BlinkGTK 1.2.4-build1 Release Notes

Release date: 2026-10-07 / Chromium: 155.0.8059.39 / Language: 日本語 | English

The rendering engine is updated to Chromium 155.

Fedora 44 support has ended

• v1.2.3 is the last release for Fedora 44. From v1.2.4, the RPMs are built for Fedora 45 or later (glibc 2.44 or later) only.
• If you use the dnf repository on Fedora 44: you stay on v1.2.3. Updates do not fail.
• If you use the dnf repository on Fedora 45: run the following line once to receive v1.2.4 and later.

sudo dnf install https://blinkgtk.org/repo/fedora/blinkgtk-release.noarch.rpm

blinkgtk-release contains only the repository configuration (/etc/yum.repos.d/blinkgtk.repo) and the public key, and points at the repository for your Fedora release. A .repo you placed with curl before is kept as blinkgtk.repo.rpmorig and is not used. Future changes to the repository configuration will arrive as updates to this package.

If you install the RPM files directly without registering the repository, the main package also needs this package. Specify blinkgtk-release-*.noarch.rpm from the same Release together with it (sudo dnf install ./blinkgtk-release-*.noarch.rpm ./blinkgtk-bin-<version>.fc45.x86_64.rpm).

Changes for Japanese typesetting (Chromium 155)

• Lines after ruby no longer shift up. When a preceding element had a negative margin (for example from a pseudo-element), the ruby annotation space became negative and following lines without ruby shifted up (upstream fix).
• The upstream change to ruby annotation space inside multi-column containers is only behind an experimental flag (AnnotationSpaceForMultiCol). The layout does not change by default.
• The line height of ::first-line is computed as in Chromium 153 and earlier. This is an upstream change that follows a revision of the CSS specification.
• CSS margin-trim and text-decoration-skip-spaces are available (enabled by default in Chromium 155).
• Placing emphasis marks with the same mechanism as ruby, and the fix for moving the caret up and down in lines with ruby, were enabled since Chromium 151 and are now permanent. The behavior does not change.

What build1 lets you do

• Hanging punctuation at the line end (hanging-punctuation: allow-end) is enabled by default. It takes in the upstream work-in-progress CL 8367064, with our fixes for elements with inline-axis border or padding in vertical text that still hung, and for a renderer crash on the path where a line cannot be laid out.
• You can check at run time whether a typesetting feature is built in: blink_gtk_has_typesetting_feature() (#153). It can be called before blink_gtk_init() and returns TRUE for "hanging-punctuation:allow-end". It reports whether the feature is built into this library, not whether it was turned off with --disable-blink-features.
• An optional notice in the log when a newer version is available (off by default). Turn it on with BLINKGTK_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or blink_gtk_set_update_check(TRUE). The notice is two lines (English and Japanese), at most once a day.
• For Windows (MSVC), every public API declaration now carries BLINKGTK_EXPORT (#142, except blink_gtk_sandbox_init()). Comments in blinkgtk_export.h are now ASCII (blinkgtk_version.h has been ASCII since 1.2.3-build4). blink_gtk.h has no comments that make a Japanese-locale Windows compiler (without /utf-8) skip the next line (nor did it in 1.2.3) (#156). The 1.2.4 headers have not been tried with MSVC. blink_gtk.h has Japanese comments that trigger warning C4819, so add /utf-8 if you use /WX.

What build1 makes faster

• On a scale-1 display, software rendering is now received through a path that does not use capture (blinkgtk-dist #8). This removes the capture requests and the pixel readback they need. Compositing only the changed area is not in 1.2.4 yet, because the fix that keeps one page of a two-page spread from staying blank (#120) makes the damaged area the full frame every time. This lowers CPU usage on pages where only a small area changes. CPU time used in 16 seconds on a partial-update page (median of 5 runs; all threads of the host process and its child processes): 9.20 → 5.07 s on an Intel i5-10310U machine, 15.74 → 9.19 s on an Intel i7-8550U machine (both under weston headless). These values were measured on a pre-release BlinkGTK build on Chromium 154 with the path selected by BLINKGTK_USE_MOJO_IPC=1; they were not re-measured on 1.2.4-build1 or with the automatic selection. It is not used on displays with a scale other than 1, and moving to such a display returns to the previous path. BLINKGTK_T2_AUTO=0 restores the previous path.
• BlinkWebView no longer redraws a static page every 16 ms (blinkgtk-dist #8), which lowers CPU usage while idle (CPU time used in 16 seconds: 2.04 → 0.48 s on the Intel i5-10310U machine, median of 5 runs, measured on a pre-release BlinkGTK build on Chromium 154). BLINKGTK_QUEUE_DRAW_TIMER=1 restores the previous behavior.

What build1 fixes

• Memory grew continuously while drawing in EGL mode. Renderer +5.6 → +1.6 MB/min, browser +1.8 → 0 MB/min (measured on a pre-release BlinkGTK build on Chromium 154 with a Canvas 2D page, with the same mechanism turned on by an experimental switch). On 1.2.4-build1 the check (renderer at most 3,000 KB/min, browser at most 500 KB/min) also passes.
• With at-spi2-core 2.61 (confirmed with 2.61.90 on Fedora 45), when launched without environment variables, starting a screen reader did not expose the accessibility tree. The property used for detection was removed in 2.61; detection now follows the new method. Starting an assistive technology turns it on without any environment variable.
• When an assistive technology started after launching with BLINKGTK_A11Y=1, the accessibility tree did not reach it (#145). It now does.
• In XML documents (such as DAISY 3 DTBook), blink_web_view_inject_user_stylesheet() and the no-selection style did not apply (documents with <?xml-stylesheet?>).
• After switching the presentation policy from WARM back to ACTIVE, a document loaded while WARM did not appear for 0.8 to 1.2 seconds. It now appears in 50 to 53 ms.
• In EGL mode with BLINKGTK_EGL_FRACTIONAL=1, pages on 1.25 / 1.5 displays were drawn at scale 2 (#117). With the setting, pages are drawn at the fractional scale.
• Two fixes in the path that does not use capture (BLINKGTK_USE_MOJO_IPC=1; the default at scale 1): a second view created by window.open() was blank while its content appeared in the first view, and drawing was not withheld under the presentation policy (WARM / IDLE).

Behavior changes in build1

• Changes for Japanese typesetting are listed above under "Changes for Japanese typesetting".
• The default value of text-decoration-skip-spaces (start end) now takes effect, so underlines and other decorations are no longer drawn over spaces at the start and end of a line (including full-width spaces). For example, if a paragraph is indented with a full-width space and has text-decoration, no line is drawn over that space. This is based on reading the code; the rendering has not been measured. Specify text-decoration-skip-spaces: none for the previous rendering.
• When GTK runs on a backend other than Wayland (such as GDK_BACKEND=x11), one warning is printed. BlinkGTK supports Wayland only; in this case the event pump keeps one CPU core busy. The behavior is unchanged.