Overview
Introduction#
Canonic is a free, open-source, browser based on and for Qt's QML UI language as well as various other file formats.
It is maintained by haikü and was originally built as a way to make deploying QML applications easier.
A live web app version of the browser is available to try at www.canonic.com, possibly making Canonic the worlds first browser within a browser thanks to the power of WebAssembly.
Alternatively you can clone the GitHub repo and build from source to use natively.
- Important! Canonic does not yet fully sandbox content it loads from the internet so only use natively if you know what your doing. See Qt's own docs on QML's Implications for Application Security before building natively. If this means nothing to you stick with the web app.
A few points to keep in mind:
- Canonic is currently a work in progress and should be considered pre-alpha, experimental software.
- WebAssembly is a relatively new platform for Qt and there is still a lot of work the Qt company is doing to make it stable (just see here).
- As you can imagine, as a result of [1] and [2], there are and will continue to be bugs and lots of them for a while yet. Please feel free to report any issues you run into while using Canonic here https://github.com/canonic/canonic/issues and I'll be happy to forward Qt specific problems over to the offical qt bug tracker.
🎯 Why build a browser for QML?#
Some of us prefer QML to HTML. I say this despite having spent several years over in the React space before moving to Qt.
React is awsome, typescript is great and I love the direction GraphQL is pushing things but QML is just better for UI development. So much better that I spent almost a year on Canonic just so I'd never have to worry HTML again.
Not convinced? Checkout the 2022 QML > HTML blog post for a more detailed comparision of the two. TODO
❔ Should I use Canonic?#
This depends on who you are and what interests you.
- If your a QML developer then yes! Absolutely! Make websites, internal wikis, QML games, this browser is literally designed for you.
- If your a developer looking to try out QML or if your interested in browsers, networking, or just tech in general then sure give it a try.
- If your reaction so far has been "Nevermind QML, whats a browser?" then Canonic is probably not the browser for you...
Regardless, if your still curious then here's what to expect from browsing the internet with Canonic:
- All the websites you know and use everyday like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are gone. HTML is not supported
- Theres also no Google, or any kind of search engine for that matter. You have to rely on website directories and links to find other QML sites.
- Most pages / sites are simple experiments and games, very few full fledged QML sites.
- A small community with a blank canvas. I'd imagine the vibe is similar to the pre-2000s era internet but with a better UI.
👉 Getting Started#
Does the above sound good? Then checkout the following links to get started: