Karin Chan

How To Install GTK3 With Broadway (HTML5) Backend Enabled In Ubuntu

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxINckuGGucrM3UitLlFGzmbq3eg3kJVV_HdRr3zRocwb71xN-r_NXmh6dQXH3X2hRBqGyRKg85ZpGCg3ONqq2K5zXdV046-pt9OliXXyTKS_a0j0u38R0ryeO42Qi0-4NYDsHEi7ATQ/s1600/gtk3-broadway-ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="GTK3 Broadway Ubuntu" border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmxINckuGGucrM3UitLlFGzmbq3eg3kJVV_HdRr3zRocwb71xN-r_NXmh6dQXH3X2hRBqGyRKg85ZpGCg3ONqq2K5zXdV046-pt9OliXXyTKS_a0j0u38R0ryeO42Qi0-4NYDsHEi7ATQ/s320/gtk3-broadway-ubuntu.png" title="GTK3 Broadway Ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Starting with version 3.2, GTK+ comes with an experimental <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/gtk-32-released-with-html5-allows.html">"Broadway" backend</a> that allows rendering GTK3 applications in HTML5-capable browsers, so you can run applications remotely, using only a web browser.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu doesn't enable this Broadway backend by default, but thanks to Nicolas Delvaux's PPA, you can easily give this a try in Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 or 12.04.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">In the video below you can see GTK+3 with the Broadway (HTML5) backend enabled in action:</div><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fr8eo4RlPw4" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr8eo4RlPw4">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install GTK3 with Broadway backend enabled in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Important:</b> The GTK+3 with the Broadway (HTML5) backend PPA is available for Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04 and provides the same GTK+3 version available for those Ubuntu versions (but obviously, with Broadway enabled). That means that if you've added some PPA which has a newer GTK3 version (like the GNOME 3 PPA), you won't be able to use this PPA unless you purge the other PPA or downgrade the packages!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To add the GTK+3 Broadway PPA and upgrade to GTK3 with Broadway in Ubuntu, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:malizor/gtk-broadway<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get upgrade</code></pre><br /><b>Then, log out, log back in and to run an application with the Broadway backend, use the following command:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>GDK_BACKEND=broadway UBUNTU_MENUPROXY= LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 <i><APPLICATION></i></code></pre>where "APPLICATION" is the GTK3 application executable. For instance, to run Gedit with the Broadway backend, use:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>GDK_BACKEND=broadway UBUNTU_MENUPROXY= LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 gedit</code></pre>"UBUNTU_MENUPROXY=" and "LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0" are required because with the global menu and overlay scrollbars enabled, the applications segfault.<br /><br />And finally, <b>open Firefox</b> (using Chrome didn't work properly in my test) <b>and enter the following address: http://localhost:8080</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">You can also use this from a remote machine, by entering your IP followed by the 8080 port. In my test, this also worked using Firefox on my Android phone.</div><br />To specify the port (if you use a different port for each app, they can run in the same time), use "BROADWAY_DISPLAY=" followed by the port number (e.g.: BROADWAY_DISPLAY=8081) in the command used to launch the application.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Remember: <b>you can only use this with GTK3 applications</b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is another PPA which provides the latest stable GTK 3.8 for Ubuntu 13.04, that comes with some extra features, like <a href="https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/broadwayd.html">password</a> protection, running multiple GTK+ applications in the same web browser and more, however, since Ubuntu 13.04 doesn't come with GTK 3.8 by default, I don't recommend using this unless you only want to test it in some virtual machine or you plan on using Broadway on a server. You can find the Ubuntu 13.04 GTK 3.8 with Broadway PPA <a href="https://launchpad.net/~malizor/+archive/gtk-next-broadway">HERE</a> - make sure you read the PPA description since Broadway works a bit differently in GTK 3.8.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Reverting the changes</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>If you want to purge the GTK+3 Broadway PPA and go back to the GTK+3 version you had installed previously, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install ppa-purge<br />sudo ppa-purge ppa:malizor/gtk-broadway</code></pre>