using xvfb instead of a gui display

Kirk Reiser kirk at reisers.ca
Mon Apr 20 21:26:28 EDT 2015


Hello Tom: Both wb and clifox are text based browsers that try to
support javascript and ajax. Clifox is based around xvfb and
firefox/iceweasel etc. Wb is strictly text based. They both are
written in python. Wb uses pyv8 to interface to v8 which is googles
javascript interpreter. They are both very rough in that there are
many browser features that are not implemented yet such as bookmarks
and file downloading. I would say that clifox is more advanced because
it uses mostly features built into firefox so plays youtube videos etc
quite decently.

As far as I know there are only a few people that use either of these
browsers. I use them everyday but my web page needs are quite simple
and I use elinks for most my browsing where I need to be able to
download files and mark pages. I keep telling myself I need to work on
them more diligently but the fact is that without more people helping
and interested in them I find other things to occupy my time.

You can find wb at: git clone http://linux-speakup.org/wb.git
u can find clifox at: git clone http://bmcginty.us/clifox.git

The documentation is also pretty rough. There are installation scripts
for both but I'm not sure you really need the one for clifox if you do
a git checkout new after cloning. You just need to install your
distributions xvfb and firefox equivolent packages. In debian that is
iceweasel. I'm not sure what it is in other distros. Once those are
installed I think you may be able to just run the 'run' script. Wb is
much more involved to get set-up and running because it depends on a
bunch of other python packages.

There is a mailing list which is extremely low traffic that can be
joined by sending mail to wb-subscribe at linux-speakup.org. We use the
same list for both programs.

If you have any other questions just let me know. I apologize for the
delay in responding but I needed to wait until I could take the time
to answer in some detail.

On Thu, 16 Apr 2015, Tom Fowle wrote:

> Hi Kirk ET all,
> could someone provide a brief explanation for a not-really programmer
> about
> WB and CLIFOX
> and/or where to find such info?
>
> I too would be thrilled with a command line browser with java
> I just ain't got it to learn orca and gnome GUI's are forced upon us,
> not
> desired!
>
>  Tom Fowle
>  wa6ivgtf at fastmail.fm
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015, at 11:55 AM, Kirk Reiser wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Apr 2015, Hart Larry wrote:
>> 
>> > to get used to Orca. But also, there is a "wb" project, which I would love to 
>> > install, however, another LUG member was not happy that you need to install 
>> > as 
>> > root. Also he says it doesn't use auto tools, so exactly what are easy steps 
>> > of 
>> > installing "wb"? Thanks in advance
>> > Hart
>> 
>> Although you do need to install some of the base packages such as with
>> xvfb and iceweasel for clifox or dependancy packages for python with
>> pip or easyinstall, you don't need to be root to run either wb or
>> clifox. In that fashion they are exactly the same as all other
>> packages. For one that is savvy wb can be totally installed and run as
>> a regular user but you need to install all the packages and compile as
>> a normal user.
>> 
>> At this stage they are not really at the point where one can just
>> install with aptitude or apt-get and go. In fact, unless more
>> developers get interested and involved they'll never be at that level.
>>
>>    Kirk
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Well that's it then, colour me gone!
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-- 
Well that's it then, colour me gone!


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