Updating the legacy tool

[mfbayraktar]

It appears that Serenity has a dependency on the wkhtmltopdf tool. However, since the wkhtmltopdf project has been publicly archived, it is no longer being maintained.

Additionally, given the history of vulnerabilities associated with PDF files, this might be a good opportunity to proactively evaluate alternatives before potential security risks arise. Would it be feasible to replace wkhtmltopdf with another tool to ensure continued support, functionality, and enhanced security?

[VictorTomaili]

It is possible to replace wkhtmltopdf with any tool by interface. Currently we have an alternative in StartSharp template.
Additionally, the vulnerabilities related wkhtmltopdf are not critique. Because wkhtmltopdf called from server side to server side. If you have any alternative, feel free to discuss the advantages and disadvantages about the alternatives.

[mfbayraktar]

I'd say WeasyPrint looks promising to me.

[mfbayraktar]

and found this nice versus page here https://stackshare.io/stackups/weasyprint-vs-wkhtmltopdf

It's up to serenity team but for me it looks like worth to upgrade. Maybe there could be transition time for serenity users to have both. If people like it I'd say let's get rid of wkhtmltopdf.

[VictorTomaili]

WeasyPrint does not execute JavaScript during the conversion process. This is a big disadvantage because of we need to execute javascript sometimes.

[mfbayraktar]

May I ask where is the js execution happening in the codebase?

[VictorTomaili]

js execution is happening in the pdf tool. wkhtmltopdf executes it as browser and generates the html to print a pdf file. For StartSharp users, they can use chrome browser on server side to generate pdf.