Compiling against WPEPlatform

This page lists the pkg-config modules and headers an application or browser needs to build against WPEPlatform, plus minimal CMake and Meson snippets. For a higher-level introduction to the API see overview.

pkg-config modules

All of WPEPlatform’s code is compiled into a single shared library, libWPEWebKit-2.0; there is no separate per-backend library. What varies is the set of installed pkg-config modules: the core wpe-platform-2.0 module is always present and carries the compiler and linker flags (it links libWPEWebKit-2.0), while each per-backend module is installed only when its built-in implementation was enabled at build time (see Build-time availability below) and simply depends on the core module.

Module	Header	What it provides
`wpe-platform-2.0`	`<wpe/wpe-platform.h>`	The core API: `WPEDisplay`, `WPEView`, `WPEToplevel`, `WPEBuffer`, events, settings, keymap, clipboard, gamepad, input-method, screens.
`wpe-platform-wayland-2.0`	`<wpe/wayland/wpe-wayland.h>`	The built-in Wayland implementation (`wpe_display_wayland_new()`, `WPEScreenWayland`, `WPEToplevelWayland`, `WPEViewWayland`, `WPEClipboardWayland`).
`wpe-platform-drm-2.0`	`<wpe/drm/wpe-drm.h>`	The built-in DRM/KMS implementation (`wpe_display_drm_new()`, related screen/toplevel/view classes).
`wpe-platform-headless-2.0`	`<wpe/headless/wpe-headless.h>`	The built-in headless implementation (`wpe_display_headless_new()`, headless toplevel/view).
`wpe-webkit-2.0`	`<wpe/webkit.h>`	The higher-level WebKit API. Almost every application needs this in addition to `wpe-platform-2.0`.

Build-time availability

WPEPlatform is gated behind WPE WebKit’s ENABLE_WPE_PLATFORM CMake option. This option defaults to ON, but it can be turned off (and it cannot be combined with ENABLE_WPE_1_1_API), so distribution packages may still ship without it. Before assuming any of the modules above exist on a target, confirm that WPE WebKit was built with -DENABLE_WPE_PLATFORM=ON, or probe for the module from your build system:

pkg-config --exists wpe-platform-2.0 && echo present

The per-backend implementations are independently optional via ENABLE_WPE_PLATFORM_WAYLAND, ENABLE_WPE_PLATFORM_DRM, and ENABLE_WPE_PLATFORM_HEADLESS (all default ON when WPEPlatform itself is enabled). The DRM built-in additionally requires GBM (USE_GBM), so wpe-platform-drm-2.0 is absent when GBM is unavailable even with the option left on. If your application pins to a specific built-in implementation, probe for that module too:

pkg-config --exists wpe-platform-wayland-2.0 || \
    echo "Wayland built-in not available; fall back to the default display"

In most cases applications should prefer wpe_display_get_default() and let WPEPlatform pick whichever implementation is installed, rather than hard-linking against a specific backend.

CMake

find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED)
pkg_check_modules(WPEPlatform REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET wpe-platform-2.0)
pkg_check_modules(WPEWebKit   REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET wpe-webkit-2.0)

# Optional: only link the Wayland built-in if you need its symbols.
pkg_check_modules(WPEPlatformWayland IMPORTED_TARGET wpe-platform-wayland-2.0)

add_executable(my-browser main.c)
target_link_libraries(my-browser PRIVATE
    PkgConfig::WPEPlatform
    PkgConfig::WPEWebKit
)

Meson

wpe_platform_dep = dependency('wpe-platform-2.0')
wpe_webkit_dep   = dependency('wpe-webkit-2.0')

# Optional Wayland built-in.
wpe_platform_wayland_dep = dependency('wpe-platform-wayland-2.0',
                                      required: false)

executable('my-browser', 'main.c',
    dependencies: [wpe_platform_dep, wpe_webkit_dep],
)