Question

I want to make a web browser in Vala using webkit.

But, I don’t know how to make it multi-process.

I want each tab to have its own process.

How can I do that using Vala and Gtk+.

Thanks for your answer.

Answer 1

Check out Gtk.Plug and Gtk.Socket. You’ll need to put a Gtk.Socket in each tab you open. Then spawn a process using one of the GLib.Process functions, and in that process construct a Gtk.Plug containing your WebView. Then you’ll need some way of inter-process communication, for one thing to connect your plug to your socket, and to pass commands from your user-interface to the webview (such as “make the font larger”).

It looks like the Vala documentation doesn’t contain very much explanation, you might want to check out the C documentation for more information on how plugs and sockets work.

EDIT:

You asked for more information on inter-process communication. There are several ways, and I’m not sure which one is the most appropriate for you. Perhaps you can try GLib.Process.spawn_async_with_pipes() to start your child process and get file descriptors for the child’s standard input and output. You can then pass these file descriptors to GLib.IOChannel.unix_new() to pass messages back and forth between your processes.

Another way is to use DBus, but that’s more complicated and less documented.