WebKitGTK+ 2.18.0 Brings WebDriver Support, Remote Inspector & Kinetic Scrolling

Adding to the new features of GNOME 3.26 are many additions found within WebKitGTK+ 2.18, the GNOME port of the WebKit rendering engine used by Epiphany and other GNOME web projects.

There are many interesting additions with WebKitGTK+ 2.18 including kinetic scrolling support, GStreamerGL being enabled by default with GStreamer 1.10+, new remote inspector infrastructure, and initial WebDriver support.

The WebDriver support is interesting and allows easily automating/scripting interactions with the browser. WebDriver is just geared for WebKit-based browsers. Details on the WebDriver WebKitGTK+ support via this blog post. When time magically allows I would like to investigate the feasibility of using it for some automated browser benchmarks.

On the developer front the WebCrypto API is now enabled by default. Additionally, there are APIs to allow overriding the popup menu of select elements and to create a WebKitContextMenuItem from a GAction.

More details on the WebKitGTK+ updates for the GNOME 3.26 cycle via this mailing list post. GNOME 3.26.0 is due for release on Wednesday.