WebKit on Windows

This guide provides instructions for building WebKit on Windows 8.1.

Installing Development Tools

Begin by installing the following programs and setting up your environment:

  1. Visual Studio. (Make sure you include C++ support.) https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs
  2. ActiveState Perl. 64-bit is fine. http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/downloads
  3. ActiveState Python 3.x. 64-bit is fine. http://www.activestate.com/activepython/downloads. Some have suggested better success downloading Python 3.x from https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
  4. Ruby. 64-bit is fine. http://rubyinstaller.org/
  5. Gperf. http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gperf.htm
  6. CMake. https://cmake.org/download/
  7. Git. http://www.git-scm.com/download/win Note: Make sure you select the option “Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt.” This is because it installs a sh.exe in your path, and if the location of that sh.exe has spaces in it, Make gets confused. When I installed this, I unchecked all the options.
  8. The “Ahem” font, used for testing. http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/Fonts/Ahem/
  9. (Optional: To speed up the build process) Ninja Build. https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases

Make sure all the programs you just installed (except Visual Studio) are accessible through your $PATH http://www.itechtics.com/customize-windows-environment-variables/ You may be required to reboot after modifying $PATH before new shells will see the updated variable.

If you are behind a proxy, be sure to set the HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables.

Setup the Git Repository

Tell git your name.

> git config --global user.name "John Smith"

Tell git your email address.

> git config --global user.email "johnsmith@example.com"

Download a clone of the repository.

> git clone <git://git.webkit.org/WebKit.git>
> cd WebKit

Build WebKit

> perl Tools/Scripts/build-webkit