HTML5 Broadway Backend Is Seeing Renewed Attention Ahead Of GTK 4.0

It's been a while since last hearing anything about the GNOME/GTK Broadway back-end that provides HTML5-based user-interfaces for rendering within web browsers. The HTML5 Broadway work has been revived ahead of the GTK 4.0 tool-kit release.

The Broadway back-end has needed several adjustments to the rearchitecting that has gone on for the GTK4 tool-kit. These GTK4 changes have been to make modern GPU-based rendering more suitable in an OpenGL and Vulkan world but has made some Broadway changes more difficult and other areas easier. GTK4's Broadway back-end makes more use of the GTK native CSS, turns render nodes into actual DOM nodes, and even supporting 3D transforms via CSS.

For those curious and wanting to learn more, see this blog post by one of Red Hat's prolific GNOME contributors, Alexander Larsson.