javascript plasmoid errata; rekonq

With the Javascript Jam Session in full swing, a number of people are off to the races writing their Plasmoids in Javascript. That's the good news. The bad news is that they've uncovered some annoyances. So here are some quick notes/errata:

• In 4.4.0 print() and debug() are broken; I thought a commit that made them work had been part of the 4.4.0 tag. Apparently it wasn't. This commit is in the 4.4 branch, however, and so will be part of 4.4.1. Some distributions offer packages that use the 4.4 branch directly, and if you are using one of those distributions I recommend taking advantage of that. :)


• Assigning a pixmap to an IconWidget does not work. e.g. this fails (where icon.png is in contents/images/)
  

  var icon = new Iconwidget
var pixmap = new QPixmap("icon.png")
icon.icon = pixmap

  
  This is due to an unexpected (though understandable) limitation in QScript's magical abilities. It's usually so good on the "principle of least surprise" I was surprised to see that this didn't work. However, all is not lost as you can do this:
  

  var icon = new Iconwidget
icon.setIcon("icon.png")

  
  I've put a QIcon bridge on the 4.5 feature list, though, to make this Suck Less(tm)


• To get rid of a UI element permanently, you can call deleteLater() on it, e.g.:
  

  var icon = new IconWidget
icon.deleteLater()

  
  This was undocumented because I was really hoping to find a slightly less ugly way (e.g. "delete icon") but didn't manage to get to that for 4.4.
  

Documentation continues to be improved and updated, but there are such holes / annoyances. I'll be adding errata .. somewhere .. on Techbase. I'm also working out how best to show API added in later versions, e.g. just keep adding to the current Javascript API page or to start a new page with just additions so it's easy to see what each version adds. Input welcome. :)

On a side note, I've started using the rekonq web browser lately. I'm using it straight from the git repository and even that is nice and stable. The KDE WebKit integration from the KDE Dev Platform is really great (passwords and what not from Konqi appear in rekonq) and my bookmarks are all there. Most importantly, it's fast and in my week or so of usage rock solid stable. There are some rough edges (keep in mind I'm using the mainline devel version of it) and some features I'd like to see implemented (which I'm not going to grouse about unless I find some time to whip up a patch or two or unless a rekonq devel asks me about it :), but so far I'm very happy with it. Some of the features like the thumbnails that appear when a tab is hovered are very nice, however, even if some graphical loving could improve it even more (e.g. fading them in/out would make it feel a lot less jumpy). I think I'll be sticking with rekonq for the time being, which might mean I'll be compelled to start submitting patches to iron out some wrinkles. We'll see. :)