Building WebKitGTK+

These instructions are meant for use with the source code repository and are generally not suitable for building a release tarball.

The root page for the documentation is wiki:WebKitGTK.

If you intend to start contributing with code you may want to read wiki:WebKitGTK/StartHacking

Getting the source

To get the WebKitGTK+ source, please follow the instructions on the ​WebKit page. Many WebKit developer also use git to interact with the repository and the WebKit developer tools have strong support for git. ​http://trac.webkit.org/wiki/UsingGitWithWebKit contains tips for using git with WebKit.

Dependencies

1. Install the base WebKitGTK+ dependencies:

   $ Tools/gtk/install-dependencies
   

2. Download and build all jhbuild modules:

   $ Tools/Scripts/update-webkitgtk-libs
   

Building

$ Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --gtk

Notes

• You can pass parameters to the make command with the --makeargs argument.
  • For example, you can pass --makeargs="-jXX", where XX is an integer, to set the number of threads make will use. The default is one per logical CPU detected, but you might want fewer if it's bogging down your system.
• JHBuild configuration and module files are stored as Tools/gtk/jhbuildrc and Tools/gtk/jhbuild.modules.
• If everything builds properly tests should typically pass on your system. Please file a bug if they do not.
• If you get build errors saying a library could not be found but you have the appropriate packages installed make sure you have up-to-date multiarch-support and binutils (or binutils-gold) packages.
• You can also add more modules to the default WebKit JHBuild.
• Wayland support has been under working. If you're interested in hacking on it, just use ./Tools/gtk/wayland-dependencies.modules. You can simply set up the dependencies by exporting WEBKIT_EXTRA_MODULESETS.

  WEBKIT_EXTRA_MODULESETS=file:///webkit/directory/Tools/gtk/wayland-dependencies.modules
  

Installation

To install the WebKit GTK+ library, simply change into the Release directory and issue

$ make install 

The configure script also supports the different features WebKit/GTK+ provide (e.g., SVG filters and animation features, HTML5 Video element support, etc..). Simply issuing

$ ./configure --help

on the command-line should give you a brief overview of what can be configured. Although you can build with these features enabled, it doesn't mean that the functionality is complete, let alone working properly. Feel free to submit a bug at ​http://bugs.webkit.org if you find something that is not working.

OS X

The code on Mac OS X should built like any Linux distribution, as long as you install the above build dependencies (in addition to an "ordinary build environment" that includes XCode Tools 2.3 or newer). ​MacPorts users can get the dependencies via:

$ sudo port install webkit-gtk

If you get an error about libjpeg when the build does the configuration step, you may find the following fixes it:

$ export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/local/include"
$ export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/local/lib"