I discontinued [lariza]:
https://www.uninformativ.de/blog/postings/2023-04-09/0/POSTING-en.html
It is just not a good use of my time. I cannot use it as my main
browser. It has always been problematic, but I kept hoping that things
would improve in later versions of WebKitGTK. That didn't happen. I
suspect that "the Web" just moves too fast and is too complex for
WebKitGTK to keep up. I don't blame the people behind WebKitGTK here.
As for [xiate], it will eventually have to be ported to GTK 4. I started
working on this today, because it looks like it is doable. I was quite
motivated to do this, because xiate is indeed the one and only terminal
that I use. It works very well for me.
I hit a road block very soon, though: The startup times of GTK 4
programs are very high. Unacceptably high for a terminal emulator.
That's even the case for the most simple "hello world" program that just
shows an empty window. If this doesn't change in later versions of GTK
4, then xiate will either remain on GTK 3 indefinitely or I'll be forced
to give up this project as well. Given that the underlying library, VTE,
is mainly intended to be used in GNOME's terminal, I suspect that they
won't support GTK 3 for a very long time anymore.
The only way I see to avoid these long startup times would be to go back
to a client-server model. That is, in fact, the default mode of
"GtkApplication" (so I wouldn't even have to implement this myself
anymore). I don't want that, though. xiate originally used that mode and
it comes with a major drawback: When the main process crashes, *all*
your terminal windows are gone. This is absolutely unacceptable.
I think I'll take a look at the state of affairs of other terminals ...
[lariza]:
https://www.uninformativ.de/git/lariza
[xiate]:
https://www.uninformativ.de/git/xiate
