Status of Hipe
The current version is Hipe 3.1 beta. It is one project in three parts: the display server (hiped), the client API, and hipecore, the display engine.
Hipecore is a modified and cut-down version of the WebKit engine, made to be more responsive and less resource-intensive when used with Hipe. It is a leaner codebase without the features needed for web browsing but not needed by Hipe: it has no JavaScript, no network access and no page loading.
Hipe 3 requires hipecore. It can't be built against stock Qt5WebKit.
Hipecore installs under its own names (libHipeCore and libHipeCoreWidgets), so it can be installed on a system that also has Qt5WebKit.
New in version 3
- Its own display engine: no longer depends on Qt5WebKit
- Send formatted text as HTML in a single instruction
- Broader HTML support: tags and attributes are no longer restricted to a fixed list
- Updated CSS: standard names for properties, keywords and selectors
- Better text formatting: newlines and Unicode paragraph breaks in your text lay out as line and paragraph breaks, with paragraph spacing or indents set by your theme
- Faster element creation and rendering
- Secure by design: no script execution, and no file system or network access for content
- Clearer error messages for developers
Applications built for Hipe 2.x need rebuilding against the Hipe 3 client library.
Classic Hipe
Hipe 2.12 and hipecore 0.6 beta are the final releases of classic Hipe, in which the display server and the engine were separate projects. Classic Hipe can be built against either stock Qt5WebKit or classic hipecore, which installs under Qt5WebKit's library names and so can't be installed alongside it. With Qt5WebKit, some instructions do nothing useful, such as text measurement, searching within an element, and embedding X11 windows; the manual included with Hipe 2.12 says where the two differ. Both releases remain available on the Download page.