Linux Chrome with Gtk+: Cross-Platform Complication

Feb 19, 2009

If Google were to use Qt, things would be much simpler and Chrome would have a unified interface under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. But Google isn't satisfied with Qt.

Release of the native Linux version of the Google Chrome browser is still planned for June 2009. Unfortunately, more problems than first anticipated keep cropping up. According to recent OSnews, they mainly have to do with the graphical interface.

Google uses an internal views library for Chrome's user interface that enables, for example, placement of tabs in the title bar with the idea of adhering to the Chrome principles "simple, unobtrusive, fast." Because Chrome was never from the start conceived as multi-platform software (how would it otherwise have come to the idea of using WinHTTP), the views were never ported to Linux or Mac. Google had already decided a long time ago not to use views for the Mac version, but to rely instead on a completely native version of Chrome based on Cocoa. For Linux, Chrome hacker Evan Martin suggests three possible options:

1) As close to Windows as possible, porting views.
2) As close to native as possible, avoiding views.
3) Something in the middle, hacking views.

Martin eliminates 1 right from the get-go, calls 2 "insane, becoming more tempting," but prefers option 3. Meanwhile, Chrome project lead Ben Goodger has slipped into the discussion to explain why Chrome decided against Qt as a cross-platform solution and chose Gtk+ instead. More details on Goodger's views here.

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