NetSurf 2.8 released

The NetSurf developers are happy to announce NetSurf 2.8. This release contains many bug fixes and improvements.

It is available to download from http://www.netsurf-browser.org/

Binaries are available now for RISC OS.

NetSurf 2.8 adds MIME type sniffing, and a new image cache. Image decoding can now be deferred until images are required for more optimal resource use and faster page load times.

A more detailed and complete list of changes is given below.

 Core / All platforms
 --------------------

 * Added rudimentary support for CSS :before pseudo element.
 * Improved vertical layout of boxes and margin handling.
 * Optimised layout engine not to calculate word widths it doesn't need.
 * Optimised layout and redraw of pages as their images fetch.
 * Simplified internal character in string location.
 * Improved internal content management.
 * Fixes to build system.
 * Cleaned up image content handlers.
 * Simplified internal content redraw interface.
 * Simplified status bar text.
 * Improved content handler initialisation.
 * Improved scrollbar widget.
 * Fixed direct dragging of scrollable boxes in HTML.
 * Improved fetch option handling.
 * Optimised treeview layout.
 * Improved default cookie manager view.
 * Added support for iframes.
 * Added support for frames.
 * Improved drag handling.
 * Fixed text selection, search, and widget rendering in HTML redraw.
 * Made page text search support more robust.
 * Improved HTTP authentication header parsing.
 * Removed plotter table global.
 * Removed current browser global for redraw.
 * Updated PNG handler for recent libPNGs.
 * Refactored HTTP handling utilities.
 * Improved handling of mouse input for text selection.
 * Fixed stopping of active HTML content fetches.
 * Fixed GCC 4.6 build warnings.
 * Disallowed self-importing of CSS contents.
 * Made download handling more robust.
 * Simplified bitmap management.
 * Improved handling of HTML font tag's size attribute.
 * Added support for content type sniffing.
 * Added an image cache, for managing decoded image reuse.
 * Fixed handling of zero-length documents.
 * Improved handling of memory cache sizes.

 * Hubbub library (HTML parser):
  + Fixed build with GCC 4.6.

 * LibCSS library (CSS parser and selection engine):
  + Improved build tree cleaning.
  + Fixed build with GCC 4.6.
  + Added support for selection of page-break properties.
  + Optimised style selection.

 * LibParserUtils library (parser building utility functions):
  + Changed build to require iconv by default.
  + Support Byte Order Marks in UTF16 and UTF32 streams.

 RISC OS-specific
 ----------------

 * Improved Adjust double-click handling in treeviews.
 * Consolidated content handlers for ArtWorks, Draw, and Sprite.
 * Removed redundant code specific to old RISC OS frame implementation.
 * Removed redundant code specific to old RISC OS iframe implementation.
 * Updated for new frame and iframe support in core.
 * Updated to handle new interface to core redraw functionality.

 Also included are many smaller bug fixes, improvements and
 documentation enhancements.