Conkeror

Axel Beckert

(Conkeror packager for Debian)

abe@debian.org
http://noone.org/abe/

Overview

  • What is Conkeror?
  • Philosophy / Design
  • History
  • Not enabled by default
  • What's still missing
  • Resources / Contact

What is Conkeror?

  • An Open Source project (Triple Licensed: MPL 1.1, GPL 2, LGPL 2.1)
  • A XULRunner Application (works with 1.9.x and 2.0.x) which started as Firefox Extension
  • A fast, keyboard focussed, and extensible web browser, designed with Emacs (Keybindings, Buffers, Layout, M-x, M-:) in mind.
  • Named after a beer, etymologically related to the game of conkers, which Conkeror now uses as theme

Philosophy / Design

  • Proactive, rather than reactive UI; deterministic behavior
  • Keyboard as a primary input device, mouse and other devices as secondary
  • Sophisticated input system (Links for Live Demo: Conkeror Index, Talks Index)
  • "By programmers, for programmers"; configured mainly with JavaScript

History

  • Started by Shawn Betts (of ratpoison fame) as Firefox Extension (vimperator is a fork of that) back in 2004
  • Rewrite as XULRunner application codenamed "conkeror-xr" in 2007 (around Firefox 1.5 and XULRunner 1.8) by John Foerch, current project lead
  • Hinting system modeled after Vimperator's
  • Included in at least Debian (since 5.0 Lenny), Ubuntu (since 9.10 Karmic), Gentoo, and Arch-Linux
  • Nightly Builds in .deb format for Debian, Ubuntu, etc. since 2009

Not enabled by default

  • Several so called page modes
  • Delicious support (needs configuration)
  • Wikipedia Webjumps (language configuration helpful)
  • Big list of so called webjumps in the wiki at http://conkeror.org/WebJumps/
  • Tabs (!= Buffers)
  • Favicons

What's still missing?

  • Bookmark Editor (but there's good Delicious support and some Firefox extensions for bookmark editing work)
  • Proper Cookie Handling other than via about:config, "M-x permission-manager" (an experimental feature) or some Firefox extensions like Cookie Culler
  • Other user interfaces to dynamicly configure stuff.
  • Emacs style sub-window management (called "windows" within Emacs)

Resources / Contact

Danke

  • John J. Foerch