WebKitGTK+ 2.8.0 Has Been Released, Brings Gestures, Notifications & Transparency

With GNOME Shell 3.16 at the doorstep, the excitement is constantly on the rise as we’re getting closer toward its official release date (25/03).

In the meanwhile, we are presented with another intriguing news item which also comes from the same ecosystem that GNOME Shell belongs too.

WebKitGtk+ has just released version 2.8.0 which brings many improvements onto the table.

But before we go into detail about the new features it has to offer, it’s important that we note how much integral part of GNOME DE, WebKitGtk+ actually is.

WebKitGtk+ does not only powers web-browsers but also numerous applications such as: email clients, feed readers, web and text editors, and a whole lot more – a comprehensive list can be found here.

So as you can see, when WKG (WebKitGtk) is getting upgraded, not only the browsers benefits but also plenty of other apps as well.

WebKitGTK+ 2.8.0 New Features Highlights

According to Carlos Garcia, employee of Igalia which is a member of the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board, these are the new features you may expect from WKG 2.8.0 based apps:

Gestures – touch support was implemented.
HTML5 Notifications – are transparently supported by WebKitGTK+ now.
WebView background color – windows can have transparent colors.
Who is playing audio? – apps can now indicate which tab is playing audio (see below image for Epiphany example).
Performance – drastically improved the overall performance (thanks to bmalloc & JIT).