Gecko rendering better ?!

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Gecko rendering better ?!
by Anders on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @00:09

I really don't understand it when people claims that Gecko renders pages better than KHTML. Most webpages looks better in KHTML than in Gecko on my desktop, as long as KHTML does not choke on the HTML. As I see it, this is because of more "compatibility patches" in Gecko and wider acceptance in webmaster circles leading to less incompatible HTML and JavaScript using it.
But KHTML is surely the superior renderer from an aestethic POV.

I use Firefox mainly for my webbank, because of the lack of support for secure java applets in konqueror. I also use Firefox on rare occations when pages i need to use is giving Javascript problems. Apart from that I'd prefer Konqueror anytime.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Anonymous on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @01:10

> lack of support for secure java applets in konqueror

Hu? http://www.konqueror.org/javahowto/ "Getting HTTPS support for Applets"

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Anders on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @01:53

The HOWTO is out of date. It refers to ancient java versions. It seems that I need to install the java sdk from sun, which I'm now trying, since sun jdk 1.4.2 does not seem to conatin the required files. The jsse page at sun claims that it has been integrated with the 1.4 sdk. Eeew, HUGE downloads probably for nothing :(
But I try.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by koos on Friday 08/Oct/2004, @03:59

Yes somebody should update that docu :-).
Btw. in kde > 3.2 if you enable 'Use KIO', the jsse isn't used because KIO download all code then.
Btw2. secure applets can also mean that these applets should get more privileges than 'normal' ones, like accessing you hard drive. There is some code for it in kde 3.3, but not finished and hardly tested. (If someone wants to give a helping hand, like the certificate chain verification, that would be really nice)

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Samuel on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @01:34

Being a webmaster myself I believe I have the expertise to tell about the quality of rendering. Stating the KHTML renders better then Gecko is only proof that you have never created a CSS-based site for KHTML. They still have *way* to go before the CSS engine will become really useful.
It took us *weeks* to find workarounds for KHTML's weaknesses. You can not seriously state that KHTML renders better then Gecko.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Anders on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @01:57

Well, what I mean is that what I see on my screen looks better using konqueror.
I'm using mozilla right now, and the drawing (is that a better term than rendering then) is terrible.
I se only very few sites where konqueror falls short due to CSS, but maybe my browsing is too limited. I have never had any problems myself though, with the relatively simple sayout that I like.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Jon Ingram on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @04:44

There are several fairly simple CSS rendering bugs with Konq.

As one example, there's a fairly obvious bug which you can see on many pages that use absolutely positioned elements (yes, it's in the bug reporting system, and has been for a year or so). I use these to implement page-number sidenotes on all the HTML editions of Project Gutenberg texts which I produce. As a result of Konq's flaws, these are much less readable in Konq than in any other modern browser.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Zooplah on Thursday 07/Oct/2004, @17:59

I love Konqueror the file manager, but dislike the browser. The browser's just really poor at rendering pages, and it's a little too integrated with the FM. For example, I like HTML documents to open in a text editor in the FM, but that behavior isn't exactly desirable for browsing.

I'm not hoping that KHTML development will stop, but I'm hoping that these absurd contentions about it being better at displaying web pages than Mozilla and Opera would.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Boudewijn Rempt on Friday 08/Oct/2004, @01:36

I have this nagging feeling that it's Novell's fault that there's not enough manpower on KHTML. They could easily afford one or two developers to work fulltime on KHTML -- maybe even stretch it to three. One for dhtml, one for css2 and one to integrate Apple's work.

That way, they wouldn't have to shed crocodile tears about KHTML and they wouldn't be stuck with taking shortcuts, but could plan for the long term.

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by Birdy on Friday 08/Oct/2004, @03:28

And one or two KMail develoers, two or three for KDevelop and of corse they should hire 10-20 KOffice developers. Or simply about 200 KDE developers. Why don't they hire > 5000 developers to outflank MS?
Maybe they have to look at their costs?!?

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Re: Gecko rendering better ?!
by koos on Friday 08/Oct/2004, @04:09

Well, they already hired the KTop developer :-)
But seriously, you're right. Some guys, Waldo, David, etc, are really the people that bring KDE to a higher level, obviously not the one interviewed.

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Gecko is better than the old engine but..........
by David W Studeman on Saturday 09/Oct/2004, @22:48

Lately I find myself using khtml by way of Konqueror 90% of the time. Konqueror needs a little bit more profile differences between web and file browsing but the khtml itself has been getting a big boost by the Mac people who are using the code to make a new IE free web browser and putting the changes back in the tree for KDE to use. The Konqueror interface itself needs an easy way to set different home pages and button layouts for both profiles but the khtml rendering these days is awesome! Not many people use the gecko engine in Konqueror which is simply a menu click away as long as the gecko bindings were installed and there is a gecko based browser installed. I wonder when a khtml based browser will show up for windows? I know one will exist in Mac very soon if it doesn't exist already. I use Konqi for banking as well but not with a native agent string as many do not recognize it even though it says "Mozilla 5 compatible" but the Konqueror name throws it off.

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