Upgrade to webkitgtk-6.0

[sky96111]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Remove_webkit2gtk-4.0_API_Version
Fedora plan to remove webkit2gtk-4.0 on next release. Since it is proposed by Red Hat, it is more likely to happen on RHEL as well.
Everything that depends on these packages will fail to build.

Describe the solution you'd like

Upgrade webkit2gtk-4.0 to webkitgtk-6.0. Users experience shorter load times and improved responsiveness in applications that use WebKitGTK.
Also it is a good chance to upgrade to gtk4 in v3

Describe alternatives you've considered

If gtk4 is not ready yet, upgrade to webkit2gtk-4.1 is probably more easy way because there are no API changes other than the version of libsoup that is linked to.
If your package does not directly or indirectly depend on libsoup 2, then just change the API version number from 4.0 to 4.1 and you're done.

Additional context

No response

[PylotLight]

Also it is a good chance to upgrade to gtk4 in v3

webkit2gtk 4.1 API is same as 4.0 but with libsoup3 instead of libsoup2.4. 4.1 is for GTK3. 6.0 is for GTK4
https://release.debian.org/transitions/html/webkit2gtk-4.0.html

I think some GTK4 work has already started but would need to be completed as well.

[leaanthony]

It would be great to target the latest version of gtk/WebKit2gtk in v3 and now we have AppImage, that shouldn't be a problem

[metal3d]

I think it's even becoming necessary, as GTK3 can cause a number of problems that I've noticed in v2.

For example, changing the color scheme in Gnome is not reflected in the application (unless you use the Gnome Tweaks tool and change the theme of "old applications"). Gnome is essentially built on GTK4.

Also, WebKit 6 has a number of improvements in terms of rendering, speed, responsiveness and responds better to Wayland.

And if I'm not mistaken, FlatHub considers GTK3 apps to be "unsafe" (I'm not sure, but it considers the windowed system is outdated).

[romgerman]

I'm not sure how does webkitgtk versioning go but in the current version (4.0?) that Wails use there are many problems with rendering (e.x. view transitions). And as I see, many linux distributives deprecate version 4 of webkitgtk (since 2021).

[Sammy-T]

I've been trying to see if I can figure out updating to webkitgtk-6.0. But performance appears to be worse with my attempt (at least on x11. Wayland seems to run fine). I'm not well versed in C or gtk so maybe I haven't implemented it well. But you can have a look here if you want:

https://github.com/Sammy-T/wails/tree/feature/webkitgtk6

[metal3d]

I didn't try your fork, but what I see in your code seems to be approximately what I've tried too. You went further than me 😄

I will check in a few hour, but you probably should make a pull request if tests are OK.

[Sammy-T]

Thanks @metal3d. I'd create a PR if I could see reasonable improvement. But what I've seen so far running it on Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04 is worse performance on x11 and ok (not necessarily better) performance on wayland.

I think that may just be the performance of webkitgtk-6.0 itself since it's similar to what I see when I remove Wails from the equation and just run a basic 'hello world' gtk with webkitgtk-6.0 application in C.

[Sammy-T]

I tried out my Wails branch again since I figured there's been some library updates since last time. And while X11 is still performing terribly, I'm seeing noticeable improvement on Wayland with webkit6. The webview appears more responsive with much less lag.

Here's what I'm seeing on Ubuntu 22.04.

Current	With webkitgtk-6.0
wails-lx-test-no-w6.mp4	wails-lx-test-w6.mp4

My draft PR #4570 has more details if anyone wants to try it out.

[COD3HUNT3R]

Does v3 target 4.1 or 6.0?

[COD3HUNT3R]

v3 is 4.1. I think I might port #4570 for v3.

[leaanthony]

@COD3HUNT3R - IT would be sick to get 6.0 in v3. Will you have time to do it?

[COD3HUNT3R]

I am heavily occupied with lots of things. So not sure I will have time.