Looking for some beta testers who use Linux for a multi-protocol browser I've been working on. https://waystone.njb1966.com Feedback is appreciated if decide to try it out.
Apr 19 · 3 weeks ago · 👍 flipperzero, SavaRocks, balloon, hglamp
14 Comments ↓
🚀 lars_the_bear · Apr 19 at 09:01:
If the software is a slick as the website, I'm sure it will be great :)
Sadly, it wouldn't start when I tried it. I installed the dependencies you listed, but I suspect more are required. Or maybe I'm just being dim. I logged a bug on GitHub, just in case it isn't just me being dim.
Incidentally, will you be supporting Markdown in your software? The more browsers that support it, the easier it will be for authors to use it if they want.
🍺 CalvusRex [OP] · Apr 19 at 13:42:
@lars_the_bear I'll check the bug log. As for Markdown I'll add it to be looked at in the future. THanks!
🚀 lars_the_bear · Apr 19 at 15:24:
@CalvusRex : it's probably not a bug; I just don't know to set up Python.
hei. just installed and run it on postmarketos (alpine) linux mobile phone and i was able to visit this forum and also https sites.
nice work!
btw. on my mobile screen the addressbar gets very tiny
cool i like the project structure. easy to navigate
😎 flipperzero · Apr 21 at 04:56:
I'm liking the client so far. I dig how minimal it is, but I hope it will have more customizable or feature toggleable settings.
Here's a note for anyone that is importing their cert: if you export it as a pem from lagrange, make sure to separate the key from the cert. Cut the sections from beginning to ending character of the "cert" block and save that as it's own cert.cer file. Leave the key block in the pem and combine the both as p12 using "openssl pkcs12 -export -inkey cert.pem -in cert.cer -out cert.p12" and enter a pass if you'd like (or not) to generate a valid p12 file to import. Took me some trial and error to make sure I was doing it right. Hope this helps anyone.
(posted using waystone :P)
😎 flipperzero · Apr 21 at 10:17:
Ok. So, I've spent some time playing around with some of the browser's features, testing the limits of capability. I've got some notes I went ahead and jotted down. Hopefully this helps to give a clear idea of what needs improvement.
Bug notes, feature requests:
(General)
- No immediate ability to open links in new tabs via right-click drop-down menu between gopher and gemini (web-only). No feature for mmb (middle-click) to open links in new tabs across protocols.
- Opening links from blank new tab eventually crashes browser.
- Bookmark imports are isolated only to html. No support for importing gopher or gemini-client based bookmarks.
- Web has support for playing audio and video in-browser capably while gemini and gopher are left without support. It seems counter-intuitive to not, at least, present the option if not to open a new tab with player for media file linked from gopher or gemini page to then have option to open the file piped to prefered program if not saved.
(Web)
- When importing bookmarks, no measure for progress. No indication for finished import. Takes opening and closing bookmark screen to update progress on visibly loaded bookmarks.
- No sub-directory support for branching folders to a main directory related to bookmarks.
- No apparent method to add site to bookmark bar. Bookmark bar seems to be unavailable, although causing a slight yet barely noticeable less than cm notch of occupied space underneath address bar. No way to right-click on site to add to bookmark bar, not from bookmark page, or from right-clicking options menu from a link.
- Real-time multimedia (e.g. audio, video) left playing in a tab then closed proceeds to keep playing after tab is already closed. No apparent way of cancelling out previous multimedia processes.
(Gemini)
- No successful cross-hotlinking between gemini, to web, or gopher. all links fail to load resulting in 502, refresh inconveniently reloads to the previous gemini page rather than refreshing the linked page clicked.
- Missing titan and/or spartan support for enabling capability for adding long text in posts as available in bbs.geminispace.org (i.e. provides "59 unspecified content length")
(Gopher)
- Same issue as above re:cross-hotlinking. Issue appears to apparently involve initial protocol intending to serve next protocol with former's parse expectations. (e.g. Gopher describing an unsupported gopher itemtype by specifying the first letter of the immediate sub-directory accessed to a gemini link)
🍺 CalvusRex [OP] · Apr 23 at 19:24:
@flipperzero, thanks. I am working on your suggestions and I seriously thank you for the detail and beta testing this for me!! Update coming soon at the git repo. Will post when it is ready!
🍺 CalvusRex [OP] · Apr 23 at 20:06:
@flipperzero, I believe I addressed all your bug notes/feature requests. Reinstall it from git, take it for a spin and let me how it handles.
😎 flipperzero · Apr 26 at 23:13:
@CalvusRex ack!! IDK how I managed to miss that you updated later that same day, caught 3 days later. X___X I've updated it now, and already I can see the hanging audio is fixed! Will be giving it all a shot and will report back in if any findings, or if even just gratitude for spending the time to work on this project. Thanks a bunch again for putting the time on making this run well.
😎 flipperzero · Apr 30 at 21:59:
I have a new bug report. It will be outlined in the lines below this passage:
bug status + thought bubbles
general
- bookmark buttons for importing and exporting do not seem to produce the file manager window to select from where to import or export. blank option.
- typing in URL with uri handler on blank tab always opens new tab with fetched resource instead of surfing to page right on current tab.(behavior appears consistent related to different protocol uri attempts while on current uri [e.g. gopher address while on gemini page, or gemini address while on web page.]
- [web page] (aggregated from various colleague observations') notice concerning LLM figure generation usage seems to be overtly reflected in git project page but not so clearly over main webpage, deserving better transparent disclosures.
- cross-protocol: on pages without navigation menu or home link (when unavailable), no clear way between web, gopher, and gemini to return to rootdoc path of currently loaded resource (tab-specific website, capsule, gopherhole session), or ability to hold-click navigation arrows to recursively select previous or (if previously tracked) successive loaded documents.
web
- middle-click for new tab seems to work for gemini and gopher, but not for web. clicks and loads resource within current tab instead.
- player for invidious sites seem to cut off play button (e.g. inv.nadeko.net, play still seems possible via clicking media player screen)
- full screen for media players seem to retain top address field and taskbar persistently appeared, between youtube and invidious.
- multiple search engine queries eventually lead to memory leak + cpu load usage spikes (better observable when a tab is present with media playing in the background while running searches in a different tab)
- leaving the browser on over night after playing media (as well as observing the search engine phenomena stated above) the binary crashes the entire environment, halting even peripheral input, leading to a required restart.
gemini
- cgi script which acts as proxied media stream does not seem to recognize by mimetype, pipe to transfer request, and prompt for media options (e.g. hashnix.club/cgi/hashnixradio.cgi)
- links with unicode 'emoji' or similar symbol prefixes do not seem to take button position in place of usual "arrow" space in bullet to link like conventional clients appear to
- attempting to upload input via titan request produces "Upload failed: Read error: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer" (i.e. attempting to edit a post in Bubble BBS with a "long text" block as an appended 2nd section).
- reloading a capsule loads the page from the bottom rather than starting at the top of the page.
gopher
- links with unicode symbol prefixes do not seem to take button position in place of usual "arrow" bullet to link like conventional clients appear to (similar to stated above re gemini)
🍺 CalvusRex [OP] · Apr 30 at 23:40:
@flipperzero Once again, thanks for the feedback. I'm going to get working on these as soon as I can. I'll update when I think I ahve them sorted out. 👍
🍺 CalvusRex [OP] · May 01 at 14:14:
@flipperzero I think I have adressed most of your pain points *thanks again). A couple of things will be hard for me to address (Invidious - need a live repro, and memory leak - needs profiling). The overnight crash is also a pain spot because of different GPU drivers and WebKit. I'll look into it more. As for LLM disclosure, I'll take that into consideration once I decide full release policy.
😎 flipperzero · May 01 at 16:00:
@CalvusRex you mad lad, you've done it, you really did it! The addresses on clear current tab loads up -right- on the same tab. I checked the cgi too, it goes through flawlessly! I'll test out other platforms across gemini and report back to you anything about dynamic file operations, integrations, script interactions, etc. Unfortunately, the long edit error still persists with the following error message:
I also notice this error message when attempting the long text edit button here, but without any text input:
which I imagine must correlate with what's going on related to the first message, I'd stand to reason anyhow. Anyways, for the most part, as you say it seems most of the bugs have been accounted for. I'll report anything else in if I run into it. Thank you again for your work on this! (Posted using waystone :P)