As part of Qt 4.4 we have now made our very first release!

Shortly before the release we finished merging all our changes back to the Subversion trunk branch, where we are working directly now. We will continue to maintain and bugfix the code in the Qt 4.4.x release series, but we try to make the changes in trunk first and then backport changes as they fit.

Our current goal is to catch up with the architectural changes that happened in trunk and maintain the layout tests. Holger for example fixed the HTML Canvas after some internal API changes. Ariya started working on Netscape plugins for Windows and Tor Arne I heard is polishing a secret feature he’s been semi-secretly working on for a while now in not-so-secret trunk. I heard rumors that he’s going to secretly blog about the secret feature soon, so stay tuned.

Big props also to Marc and the guys at Collabora for landing the initial support for Netscape plugins for the X11 Qt and Gtk ports in WebKit trunk! Great job!

On the application side Urs Wolfer’s Google Summer of Code project for integrating QtWebKit into KDE has been accepted. Congrats Urs! Feel free to stop by in #webkit and bug us if you have questions

Security is a top priority for the WebKit project. As contributors to the project have grown, it has become apparent that we need a process for safely reporting security vulnerabilities to the WebKit project in addition to the process for reporting vulnerabilities to Apple. Today, we are announcing a new mailing list for this purpose, security@webkit.org. In addition, you can now safely report vulnerabilities over https to our bug tracker, https://bugs.webkit.org, by placing the bug in the Security component. The people privy to the mailing list and the Security component are members of the Security group. It currently includes vendors shipping products that include WebKit, active port owners and trusted security experts. If you are shipping a product that includes WebKit and would like to be notified of security issues, please email security@webkit.org.

WebKit now supports reflections in CSS. Continuing the trend of using adorable baby photos to make features appear more impressive, let me introduce Kate again.

A reflection is a replica of the original object with its own specific transform and mask. The box-reflect property can be used to specify the specialized transform and mask that should be used for the replica.

-webkit-box-reflect: <direction> <offset> <mask-box-image>

<direction> can be one of above, below, left or right.
<offset> is a length or percentage that specifies the distance of the reflection from the edge of the original border box (using the direction specified). It can be omitted, in which case it defaults to 0.
<mask-box-image> is a mask-box-image that can be used to overlay the reflection. If omitted, the reflection has no mask.

Reflections will update automatically as the source changes. If you hover over links, you’ll see the hover effect happen in the reflection. If you reflect the <video> element, you will see the video playing in the reflection.

Giving an element a reflection has the effect of creating a stacking context (so it joins opacity, masks and transforms). The reflection is non-interactive, so from the point of view of hit testing, it’s like it isn’t there. The reflection will have no effect on layout (other than being part of a container’s overflow), and can be thought of as similar to box-shadow in this respect.

The example above uses a gradient mask. Here is the sample code:

<img src=”bubbles.jpg” style=”border:5px solid white;-webkit-box-reflect:below 5px -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(transparent), color-stop(0.5, transparent), to(white));”>

Arora

The demo browser in Qt 4.4 has obtained a lot of attention and interest. Now that 4.4 is almost out I have forked it and started a new project called Arora where development can continue, features can be added, and anyone who wants can contribute. The source code is in a Git repository and is currently hosted on github. Along with some improvements and features there are autotest and manual tests. Git (and GitHub) makes it pretty easy for new developers to a project to fork off a branch to develop features that can be later merged back into the project. Feel free to grab the source and add the feature that you miss the most or take one of the fun items off the TODO list. To any artists out there we need an icon to match the new name. Given that this is a fork of the demo future news on Arora will be on the project’s home page or on the Arora blog.

QtWebKit & WebKit trunk

In an effort to stabilize QtWebKit before the 4.4 release QtWebKit was forked from WebKit about six months ago. This is why the acid3 test score in Qt4.4 didn’t match the latest Safari. Now that 4.4 is almost out the door work has begun on integrating the changes into WebKit trunk for 4.5. Not everything is in yet, but already a lot works and it is very exciting. I’ll let this screen shot speak for itself:

The remaining failing tests mostly relate to SVG Fonts. If you are interested in helping out feel free to join #webkit or #qtwebkit on freenode. Instructions on how to build Arora with QtWebKit trunk can be found in the Arora source wiki page.