Plans
Window.js is an open-source project and doesn’t have an official roadmap.
This page lists potential future subprojects. Consider contributing to the project and helping with these! Get in contact to get started.
Build
One-liner build
The current build involves multiple parts: fetching dependencies, building v8, building skia, and then building Window.js.
Ideally, Window.js would build with a single cmake command, including fetching
any missing dependencies or updating as needed.
Compiler support
Window.js should support the major compilers: MSVC on Windows, and GCC on Linux. Currently, Window.js has only been tested with LLVM.
Support for Mac arm64
New Macs have arm64 CPUs. They should be supported natively.
Continuous builds and tests
Ideally, every commit would trigger automated builds on each supported platform and run the full test suite.
Reproducible builds
Ideally, building with the same compiler at the same checked out commit would produce exacly the same Window.js binary, byte for byte.
Integrate with package managers
Make Window.js easy to install on Window, Mac and Linux via the more popular package managers like chocolatey, homebrew, apt, rpm, etc.
Performance
Compiled binary size
Understanding the major contributions to the binary size and trimming it is always a welcome contribution. The v8 library is particularly large.
GC pauses
Configuring and/or using v8 internally in a way that reduces or eliminates all GC pauses.
Performance
Tune the v8 settings for maximal performance. For example, Window.js is not suited to run third-party, untrusted code and can turn off mitigations for VM exploits like Meltdown and Spectre.
AOT compilation
Instead of using JIT, force modules loaded by Window.js to be compiled during startup or even ahead of time, to avoid JIT stalls later.
App startup performance
Window.js should paint the first frame as soon as possible.
Creating a window and the GL context on Windows is particularly expensive today.
See the –profile-startup command line flag to profile this.
Testing
Test coverage
Window.js doesn’t have as much test coverage as it should. Ideally, all APIs would have coverage.
Testing should also cover performance: the startup time should not regress, the time to produce reasonable frames should be consistent, etc.
Examples and demos
Sample code that demonstrates how to build useful applications with Window.js is welcome. Especially code that is easy to read and understand, and that would be helpful for new programmers.
Benchmarks
Similar to test coverage, ideally Window.js would also have benchmarks to track performance over time.
Improve platform integration
There are always small details on each platform.
For example, the WGL context on Windows doesn’t always show the first frame when the native window is first shown to the user, causing a flicker. This is most likely due to Aero.
Window.js should give consistent behavior on all platforms, and issues like this one should be understood and fixed.
APIs
WebGL
Window.js should support the WebGL APIs.
Sound
Window.js should have a sound API.
Networking
Window.js should have a networking API. The minimal API would mimic the fetch API in HTML5; further extensions should support TCP, UDP and WebSockets, both for client and for server usage.
Crash reporting
Window.js should support collecting crash information and letting the application code eventually report it, via a networking API.
Unicode support
Window.js should support text in any language.
Spawn native processes
To support writing a terminal emulator in Window.js?
Video playback
Support loading, displaying and controlling video.
Vulkan, WebGPU
Give access to low-level GPU programming APIs.
Features
Support multiple monitors
This is untested.
Headless mode and restricted APIs
The Process API should support running subprocesses without a window (headless), and should supporting restricting the APIs that a subprocess can access (file, networking, etc.)
v8 snapshot support
v8 supports creating heap snapshots for faster startups. Window.js should make it easy to create a snapshot and to load it. This feature is only worth maintaining if it yields a reasonable speedup on startup.
FFI support
Window.js should have a foreign-function interface to make it possible to call C functions loaded dynamically from DLLs. This makes it possible to call native libraries from Window.js.
WASM support
v8 supports WASM, and Window.js should support it too.
Asset bundling
For ease of distribution, Window.js should support bundling Javascript sources
and any other asset files into a single .zip file, and start execution from
that .zip file later. This should work transparently for the application:
APIs like asset file loading and importing scripts should just work.
A step further would be to support merging the main scripts into the binary
itself, so that windowjs.exe could become a ready-to-distribute executable
for the main app. See QuickJS for an example.
Tools for Window.js users
Better tooling
Frame time graphs, CPU and heap profiles.
Better console
Better console.dir support, better input editing support, better object
inspection; help() as in Python to view API documentation in the console
would be great.
Support top-level await in the console.
Typescript integration
Make it easy to write Window.js application in Typescript.
Reloading with F5 should show any compilation errors in the main Window.js window.
Tools for Window.js developers
Static analyzers
clang-format, lint, ASan, MSan, TSan.
Community
Improve the documentation
Correct grammar; clearer and more succint documentation.
Documentation should be comprehensive: document every API available and all of its variations.
Improve the website
Make the website clearer, easier to navigate.
Improve the design and color scheme.
Logo?
Have a logo for Window.js?
Help others
Answer any questions on StackOverflow, the mailing list and the discussion forums.
Tutorials
There are excellent guides at webglfundamentals.org and learnopengl.com for getting started with GL programming. Convert their code to run in Window.js and provide that code as an example.