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Though in this release we only have a few new user-facing features, we've succeeded in stabilizing the GNU/Linux port, which should now be much more usable as a daily driver.
About Next: Next is a keyboard-oriented, extensible web-browser designed for power users. The application has familiar key-bindings (Emacs-style for now, VI-style bindings are planned) and is fully configurable and extensible in Lisp. Hack your browser live while it runs!
Beta warning: Some important features are in still in the making, among other VI bindings, a download manager and ad-blocking.
Future work:
- We are exploring a QtWebengine backend (based on Blink), which would allow us to extend operating system support while at the same time offering a different web renderer for the user to choose from.
- The Lisp core now intercepts all network events which already allows for programmable network filtering (think ad-blocking and tailored Javascript blocking). This is a promising first step towards a lot of exciting features!
Change log: https://github.com/atlas-engineer/next/blob/master/documents/CHANGELOG.org
Get it from your package manager or from https://next.atlas.engineer/download! Feel free to register on the download page if you'd like to fill in the survey and participate in steering the future development of Next!
It is also significantly more hackable than before, with some examples of interactivity with external process (here Emacs) put on display in the following article:
https://next.atlas.engineer/article/emacs-hacks.org
News from the change log:
- Add RELOAD-CURRENT-BUFFER command and bind it to C-r
- Add NEXT-VERSION command. It reports the commit hash if it was not built on a tag version.
- Add cookie support. GTK implementation has per-buffer cookie support.
- Report page load status to echo area
- Add COPY-TITLE command and bind it to M-w
- Add COPY-ANCHOR-URL command and bind it to C-x C-w
- Add COPY-URL command and bind it to C-w
- Add PASTE command to minibuffer and bind it to C-v and C-y
- Add common movement commands to minibuffer. For instance `cursor-forwards-word` is bound to `M-f` by default.
- Add "echo area" to display status messaages
- Set window title dynamically
- Embed/Replace build dependencies in the Cocoa port. It now builds out of the box, with no need for external libraries.
- Add commandline arguments to the Cocoa platform port
- Report user configuration errors
- Save platform logs to /tmp/next-$USER/
Get it from your package manager or from https://next.atlas.engineer/download! Feel free to register on the download page if you'd like to fill in the survey and participate into steering the future development directions of Next!
It's still at the prototype phase and the GNU/Linux port is only experimental, but a crowdfunding campaign was started a month ago to put full-time development into getting a stable and polished version! It got extended for one last week:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/next-browser-nix-support
To Emacsers and Lispers looking for a (Lisp) hackable browsers, feel free to join and support the adventure!