bug#51716: 29.0.50; [PATCH] Expose xwidget navigation history to Lisp code

[Po Lu]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> WebKit stores navigation history specially.  For instance, it implements
>> a feature where malicious (i.e. looping) redirects are not recorded in
>> history.  This is not available from Lisp, as the signals exposed by
>> WebKitGTK are insufficient to keep track of that data.  Further, I think
>> there is a way for web pages to tell WebKitGTK whether or not to record
>> themselves in history, which also cannot be implemented separately.
>> 
>> It can only be done from C, because the necessary information is only
>> available in C.

> Please give more details, because I still have only a very vague idea
> of the problems you mention, and why they absolutely preclude mapping
> the browsing history into Lisp.

OK, I should clarify: this function provides the data necessary to map
browsing history into Lisp.

One feature I mentioned was that WebKit removes repetitive (usually
malicious) redirects designed to make it impossible to leave a page
through going back in the history.

WebKit only records its canonical page history in the back-forward list
of the WebKitWebView, which can only be obtained with
webkit_web_view_get_back_forward_list, and as such it needs to be
introduced as a primitive.

Thanks.