ |url-status=dead }} was among those who did the work of creating that early version of KHTML.

The real work on KHTML actually started between May and October 1999, with the realization that the choice facing the project was "either do a significant effort to move KHTML forward or to use Mozilla" and with adding support for JavaScript as the highest priority. So in May 1999, Lars Knoll{{cite web |url=https://behindkde.org/node/145/ |title=Lars Knoll | Behind KDE |website=Behindkde.org |access-date=1 September 2019}} began doing research with an eye toward implementing the DOM specification, finally announcing{{cite web |url=https://marc.info/?l=kfm-devel&m=93489518402924 |title='changes in KHTML' - MARC |website=Marc.info |access-date=1 September 2019}} on August 16, 1999 that he had checked in{{cite web |url=https://marc.info/?l=kde-commits&m=93476738632582 |title='khtml_to_dom: kdelibs/khtml' - MARC |website=Marc.info |access-date=1 September 2019}} what amounted to a complete rewrite of the KHTML library—changing KHTML to use the standard DOM as its internal document representation. That in turn allowed the beginnings of JavaScript support to be added in October 1999, followed shortly afterwards with the integration of KJS by Harri Porten.

In the closing months of 1999 and first few months of 2000, Knoll did further work with Antti Koivisto and Dirk Mueller{{cite web |url=http://trac.webkit.org/projects/webkit/wiki/WebKit%20Team#AnttiKoivistoanttikreview |title=WebKit Team – WebKit |website=Trac.webkit.org |access-date=1 September 2019}}{{cite web |url=https://behindkde.org/node/211/ |title=Dirk Mueller | Behind KDE |website=Behindkde.org |access-date=1 September 2019}} to add CSS support and to refine and stabilize the KHTML architecture, with most of that work being completed by March 2000. Among other things, those changes enabled KHTML to become the second browser after Internet Explorer to correctly support Hebrew and Arabic and languages written right-to-left—before Mozilla had such support.

KDE 2.0 was the first KDE release (on October 23, 2000) to include KHTML{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tldf1rT0Rn0 |title=Lars Knoll and George Staikos: From KDE to WebKit |date=26 August 2011 |publisher=YouTube |access-date=1 September 2019}} (as the rendering engine of the new Konqueror file and web browser, which replaced the monolithic KDE File Manager).

KSVG was first developed in 2001 by Nikolas Zimmermann and Rob Buis; however, by 2003, it was decided to fork the then-current KSVG implementation into two new projects: KDOM/KSVG2 (to improve the state of DOM rendering in KHTML underneath a more formidable SVG 1.0 render state) and Kcanvas (to abstract any rendering done within khtml/ksvg2 in a single shared library, with multiple backends for it, e.g., Cairo/Qt, etc.).[http://mlblog.osdir.com/kde.devel.ksvg/2005-01/msg00004.shtml]{{dead link|date=March 2018|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}

KSVG2 is also a part of WebKit.{{cite web|url=http://webkit.org/projects/svg/|title=The WebKit Open Source Project|website=Webkit.org|date=7 November 2015 |access-date=1 September 2019}}

KHTML was scheduled to be removed in KDE Frameworks 6.{{cite web |url=https://phabricator.kde.org/T11543| title=Port Konqueror away from KHTML|website=phabricator.kde.org|access-date=2023-05-05}} Active development ended in 2016, just the necessary maintenance to work with updates to Frameworks 5. It was officially discontinued in 2023.

The following standards are supported by the KHTML engine:

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• HTML 4.01
• HTML 5 support
• CSS 1
• CSS 2.1 (screen and paged media)
• CSS 3 Selectors (fully as of KDE 3.5.6{{cite web|url=http://www.kde.org/announcements/changelogs/changelog3_5_5to3_5_6.php|title=KDE 3.5.6 Changelog|publisher=K Desktop Environment}})
• CSS 3 Other (multiple backgrounds, box-sizing and text-shadow)
• PNG, MNG, JPEG, GIF graphic formats
• DOM 1, 2 and partially 3
• ECMA-262/JavaScript 1.5
• Partial Scalable Vector Graphics support

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{{Main|WebKit#Origins}}

KHTML and KJS were adopted by Apple in 2002 for use in the Safari web browser. Apple publishes the source code for their fork of the KHTML engine, called WebKit. In 2013, Google began development on a fork of WebKit, called Blink.{{cite web|url=https://blog.chromium.org/2013/04/blink-rendering-engine-for-chromium.html|title=Blink: A rendering engine for the Chromium project|website=Blog.chromium.org|access-date=1 September 2019}}

{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}

• {{section link|List of web browsers|KHTML-based}}
• Comparison of browser engines

{{Reflist|2}}

• [https://apps.kde.org/konqueror/ Web Browser] – the Konqueror website
• [https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Architecture/KDE3/KHTML KHTML – KDE's HTML library] – description at developer.kde.org
• [https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/khtml KHTML at the KDE git repository]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tldf1rT0Rn0 From KDE to WebKit: The Open Source Engine That's Here to Stay] – presentation at Yahoo! office by Lars Knoll and George Staikos on December 8, 2006 (video)

{{Browser engines}}

{{KDE}}

Category:1999 software

Category:Free layout engines

Category:Free software programmed in C++

Category:KDE Frameworks

Category:KDE Platform