abaco-modern: patches modernizing the 9legacy abaco browser
Ten patches that bring the 9legacy abaco(1) web browser to a more
usable state on the modern web, without rewriting it. The patches
fix NOTES-listed bugs in text selection and double-clicking, wire
up html(2) parser fields abaco ignored, flip the default character
set to UTF-8, enable webfs cookie storage so logged-in sites work,
mark failed fetches distinctly from in-flight ones in the status
area, and guard getbase against the relative-BASE-href crash.
The set is intentionally narrow: no new subsystems, no parser
replacement, no reflow layer. Everything builds on what abaco and
libhtml already ship.
CHANGES
v1 — 2026-04-24 (initial)
abaco-html2-wiring Wire html(2) fields
parsehtml already fills
but abaco ignores: hr
attrs, image placeholders,
select defaults, maxlength,
form-field percent-encoding,
fragment anchors, link
titles in status, hanging
list indent, row
backgrounds, cell valign,
table captions, image
maps, frame borders/margins,
meta refresh.
abaco-doubleclick-typo text.c:727 one-char fix in
textclickmatch call; fixes
bracket/quote matching.
abaco-pagedoubleclick-guard page.c:595 nil guard on
l->next; fixes crash on
double-click past the last
line of the last page.
abaco-pageselect-ordering page.c:541 same-line drag
ordering via linewhich;
fixes "complement selection"
under 1-2 px mouse-Y wobble.
abaco-wind-dangling-edit wind.c:39 delete copy-paste
leftover fragment. No
behaviour change.
abaco-util-strcpy-bound util.c:956 strcpy → snprint;
defensive tightening
against oversized -t flag.
abaco-charset-utf8-default main.c:38 default fallback
charset flipped iso-8859-1
→ utf-8. -t flag still
overrides.
abaco-cookies-enable urls.c:93 enable webfs's
sendcookies/acceptcookies
per connection so RFC 6265
cookie jar works.
abaco-error-surface-prefix page.c:276,296 prefix
failure-path messages with
"error: " to distinguish
from in-flight status.
v2 — 2026-04-25
abaco-base-href-guard util.c:366 validurl-guard
p->doc->base in getbase;
falls through to the page
URL when BASE href is
relative or nil. Stops
crash on pages that set
<BASE HREF="/foo">
(libhtml's aurlval stores
the relative value
unresolved; the proper
fix is in libhtml).
Scope limits
- Bug fixes and low-risk wiring only. No new rendering
subsystems. No CSS support (beyond what html(2) already
parses), no JavaScript, no reflow. abaco's single-pass
Lay / Box / Line layout is preserved.
- Modern HTTPS interop is delegated to the tls-modern-client
patch series. These abaco patches assume tls-modern-client
is already applied if HTTPS is a requirement.
- No change to webfs, libsec, or the /mnt/web file interface.
abaco-cookies-enable uses webfs's existing cookie machinery;
it does not add a new ABI.
Files
abaco-html2-wiring.patch html(2) field wiring
abaco-doubleclick-typo.patch text.c bracket/quote typo
abaco-pagedoubleclick-guard.patch page.c nil-deref guard
abaco-pageselect-ordering.patch page.c same-line ordering
abaco-wind-dangling-edit.patch wind.c cleanup
abaco-util-strcpy-bound.patch util.c strcpy bound
abaco-charset-utf8-default.patch main.c utf-8 default
abaco-cookies-enable.patch urls.c webfs cookie flags
abaco-error-surface-prefix.patch page.c error: prefix
abaco-base-href-guard.patch util.c relative-BASE guard
test/abaco-html4-tests/ HTML 4 test page set
test/TESTING.md test procedure
test/EXPLANATIONS.md per-page explanations
Apply order
The patches are independent (order does not affect result) but
presented in the order above for readability. Inside the VM,
from /:
cd /
patches=(abaco-html2-wiring abaco-doubleclick-typo \
abaco-pagedoubleclick-guard abaco-pageselect-ordering \
abaco-wind-dangling-edit abaco-util-strcpy-bound \
abaco-charset-utf8-default abaco-cookies-enable \
abaco-error-surface-prefix abaco-base-href-guard)
for(p in $patches)
ape/patch -p0 < /path/to/abaco-modern/$p.patch
Rebuild
Patches touch sys/src/cmd/abaco/{html.c, main.c, page.c, tabs.c,
text.c, urls.c, util.c, wind.c, NOTES} only. No libhtml change,
no kernel change, no reboot.
cd /sys/src/cmd/abaco && mk clean && mk install
New /$cputype/bin/abaco; run it.
Prerequisites
A 9legacy CD / source tree (the canonical 9legacy.iso or an
install therefrom) has everything needed. Sanity-check:
test -d /sys/src/cmd/abaco # abaco source present
test -d /sys/src/libhtml # libhtml source present
For HTTPS interop, apply tls-modern-client first (see
contrib/tls-modern-client/ and <https://9p.io/sources/contrib/
mospak/tls-modern-client/>). These abaco patches do not depend
on tls-modern-client for HTTP pages; HTTPS is only relevant for
the subset of test pages served over TLS.
Verification
test/abaco-html4-tests/ ships a 12-page HTML 4 test set
exercising the html(2) wiring patch. See test/TESTING.md for
the before/after procedure.
For the bugfix patches (doubleclick-typo, pagedoubleclick-guard,
pageselect-ordering) interactive testing in rio is the acceptance
gate — described per-patch in each patch header.
Real-hardware smoke suggestions:
abaco http://example.com/ trivial baseline
abaco http://9legacy.org/ plain-HTML site
abaco https://9legacy.org/ HTTPS (needs tls-modern-client)
Rollback
Reverse order, -R flag:
cd /
rpatches=(abaco-base-href-guard abaco-error-surface-prefix \
abaco-cookies-enable abaco-charset-utf8-default \
abaco-util-strcpy-bound abaco-wind-dangling-edit \
abaco-pageselect-ordering abaco-pagedoubleclick-guard \
abaco-doubleclick-typo abaco-html2-wiring)
for(p in $rpatches)
ape/patch -R -p0 < /path/to/abaco-modern/$p.patch
Then rebuild libhtml and abaco as above.
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