IGB Development

Developing Websites for the EVE In-Game Browser

The new EVE Online in-game browser (code-named Moondoggie) is based on a technology stack combining two elements:

• Awesomium: A middleware layer that delivers rendered webpages as data parseable by a 3D engine. Awesomium is developed by Khrona Software.
• Chromium: A middleware layer that provides interprocess communication, webpage rendering, HTTP communications, and all the other basics needed for writing a web browser. It is, itself, based on Apple’s Webkit framework. Chromium is an open-source project championed primarily by Google.

Because of this, Moondoggie is able to pass the Acid3 test and thus can support the full HTML 4.01 and CSS3 specifications.

What Moondoggie Cannot Do

Unfortunately, CCP needs to impose some regulation on the behavior of the browser. This is largely out of concerns for end-user security and cross-platform stability.

• Plug-ins: The primary consequence of these concerns is that plug-ins will not run within EVE’s in-game browser; in particular, this means that Flash does not work in the current version of Moondoggie.
• Downloads: The EVE in-game browser currently does not support file downloads.

What Moondoggie Can Do

In order to provide additional benefits to users of the IGB, and to encourage third-party development of IGB-conscious websites, Moondoggie supports a number of facilities designed to help websites integrate nicely with EVE.

• Additional Information: Moondoggie will transmit additional information, in the form of HTTP Headers, to websites that its user has deemed Trustworthy. This information includes the user’s location, character, and corporation.
• JavaScript Interaction: There are a limited set of JavaScript methods that webpages can call in order to interact with the EVE client. Executing these callbacks is only permitted when a webpage is considered Trustworthy by Moondoggie’s user.

A Known Issues list is available for those developing Moondoggie-compliant websites prior to the release of EVE Online: Dominion.