Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Given what we currently know about KFX and what's being down with KFX, what can KFX do that KF8 cannot do or could not do with a new renderer to do the enhanced typesetting with KF8?
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If I may propose a tentative answer:
KF8 is basically Webkit, with some features enabled and others not. KFX's rendering is a combination of newly-enabled features of Webkit, plus an entirely Amazon-created module that sits on top of Webkit and overrides it in some ways.
Newly-enabled Webkit features include hyphenation and kerning. The new Amazon module includes drop caps, JPEG XR, and for now at least, a bunch of incorrect behaviors.
This Amazon module is where we can expect to see the most future development. I suspect that just hooking it up to Webkit has taken the most effort so far, and has generated the most errors.
I imagine Amazon does NOT want to simply add new features to the open-source Webkit, because then its competitors would have them. So, it has come up with this composite rendering engine. Maybe someone more familiar with the Webkit licensing terms can tell us whether this makes sense.
That's the new layout engine. As to the file formats, I assume they're designed to feed that composite layout engine most efficiently. But the formats we're seeing may also be transitional.