[winswitch] XPRA and Win Shifter for the Web

[Antoine Martin]

On 21/01/14 04:27, Joey Carlini wrote:
> Hi, I was wondering what the over/under is on the possibility of XPRA being
> ported to the web through Emscripten or Native Client. Along with being a
> major win for Chromebooks or other people who want to be able to access an
> app over the internet, I like the idea of using it for Crouton, a build of
> linux that installs itself into a Linux Chroot inside a Chromebook, and can
> be tapped in order to run native apps. This sort of integration would be
> fantastic, and I was wondering if there was a time table or porting guide I
> could refer to if I wanted to take a crack at it myself.
Writing xpra clients is rather easy, I have now written proof-of-concept
clients in Java and Javascript in just a matter of days. Then there's
the existing Python/GTK client. I would use one of those as a template
for a new client.

The main difficulty is in finding the support libraries you will need to
handle:
* compression (optional but recommended): zlib (easy to find) or lz4
* packet encoding (required): a modified bencode (easy-ish) or rencode
* windowing system integration (or lack thereof in HTML5 or Android..):
platform dependent.

Then you just need to implement:
* network layer: sending and receiving packets
* basic client class: creating windows and painting them

There are a number of optional features (notifications, clipboard, bell,
better encodings) which you can skip until you find that you really need
them.
Feel free to create a ticket and post some code and we can help you with it.

Cheers
Antoine