WebRender newsletter(mozillagfx.wordpress.com)
mozillagfx.wordpress.com
WebRender newsletter
https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/webrender-newsletter-1/
15 comments
Strictly speaking, Stylo and WebRender fall under the Quantum project umbrella, as "Quantum CSS" and "Quantum Render", respectively. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum has details. (The names are definitely confusing!)
Also, Quantum Flow is not so small! It's actually now the part of Quantum that's getting the highest priority and most resources. It doesn't involved any single component, but is rather a focused effort to relentlessly profile Firefox on real-world workloads and eliminate as many noticeable slowdowns (jank, stutters, pauses, spinning beachballs, etc.) as possible. It's been hugely effective, with noticeable speed-ups in each release from Firefox 54 to 57. Ehsan Akhgari's blog has more details: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog
Also, Quantum Flow is not so small! It's actually now the part of Quantum that's getting the highest priority and most resources. It doesn't involved any single component, but is rather a focused effort to relentlessly profile Firefox on real-world workloads and eliminate as many noticeable slowdowns (jank, stutters, pauses, spinning beachballs, etc.) as possible. It's been hugely effective, with noticeable speed-ups in each release from Firefox 54 to 57. Ehsan Akhgari's blog has more details: https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog
For those that might not know WebRender is the project to merge the Rust-based parallel GPU-based web rendering backend from the experimental Servo browser with Firefox. This should ultimately result in greatly improved rendering speed for Firefox.
A few nits on your description: WebRender is the library which performs parallel GPU-based rendering of web content and was initially developed as an experimental backend for Servo. Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox.
> Quantum is the name of the project which aims to merge Servo components into Firefox.
Quantum is more general than that: it's a project that aims to vastly improve Gecko through incremental improvement. Some of that involves taking Servo components, but other parts don't. (including Quantum DOM, separating JS runtimes into different threads instead of having one per content process; and Quantum Flow aiming at user-perceived performance).
Quantum is more general than that: it's a project that aims to vastly improve Gecko through incremental improvement. Some of that involves taking Servo components, but other parts don't. (including Quantum DOM, separating JS runtimes into different threads instead of having one per content process; and Quantum Flow aiming at user-perceived performance).
That's really interesting. I was curious about Servo, but it ultimately ran terribly for me and so I (in my bustle) deigned it an experiment too early to spend time assessing -- since I'm not very experience with Rust.
Do you have any good resources here -- if for nothing else but to feed my, and anybody else's curiosity?
Do you have any good resources here -- if for nothing else but to feed my, and anybody else's curiosity?
I was particularly impressed by the short rendering demos in this talk: https://youtu.be/UGl9VVIOo3E?t=977
I really hope Servo will be the next generation browser engine.
I really hope Servo will be the next generation browser engine.
Thanks!
For anyone else wondering about the difference between "gfx.webrender.enabled" and "gfx.webrendest.enabled": https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1365418
"gfx.webrender.enabled" enables WebRender and "gfx.webrendest.enabled" toggles on some more advanced features on top of the base level.
"gfx.webrender.enabled" enables WebRender and "gfx.webrendest.enabled" toggles on some more advanced features on top of the base level.
even more clearly:
webrender is "the stuff that works pretty ok and we can run through CI". In principle enabling webrender should get you the ~same results as not having it on, visually, modulo a few known bugs.
webrendest is "everything we're working on, no matter how broken"
It's a pretty big project so there's lots of stuff in tree that's barely functional (especially true with the layers-free pivot).
webrender is "the stuff that works pretty ok and we can run through CI". In principle enabling webrender should get you the ~same results as not having it on, visually, modulo a few known bugs.
webrendest is "everything we're working on, no matter how broken"
It's a pretty big project so there's lots of stuff in tree that's barely functional (especially true with the layers-free pivot).
Suggestion: The first paragraph of every newsletter should have a brief one-or-two-line description of what WebRenderer is.
I clicked on the Quantum Flow and Photon newsletters and those don't describe what they are at all. I have a general idea of what Quantum Flow is already, but I have no idea what Photon is.
I clicked on the Quantum Flow and Photon newsletters and those don't describe what they are at all. I have a general idea of what Quantum Flow is already, but I have no idea what Photon is.
Sorry about that. Photon is a Design and User Experience refresh for Firefox 57, currently available in nightly builds.
Isn't a newsletter for those who already know about it and what it is and want to be informed about its progress?
Just because it gets linked from HN doesn't mean it has to act as introductory page.
Good newsletters that excite the recipients will inevitably get linked to people not already familiar with the topic, and by ignoring them you're passing up on one of the best ways to get new people excited about your thing. A 1-2 line blurb can be very effective and there's really no reason not to do it.
For anyone wandering what WebRender actually is or does
https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki
https://github.com/servo/webrender/wiki
- Stylo, the new CSS styling engine currently enabled for a percentage of Nightly users
- WebRender, a new GPU-based rendering engine that's currently in much earlier stages
- Quantum, an initiative to improve Firefox's real and perceived performance (there's a bunch of smaller initiatives that compose this, like Quantum Flow and Quantum DOM)
- Photon, a project to redesign and modernise the Firefox UI
Most (but not all) of these projects are aiming to ship with Firefox 57 later this year, but you can check them out now in Nightly. I've been using it for a few weeks and the difference is really night and day, huge props to all the Firefox contributors.