Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla Rising ... As A Platform
ceswiedler writes "Salon is running a story about Mozilla's potential dominance as a platform for application development. They discuss the community development centering around Mozilla, and point out that its cross-plaform GUI environment is 'exactly the kind of thing Microsoft was trying to prevent when it launched its war against Netscape. It didn't want Netscape around, because Netscape was becoming a platform.' In what might be a Salon first, they even include a reference to a Slashdot comment by SkyShadow."
I wonder if this is Salon's attempt to /. Slashdot for all the times Slashdot has hammered Salon? ;)
"...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
now only if salon would write an article about the comments posted on slashdot referring to the article on salon that referenced a slashdot comment. than, slashdot would have to post a story about the article on salon about the story on slashdot that arose from an article on salon that featured a slashdot comment...
sorry, its been a long day.
it seems that mozilla, as a whole, will evolve into a framework of reusable components that will transcend the browser application itself.
this will pose to be a problem for microsoft; why bother using microsoft components, which are bound to windows, when i can program across multiple platforms using mozilla components?
The link to the /. comment doesn't need "http:" just use /comments.pl
On a not entirely unrelated subject, the main differences between Mozilla 1 and Netscape 7 are:
* ICQ/AIM integration in Netscape
* No pop-up killer in Netscape
I like the first, but I don't like the second. Is it possible to add the ICQ integration to Mozilla, or, alternatively, to add the pop-up killer to Netscape?
The Force is strong in this one.
My vote is for SVG, even though the current support for it in Mozilla is pretty fragile [YMMV, I'm on 1.1 Linux].
With full support for SVG, Web applications could really take off in a big way (graphical and not just text interaction) that is unhindered by platform specific nonsense.
One big hitch though seems to be in rendering quality outline fonts. Everyone would love to have the precision of PostScript for determining exactly where text is located, how far it extends, etc, but there seems to be big players that are nervous about releasing outlines of their fonts and have punted about precise layout of fonts inside SVG, deferring to upper level CSS specifications and what not that permit layout decisions to change when we really need a web layout engine that doesn't change from platform to platform (and is free and open).
"Provided by the management for your protection."
...environment out there: Java.
saps.
It's just as buggy, slow and annoying as MS Windows - why NOT use it this way?
How safe would this be? What kind of interaction between an application developed with Mozilla and the kernal would there be? Would this potentially create vulnerabilities?
Just wanted to be sure all sides of this were explored.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Mozilla Rising ... As A Platform
You mean, like an elevator? Come back to Earth and just make it faster. Mozilla is bloated enough as it is.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
I've been looking forawrd to the Mozilla Programiing book from O'Reilly coming out. According to their web site it is coming out this month. Conspiracy anyone?
I've played with Mozilla some. Java script with CSS is a powerful way to do UI development. The question is how are we going to build apps that
1) Havethe install flexibility of a website
2) Have access to the local hard drive.
One cool thing about Mozilla is that you can remote an XUL reference just like an html, and it will render. This means that you get a pretty huge toolbox of UI available for anyone browsing using mozilla. One development tactic might me to use a XUL interface for layout, and swap out the javascript file to have different behavoir if you want to process locally or remotely.
I'd love it if SVG got into the main branch. As I understand it, the reason it hasn't was due to Licensing Issue. The original is under LGPL and GPL, but Mozilla is also licensesd under the MPL. Not sure what the SVG authors view on the MPL is.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Cirruz
Netscape 4.x, imo, was never a platform. It was only a crappy, behind the times web browser. It still is. Mozilla, on the other hand, is a viable platform. It is much different than the 4.x series and it's crappy predecessors. IE3 was a better browser than NS4. Oh, well! Now is the time for Mozilla to rule the world. :-)
Just beacuse it pisses M$ off does not mean its a good idea. Mozilla might be very nice but I dont think a web browser should be the basis of all applications. After all isnt that what Windows did?
I hate using machines with web mode desktop on.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
I'm not sure that the average Salon reader (not myself, of course!) will get this reference. After all, "5" seems pretty low in the expected 1-to-10 or 1-to-100 rating system, even for "funny" ratings.
And I wonder if Slashdot picks up more readers after such a reference?
I think that in order for it to really drive the nail in the coffin, it's going to need a niche market. Incredibly good functionality really isn't enough to make the average user go out of their way to get it. The future is likely in the ability to discover the niche application that makes it undeniably more useful -- then all it has to do is hang on for a couple of years (which is harder than it sounds...)
In what might be a Slashdot first, a Slashdot submission includes a link to a Slashdot comment, causing Slashdot itself to suffer the Slashdot effect.
Law of Software Envelopment jwz edition
``Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.''
Fine, the three hours or so it takes to compile that damn monster known as mozilla will now be worth more than just giving me a big old browser. Personally, I have to see the apps that are produced. It seems like another invitation for GNU GUI redundancy.
_ _
(i.e. Does the world need one more freaking ftp client this time based on the mozilla model?)
I don't think so. There are a half dozen choices for GUI libraries for free operating systems as it stands right now. The world does not need one more. I understand that there will be differences in philosophy behind widget and app libraries but come on. Choose QT, GTK, GNUstep or now Mozilla libraries to base your calls on. Yuck.
Considering the bloat of the mozilla app as it stands now and how it takes as I said before so long to compile just the browser I would shudder at the thought of a desktop based on this model.
_______________________________________________
ACK
Sure, there is initial appeal to having your application look the same on all platforms. Who really wants to write the same application N times? However, cross-platform consistency isn't necessarily a good thing.
Each platform has its own quirks with how it should behave. For example, menus in Windows are expected to be static (that is, they stay visible after the user releases the mouse button), while Macintosh menus tend to be rubber-band (menu disappears when user releases mouse button). In Windows, a menu action simply happens while on Macintosh, the selected menu item flashes several times.
I could go on and on with the differences between the Windows and Macintosh platforms (to say nothing of UNIX!). The point is that an application that acts differently from every other program is an application that is harder to learn. Users are forced to keep two sets of expectations, which completely defeats the purpose of using a cross-platform GUI!
Yes, you can tweak the UI so that it looks more like the host operating system. This is a thin veneer, however, as the emperor's proverbial clothes come into view when the OS theme is changed.
It makes sense that the UI should be abstracted from the rest of the application, but XUL is not the answer.
Nathan
Nokia used Linux, Mozilla and XFree86 as the platform for their now-dying MediaTerminal, and launched the OST Development network (The site seems to be dead).
:(
It actually looked as a very promising project, shame they charged almost $1000 for it
Oops
The article really downplays the fundamental reason why IE is used more than both Netscape and Mozilla. IE comes with windows now. You cannot buy a computer from one of the major manufacturers without Windows and IE on them. If you buy a laptop, you've bought IE and Windows whether you will use them or not. Few people are going to bother with Netscape or Mozilla on a Windows machine where they already have an adequate web browser.
If you want to get an idea of what is possible, check out this tutorial.t u/
http://www.xulplanet.com/tutorials/xul
I played with it about a month back and was amazed at how easy it makes GUI development.
The fact that bits and pieces of Mozilla are being used for other projects, or as the article implies, that Mozilla is used as a platform for application develpment is an expected outcome of a well guided and well executed Open Source project.
I'd say the fact that the Mozilla team took all that time to get its building blocks right is a major contributing factor, despite the widespread misgivings about Mozilla being so late.
If you have great code - clean, well documented and full featured -, make it freely accessible to everyone who asks, AND have the high profile that Mozilla has, who can beat that? Definitely not a commercial platform, whatever its merits.
Congrats to the Mozilla dvelopers, inside Netscape and elsewhere!
Is there a danger of temporal flux as visitors whip back and forth between Salon and /., their speed ever increasing as they slip deeper and deeper into the gravity well?
If your comment doesn't get referenced in Salon, does it make any karma?
Forget Quindel, be a man, and move on with your life.
..let me sit here in the Sun(tm), sip my cup of Java(tm), and think about it...
Why use the browser-turned-framework when you can use a (arguably the) cross-platform framework?
My preferred solution would be a platform-independent API that implements its calls using native widgets. For example, you create a menu, and let the native toolkit deal with the menu's behavior as it sees fit (the Mac/Win differences you mentioned). The main problem with this is that the various platforms don't have 1-to-1 correspondences amongst their various native widget sets. For simple things like menus, the Mac menu is essentially a drop-in replacement for the Windows menu, but not all widgets will have the functionality you want on all platforms. The only good ways to resolve this seem to be either implementing your own cross-platform widgets (as Mozilla is doing with XUL, and as wxWindows is doing with a more traditional toolkit library), restricting yourself to a subset of features that do exist in similar forms on all your target platforms, or convincing the OS designers to implement all your favorite features.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just look up the word "Slashdot" on Salon. Hundreds of references... Randomly picking one I find: ... So the trick seems to be that the playing time of 100:30 is interpreted as 00:30."
The CD player, the Slashdotter wrote, displayed "a playing time of 100 minutes, 30 seconds -- not!
mozilla with xul/js allow you to build some interesting tools. But try building a simple front end tool that reads a RDF as a remote datasource. I have yet to see an online working example displayed in a tree.
/xul python search page. Quickly I checked the xul source to see if mark used remote RDF only to see the code commented out with a remark along the lines of, 'almost got going'. Marks example works ,but like the code I was working on it had to use a different approach.
While the responses on the mozilla newsgroups are excellent (with the actual netscape engineers responsible responding), the lack of consistant *complete working examples* is a pain.
I had to laugh when I stumbled upon Mark Hammonds site and found a mozilla
I just want to to use remote RDF feeds.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
This is where I do my little dance and feel special. Salon quotes me, *and* I get an article on the front page! Then I post this OT, worthless post and burn off my karma.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
not a troll, serious question: what is the benefit of running an integrated Instant Messenger? Is downloading and installing a copy of Trillian (or your favorite Jabber variant) that much work? I mean, I don't particularly want a refrigerator with a built in coffee maker...
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Hello! Hello! Moderators? Moderators? Why is this post marked TROLL?
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
No the real first:
In what might be a Slashdot first, Slashdot editors are aware of a previous post!
there already is a MozillaOS, it's called:
ByzantineOS it's bare bones Linux with Mozilla and sawfish. Boots and runs from a CDrom without touching the local harddrive. it's small...and I tried it on 2 machines, all I had to do was pick low or high res, get my connection "dhcpcd" , and start the GUI "startx" real slick once it loads you can remove the cd, and when you're done you don't 'shutdown' you just kill the power....and it's FAST.
ZillaVilla.com for Mozilla profile roaming.
In Mosaic, you clicked the "throbber" (Mosaic's logo) for stop.
I remember using Netscape 0.9 and kept clicking the logo for 'stop' and being continuously bounced to Netscape's web page. I found that quite annoying and counter-intuitive at the time. heh.
Until you can hook XUL up to Java Components I don't see it taking off in the business (corporate) world. XPCom is cool, but most corporate developers are doing Java or VB. VB components can be used in all of M$' client tools. Moz could be like an applet container on steriods, without Java powering the UI.
BlackConnect was supposed to offer a Java->XPCom bridge, but it seems really dead in the water. I'd love to just write an EJB backend or maybe frontend the EJBs with servlets or SOAP to marshall the data into the browser, move validation to the client side.
I could do my UI in XUL and have bridge code to hit the backend. Client-Server with the client management taken care of by Moz. It would be better than WebStart IMNSHO. Plus I could build off the other apps available to Moz.
This would reduce my development costs and by integrating XUL devel into IDE's like Eclipse and Dreamweaver, I could beat the socks off VB/ASP/.NET developers with a superior solution (cross-platform too!). I'm sure once the tools arrived quite a few corporate environments would look to Moz + J2EE as a competitor to traditional M$ client-server style apps.
It's almost there... just please give me Java support!!!!
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I guess we'll see.
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can
:) I think the ultimate stopping point of development on emacs is going to be when the emacs hackers sit down to make improvements in the program, and the program ends up responding, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Dave"
Yep, that's one of those quasi-funny computer "laws" that actually has a very disheartening core of truth to it. Of course some programs such as emacs expanded until they could read mail and then kept going
Here's another one of those informal computer laws that's ha-ha funny...but serious:
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming:
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Developers who are looking at Mozilla as a platform for creating application interfaces should also take a look at another open source project which was designed to do just that, Eclipse.
Eclipse provides a fairly full featured set of APIs for for creating GUIs along with nice APIs for working with resources (files, directories, etc.), creating builders, compilers, etc. It's mostly suited for creating IDE type apps (as an example, WebSphere Studio Application Developer developed by IBM who developed the initial Eclipse code base is built on Eclipse), but I've seen some fairly nice "proof of concept" type projects for more standard issue apps like Word Processors, etc.
Eclipse is Java based, so the code is fairly "write once, run anywhere (debug everywhere (twice))" for whatever platforms the project's custom SWT widget toolkit works for (Linux and Windows included).
As a bonus, Eclipse on it's own if a fairly nice (free as in speech) Java IDE that runs on Linux (even includes a built-in CVS client).
Actually, Microsoft sealed Metscape's doom with Internet Explorer 3.0, which was the first version of IE that was 'COM enabled'. Bits and pieces of IE have been used for other projects, like Office, Visio, Project, - oh, and uh - Windows.
So, no, Open Source has not made it possible. In this case, Open source is following in the footsteps of others.
If you have great code - clean, well documented and full featured -, make it freely accessible to everyone who asks, AND have the high profile that Mozilla has, who can beat that? Definitely not a commercial platform, whatever its merits.
Oh, I don't know... Microsoft? Sorry, guy, but you're getting a bit of a big head. The Netscape developers got thheir asses whipped (go read the article), and are now playing catch-up.
Oh, and, BTW: almost any MS product has a higher profile than Mozilla. Sorry to burst your bubble...
Mozilla doesn't need to displace IE on windows. Instead, it will gain a foot-hold on windows-free, dedicated purpose "thin-clients". As these gain a foothold as a cheap alternative for the corporate-computing masses, Mozilla becomes a natural tool for developers to use to build applications for those boxes.
Or, instead, he'd get rid of the browser altogether and come up with a "digital control panel," something integrated with e-mail and other network applications...
this is indeed the direction that MSN Messenger is heading. although just a pretty AOL client - much of the UI is rendered using embedded ie and using (D)HTML (etc...) as a means of primary navigation; much like MSN Messenger. similarly, the company i work for, is extended its usage of HTML for dialogs and even primary navigation mechanisms.
I think we should replace Karma with
;-)
"How big is my ego today"
So how's it go
(Score:6, Published)?
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
So Salon readers get to read a bitchfest as to whether or not it's "spell checker" or "spelling checker".
-no broken link
I don't really think that Mozilla could be much of an application development environment. There aren't enough engineers talented enough to use Mozilla as a platform. Sure, maybe a handful of companies/organizations can do something great with Mozilla but in order for it to be a real platform with a support network built around it, it needs to be brain-dead simple like Visual Basic or even MFC.
With such a small group using Mozilla its inevitable that the people using it will fork the entire code base making incorporation of fixes in the core arduous and any documentation on developing with Mozilla will become inaccurate quickly. Maybe if someone wrote an extraction layer for Mozilla that would shield the core with lowest common denominator APIs then there would be a chance.
So, in other words, they work like Windows now?
Once again, we see the Mac ripping off Windows, yet the Macolytes will insist that Windows always rips off the Mac. See also: Alt-Tab, keyboard traversal, handicap accessibility (which still sucks on the Mac), the task bar, context-sensitive menus (right-click menus), etc.
Then, of course, there are the things that the Apple refuses to steal, but should: two button mouse, menu-bars per window (Apple, just give it up! A single menu bar is a BAD IDEA. Anything disappearing is a BAD IDEA).
By the way, has Apple gotten rid of windowshade roll-ups? That was anothing thing totally brain damaged in MacOS.
- Any programming project that begins well ends badly.
- If a programming task looks easy its tough.
- If a program is useful it will have to be changed.
- Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.
- The probability that a given program will perform to expectations is inversly proportional to the programmers confidence in his ability to do the job.
- There is always one more bug.
- If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
I tried checking the site of the stat-accumulating company quoted in the salon article, WebSideStory, and couldn't find what they consider a usage statistic.
I'm a fan of Moz's pop-up disabling abilities, but if this company uses TOTAL requests, then every other browser has an artificially inflated total.
Like when I use IE, I send out requests via pop-ups all the time and each can, in turn, make more requests. With Moz, I don't make any such requests.
With this in mind, to a particular site I can tally '1' visit with Moz and '1+x' visits with IE (x>=0).
That's the easy way to track general browser use, but since Moz doesn't conform to this general rule, hopefully they have adjusted the numbers accordingly. Any idea how it's done?
This is not my sig.
Rockford Files, been a long time since I seen that.
Java GUIs suck beyond belief: The widgets are all fucked up and the whole thing is unusably slow. How do you kill a product? Reimplement it in Java!
While that tutorial gets you quite a bit for XUL coding, the overall documentation for Mozilla is sparse. I've been working on a bug for a couple weeks now, and in the process I've learned a lot of how Mozilla works, but I've had to do it the hard way. I use a lot of find and grep to trace conceptual maps of data flow and how Moz keeps track of certain things. There need to be at least one comprehensive reference manual (I wouldn't mind paying $100 for it!) so that I don't waste 8 hours to figure out which abstract method of what class implements the proper method for me to get a char* out of some object. There are tons of books on Qt, Gtk, Cocoa, Carbon and Win32. There aren't really any out there for Mozilla.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Microsoft doesn't really need to worry about the so-called platform threat, and they never did. They made IE the platform, and then welded it to Windows.
And could Salon really think that Moz as a platform could possibly compete with .Net? The API for the next Windows OS? Unlikely.
Use the google cache.
If Netscape dies [will] the dragon that it spawned burn Redmond?
Unlikely, but I can dream, can't I?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Really.
"it is [sic] heavy incorporation [sic] of browser and kernal [sic]..."
"Incorporation" and "integration" are two different words. And then you misspelled "kernel" again in the next paragraph: That wasn't a typo. You really are that stupid. Learn English, moron.
"Slashbots will be modded down without prejudice"? Good thought. You can start with yourelf. I recommend a permanent self-down-modding procedure for incurable imbeciles: Just put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. You'll be worth more as fertilizer than you ever were as a cheap imitation of a human being.
Years after STL has been ratified as the C++ standard library, mozilla is still not using it, to its own detriment. mozilla needs to be rewritten using STL.
This is hedging on being as bad as Apple zealotry. First off, nice job buying into a dead platform. The 8200 uses RAMBUS, and that is now deprecated, you now should feel as dumb as you sound. Its not even 32 bit RAMBUS, or 1066+. Its shitty, old, 16 bit wide PC800 without ECC. Laugh.
Software has no warranty, expressed or implied. It also has no value, this is because the EULA makes it worthless. If Ford has to pay for burning Pintos and exploding Firestone tires, why does Microsoft get off when worms destroy people's workflow and businesses and credit cards are gleaned from inferior APIs? The EULA says you cant resell the software. Wrong. That's illegal to say. I can resell my car, why not software. The EULA says they can take the software away at any time for any reason. That's illegal, that would be theft on their part. The EULA says you cant give the software away or transfer the license. Wrong. That's illegal. They can not say to whom you can show charity. The EULAs say you can't exercise your right to fair use and make a backup or install multiple times on multiple computers even if you only run one at a time. Wrong. This is really infringing on basic copyright fundaments. Novelty is to be protected, but not a monopoly or the selling of non novel things as such.
I will use Windows 2000. Never XP, I wont install Media Player. I wont be subjected to Digital Rights Management because it breaks the law under the guise of enforcing it.
FreeBSD a superior OS that is free. It is best suited for people who do not long after having their hands held or the comfort of the Windows UI. It makes for a supreme server OS. Windows 2000 is good for general purpose. But invasive and illegal EULA'a have come to SP3. Linux is good for a tinker box or a Win replacement. 7.3 and the new betas are nice enough to conceivably replace MS for most L-users. Sure AutoCAD and Adobe stuff needs a commercial OS, but a secretary doesn't need a $500 office suite.
And if you think Microsoft as a server is viable. Laugh. I hope you don't do any professional services. I would laugh at you if you offered a home on a Microsoft box at a co-lo or a VPS. And Microsoft Directory Services are anti-standard and pathetic. Windows doesn't scale. In comes IBM and Sun for real solutions in that department.
And if you argue MSFT makes shareholders money. It doesn't. It doesn't pay dividends, and it has had trouble growing recently because it is a monopoly. When you are a monopoly its hard to grow now isn't it?
It all boils down to this. Are you going to give people money that run to congress to write suppressive legislation that takes away your in-alienable rights?
In my work i had an option to use Mozilla as a codebase for one of the projects. At a first glance and idea of XUL gui, which can be custom tailored to application needs and run on any platofrm while using some native objects - seemed very tempting. However the devil as always is in the details.
The XUL described interfaces are severely limited and their implementation is often buggy, and extremely slow.
Bidings to native objects using XPCOM and XPConnect are a horrible mess, adding layers upon layers of complexity.
All this may in theory be remedied by a good group of developers, but currently Mozilla does not posess such a group. There is no consistent documentation on interfaces (which tend to change without warning), and no good documentation to speak of. With no docs and no commentaries in the 3 million lines of code, Mozilla is an unyeildy beast. I can only assume that lack of documentation and comments is created on purpose to discourage "outsiders" from intruding upon developers turf.
Add to that general lack of responsivness from Mozilla developers, be that to other developers looking for solutions and API's or to users (and i am not alone in multiple requests to mailing lists or newsgroups that go unanswered).
Add gazillion of bug reports that go un-fixed (a bug that prevents mozilla windows to be started from javascript in xpconnect is lingering for a year now with a patch attached).
To summarize - a lot of time and/or money and a different group of people are needed to make it work before it will become a viable platform. As things stand, this is just a plug for AOL.
Its funny, I develop web sites, I'd rather use Mozilla/Netscape as my browser, but I am forced to IE because its the corporate standard. This is especially true since I need to do have sites authenticate against the NT SAM(with integrated, not Basic) which only IE is capable of doing. If they want to open up the choice of browsers then
the Mozilla/Netscape/Opera's of the world need to be able to do this. All of my sites work in every browser for every feature except the authentication piece. ADD NT integrated challenge response, and the numbers might start to shift corporately...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
And thus we have GNU Hello, a Hello World program which includes, amoung other things, a frickin' mail reader.
(Although it's main purpose is as an example of GNU coding style, it's still pretty nuts...)
J
Unfortunately Mozilla apps are cross-platform only in the sense that Qt ones are, or Visix Galaxy ones used to be - you need a compiler and a decent size machine to build on.
Times are changing - platform today means a VM like Java or Dotnet. Tying builds to specific low-level hardware, whether Itanium in the server room or ARM in a phone, hobbles the process of development, distribution and support to such an extent that it renders the product uncompetitive.
Continuing to invest in this approach for Linux will do nothing more than marginalize it. At this rate, there will be no Linux platform, only cobbled together Linux/Java, Linux/Mono, Linux/Oracle etc. hybrids.
There are projects like Parrot, Guile and Kawa that could offer a way out, but the community is too busy worrying about Gnome vs. KDE, as if these "desktop managers", useful as they are today, were somehow of strategic importance.
Meanwhile, MS is outflanking the whole technical base with Dotnet. The more consistent and pervasive this is, the more Linux will be pushed out of the mainstream. The only combination that is likely to affect BillG's sleeping is a convergence on Linux+Java. Right now, Sun and IBM are effectively providing a lifeboat, but a lot of us don't seem to want to be rescued.
I have to wonder whether Mozilla is a viable
platform for more than some web apps.
First of all, I think it won't be easy to shield
Mozilla modules from each other without loading
large parts of Mozilla into memory several times.
Also I've been working on an Mozilla extension
for a while and I think Mozilla has relatively
poor design, quite good QA and loads of testers.
That is if you don't do anything too exotic,
everything works fine. If you do, loads of bugs
and glitches show up.
Hopefully I stand to be corrected.
PS: Version 1.0b2 of RadialContext is out, and
fixes the more prominent problems.
I like XUL. I think it's a great idea and the implementation rocks. But most of all, it's simple. There are no DLLs, no IUnknown pointers or registry issues to deal with. Mozilla is a great browser, in many respects superior to IE, and in some inferior (my dream browser would be a combination of IE, Mozilla and Konqueror which runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. Oh well). But the difference it was designed from the sart to *be* a platform, where with IE platformitis was an afterthought.
But I disgress. The key here is going to be Mozilla's ability to gain critical mass with average developers in Windows for it to take off. I'm not talking about XPCOM hackers, I'm talking about the ones quoted in the Salon article. It will do Mozilla no good if it takes off in Linux, because Linux has no desktop presence to speak of, and it has a far greater variety of browsers that, while good for competition, also cause fragmentation.
I think Microsoft's response to this (if they do get to the point where they consider the Mozilla *platform* a threat) will be to essentially take IE and turn it into a .NET platform. If they can offer a platform to people writing C# and VB.NET and JScript.NET, they'll be all set - assuming the .NET thing does take off like they want to. Of course, one of the catalysts to .NET acceptance will be how many computers it happens to be installed in - imagine if anyone who wants to use the next version of IE has to download the .NET runtime?
Still, Mozilla has the upper hand because it's off on the race and Microsoft is standing in the starting line wondering what the futz is going on and why are all these geeks cheering?
No kidding. I'm really disappointed in the quality control, though. If you flip through forty or so images of chicks kissing, only about 15 of them are of hot chicks.
From this:
Slashdot Article
There's this:
And this:by LuxuryYacht on Thursday August 15, @02:21AM (#4075045) Alter Relationship (User #229372 Info | http://slashdot.org/) Download the adblocker.xpi file (Shift+click to download).
When you download the adblocker.xpi file in Netscape 7, it will add .txt to the filename (adblocker.xpi.txt).
Before saving the file, remove .txt from the filename and save the file to disk.
Then in Netscape 7 click File | Open to install.
Then In Netscape 7 click Edit | Preferences | Advanced - Scripts & Windows to unselect or select the Open unrequested windows
- It's not the size of your development team that matters ... it's how you use it. - [ Parent ]
Direct link to the pop-up restore... (Score:5, Informative)
http://ufaq.org/files/adblocker.xpi
Pleas post mirrors in this thread.
[ Parent ] Re:Direct link to the pop-up restore... (Score:5, Informative)
I've tried it and it works on Netscape PR7 and 7.0 on both Linux and W2k.
MjM
I only mod up...
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
When the absolute best things going for Mozilla for developers is its array of integrated development tools. Mozilla's DOM Inspector and JavaScript debugger are absolute heaven after coding for IE and MS's poor excuse for a browser development environment.
The DOM Inspector lets you interactively walk through the DOM of a page viewing each containers attributes and children. You can interactively change values and appearance. You can turn on the 'blink' feature to temporarily 'blink' whatever element you are selecting in the DOM. You can also view all CSS elements on the page and inspect how they are cascading. And lots more. Wow!
The JavaScript debugger is everything we have come to expect in a 'standard' development environment... but it is for JavaScript. Set breakpoints.. set watches.. step through code.. evaluate javascript in context.. change code on the fly..
And included in the JavaScript debugger app is JavaScript profiling! Turn it on and play with the page.. then save the results to a number of different formats. You get an excellent breakdown of what code was executed and for how long, how many calls were made, where the execution time was spent etc etc.. just like you would expect from a Profiler. Now I can definitively show how much overhead comes with using DynAPI!
And all of this built into the browser! I think from the development standpoint alone, it will boost productivity by an order of magnitude. Takes out so much of the guesswork that usually goes along with front-end development.
I think Microsoft should be afraid. Very afraid. Mozilla is what browsers should have been 5 years ago. I've now switched my development environment to developing under Mozilla and then testing IE later for any quirks. The dev time is radically decreased.
"it's a simple matter to prove that any program could be reduced to a single line of code with a bug."
-- Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix (Learning Perl) --
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
What happens if Salon continues the trend of linking to slashdot and it overloads the slashdot servers? Will we have to rename the /. effect to the Salon effect? :-)
In all seriousness though, it's nice to know that our valuable slashdot comments/opinions do make it out in the wild and are recognised sometimes...
Shouldn't you be watching professional wrestling or boinking your cousin or something like that?
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming:
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
"Including Common Lisp."
- Robert Morris
(I love this one -- I found it on Graham's webpage, you know, the one developing the 'arc' programming language.)
-Billy
Yes, well, some Mac zealots don't admit it, but Steve Jobs is as much a rip off King as Bill Gates. What's good gets bought/copied, what's bad quietly goes into the night.
Although, the things you list include the Task Bar, which is nothing compared to a classic NeXT dock. Remember, who's ripping off who?
The things that Apple doesn't want are fine in my book. Let us always remember that the Desktop paradigm includes the stipulation that only one application may have the focus. So, why bother fucking with hundreds of space-wasting task and menu bars? The little white button makes them ALL go away, and that gets a fucking YAY from me. More window real estate on my laptop is GOOD.
Has anyone actuly written an app useing mozilla? Seems like a rather silly idea considering has slow the mozilla gui is. not as slow as java but still
"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."
Skyshadow:
Why use Netscape (Score:6, Linked)
by Skyshadow on Thursday August 29, @02:56PM
"Why should/would I use Netscape instead of Mozilla? Not getting enough pop-up windows in my life? Feel the need for a more closed solution?"
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
OK, so Mozilla has more better features than Netscape? Well, Duh. but that's like saying the Pontiac Aztech in the dealer showrooms didn't have as many features as the concept car version.
Netscape is 'official'. It's going to be supported with a room full of tech support reps and it's going to be bundled with stuff, Moz has a more experimental, cutting-edge hue to it because it isn't.
This double-barreled development approach is really a brilliant move by AOL/Netscape, even if it did take FOUR years, I bet the end product is a lot more stable, with more useful features than it would have had as a closed proprietary project. Does anyone know if it came in under budget or not?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
and if you ever have to switch platforms (or worse, have to switch daily) you know how to use the app, because its the same app.
I went from only windows, to Windows, QNX, and Slackware. Being able to use the same browser, with almost all of the same plugins is very freakin nice.
Same reason why I switched to OpenOffice. On the windows box I still use the other office and IE (using it right now, as a matter of fact) but I like that I don't have to.
I use IE on this machine because it's so much faster than Moz. I use Moz on my other windows machine because it's so much better. That machine is faster overall.
..Javascript and such, blah blah blah.
The article's absolutely right. How many webdorks do you know who fancy themselves as 'programmers', yet can't seem to learn anything but *ML and JavaScript?
Maybe, by a dictionary definition, they actually are programmers. But the fact is, they'll never understand the sanguine beauty of pointers, for example.
They want it simple. If Mozilla truly does make it as simple as the article believes it will, people will start doing goofy things with it.
The one major thing that I dislike about XUL is that it seems determined to make you program in javascript. I don't like javascript. Frankly, I think the web stinks because of the poor programming habits that javascript promotes.
Browsers already have java plug-ins, so why can't I write XUL for mozilla in an object orient fashion using java? or jython? or jruby?
Apache supports a jillion languages, why doesn't mozilla?
Mozilla is a bit cumbersome as a programming platform or common library. But I suppose it still beats the alternatives--large C or C++ toolkits that people use to create even larger and more inflexible desktops and applications.
I don't want a "platform"! I want a browser. But, that's why I use Opera.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The thing I really hate about all this is that mozilla is supposed to be a browser! While a cross-platform GUI framework may be a laudable goal, putting it into a web browser just muddles everything and results in a web that is no longer cross-platform, and bland non-web apps that don't use platform functionality well.
The web doesn't work when sites require a specific browser! I just wish that the mozilla crew could recognize that and rise above the Microsoft crap.
What we see now on the web is numerous sites designing for IE because "90% of our user base is using IE on Windows, so why should we design for the common denominator?" Everyone designing for Mozilla is just as bad as everyone designing for IE. It still defeats one of the most useful features of the web, namely compatibility across platforms, browsers, and physical layout paradigms.
The web started as logical markup. Properly tagged information could be rendered in a number of different ways, depending on the USER's needs and preferences. Then the commercial interests came along and stupid people tried to use the web as a graphic design medium, completely missing the point that the power of the web comes from its inability to dictate things like layout. People just don't think about the fact that the web would never have been as useful as it has been if it was a bunch of PDF files with hyperlinks.
Argh.
But then again, neither does this post.
And it seems to me that with the flood of browsers on the market these days, the AOL guys should realize that the former "name brand" value of Netscape isn't gonna float them, especially when it's packed with irritating junk that detracts from what it was meant to do, namely, browse the web.
BlackBolt
Here's the google cache for the Sky Shadow page... oh wait. heh.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
These two technologies will interact very well. XBL is a Mozilla technology wich is used to "create new tags" in terms of existing ones. Then you can create a tag, with attributes, events, etc. This new tag will appear native to its users, but it will be coded in simple JavaScript and an XML description. Many Mozilla features are currently implemented with XBL.
- a bookmark organizer that dynamically sorts bookmarks based on what I've visited recently, and what order I typically visit them in
- sidebars that automatically update themselves with my favorite XML newsfeeds
- an MP3 (local or streaming) player in the sidebar or toolbar
- a two-pane FTP tool that's at least as good as the ones I use for work
Probably some of these are already under development, of course....
Right-click menus and the taskbar(dock) are both ripoffs from NEXTSTEP (which you probably know as Mac OS X these days).
Personally I think it won't fly. Until you are deep in a heavy duty, large company corporate environment, you don't realize how impossible the task of launching a new platform would be. It's either all Java, ColdFusion, or MS. There are some really amazing things you can do on IE; Excel lite? no problem. All kinds of funky database interfaces, enhanced entry forms. You can't imagine how much crud some companies have... there's just no way another platform will make any significant inroads here.
More and more the kernel is becoming irrelevant and it's the end-applications like the browser or the office suite or the window system which is what the user cares about. And, FreeBSD runs all those better than any of the *linux distros.
Good golly, but do I hate Negroes!
obvious
Here is an interesting 'lil factoid:facty facty
Now I know yer just pumping Opera as a web "browsing" purist. But your are distinctly fooled if you think for a second that web "browsing" does not include the constant use of web applications . Wow.. Slashdot is one such beast. Web applications are the future of the web and "browsing" and web "browsers" need to have the hooks and the smarts to make it a reality. So my question is, would you rather have a "browser" tha implements this in an open way, or one that seizes the openess and hooks that into the damn shell of the OS like this king of browsing platforms??? Another tidbit that might help make Mozilla a "browser" for ya..A simple qwestion, a simple answer
Watch in terror and delight as the giant creature from O.S. devours the city of Redmond! Will Bill Gates and his army of lawers be able to stop him? Find out in: MOZILLA EATS REDMOND!!!!!
Not to sidetrack your humor... but, erm, has a cornerstone of Netscape of Old and Mozilla always been their mail reader. Looking forward to "e-mail programs" is like looking forward to a Mozilla application that can render HTML. Yeah, umm, so... about that,
Not only can Java apps use the "native" (mostly but not quite) Look-n-Feel of the platform on which they run, they can also give you the LnF of that platform on any other platform.
Sure, it's not perfect, but it's a better step in the right direction than anything else out there now.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Oh, great, yet another concept that the media will jump all over, hype out of proportion, put up on a high platform for all to worship, make great claims & expectations for then, when it fails to meet such high ideals, skewer it with "what a bunch of losers" articles...
:)
Lets see now - Netscape, Java, thin computing, Linux, now (potentially) this. All hyped out beyond belief, all racing to keep up with the hype, all having troubles to clear the ever-raising hurdle, all being hassled by the press. All still great technologies, worth using and being used right now - it's just that none have knocked M$ off it's perch, despite the eager hyping of the press & some idiots...
Perhaps a gradual accumulation will do it - thin-client computers running Linux, Java and Mozilla - no hype, just the quiet achievement.
Hmmmm - sounds like the cheap-ass Celeron 1.7GHz workstations I'm installing at a client's to run apps from their intranet & the Internet - not a copy of MS-Office or Windoze in site (next time we'll use AMD too
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
From the article:
"Eventually, [webmasters] will integrate their content into these programs, so you won't visit the golf Web site, you'll start up the golf program," Potter added.
"The browser's not even going to matter."
I have big doubts about this... the web revolution happened precisely because all you needed to access all the (at first) static information and (then later) applications (like hotmail, eBay, Amazon,etc) was a simple web browser. Finally, a darn near ubiquitous client existed.
This sounds like a backward step if it means that these applications will begin to take on life outside the browser. I'm in favor of net-enabled applications, but my guess is that applications which try to leave the browser won't catch on in the same way that those who can do everything inside it will.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Wow! You could write a DisplayPDF driver in SVG+javascript and port the whole MacOS X desktop to Mozilla!
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
If you added templates to Mozilla it'd take twice as long to compile. It already takes way too long to compile as it is.
In my experience writing cross-platform apps it is far more important for the applications to look pixel-identical across platforms, and NOT to match the "system look". I have already been ORDERED by the users of my software to not change Alt to Ctrl shortcuts, and to stop paying attention to system colors so that the colors of the GUI are the same on all platforms. And my software uses my own toolkit that certainly does not match any others, and I have never gotten a complaint that was tookit based. (the toolkit does resemble Windows a lot but is mostly used on Linux).
If "consistent look" were really necessary for understanding everything, then people would be forced to buy every appliance and car from the same manufacturer. They would be confused because the color of the tape dispenser and the phone on their desk do not match. And computer games would not work because the designers insist on coloring the buttons different to try to fit them in the theme of the game. This is utter nonsense.
I actually think that applications that look different will help users distinguish them on the computer desktop, and it would be an improvement.
Now I know a bunch of you are going to say "well by brothers wife's friend was confused once because a scrollbar jumped instead of paging". But I want real examples where people were fully unable to continue or cope because of an "inconsistent user interface".
Others are sure to point out that "athena widgets really sucked" without realizing that besides being inconsistent, the interface "sucked"!!! In fact I think every single complaint about "inconsistent" is really when comparing two things where one sucks.
I would love to see some REAL examples.
But otherwise I see this as an excuse to freeze GUI design and avoid any possibilities of progress. We will be stuck with the mess of stupid ideas from CDE and MicroSoft's additions forever because of this insane mindset.
A spelling checker (for the mail client). This feature is an important part of Netscape 7 not included in Mozilla for licensing reasons. I am a poor speller and need this feature.
http://spellchecker.mozdev.org/
windows xpi & linux rpms
No docs.
Incomplete and buggy interfaces.
Inconsistancies that make JAVA actually look like it was truly cross platform.
Er, just to name a few...
And to deal with all that just to pick up another 5%? Well I guess if you have developers to burn, go for it. Otherwise, it makes no logical sense.
That's fine, until you realize that any sufficiently complicated Lisp program has an ad-hoc, bug-ridden implementation of Prolog.
It stops with Prolog, though, since any sufficiently complicated Prolog program fails to work at all.
---------
Get back to me when my brain starts working.
What planet do you live on? There are so many problems with everything you said it would be impossible to list them all.
But one small thing that virtually every RAMBUS basher gets completely wrong:
Just because the dimms were only 16 bits wide doesn't mean that the memory data path is 16 bits wide! You plug in the 16 bit chips in pairs and have a full 32 bit, 1600 Mhz path! There is no performance gain or penalty to having a single 32 bit dimm or a pair of 16 bit dimms.
Insanity like yours will take you nowhere. Grow up, open your ears and close your mouth. (Your parents have probably been telling you this for years).
Isn't this what netscape was after a long time ago? A new development platform to supersedewindows?
isn't this why microsoft hated it so much?
The author repeatedly knocks Netscape for lagging Mozilla in terms of features, but to me, this isn't completely outrageous.
Released software lags betas in terms of features too and in some ways, Mozilla is a beta for Netscape. Of course, carrying this to its logical extreme, one would hope that Netscape was more stable than the version of Mozilla on which it is based. I don't have enough experience with Netscape to say that this is the case, but I kind of doubt it is any more stable.
If you want proof you just have to look at mozdev.org. But by far the most compelling evidence of it's flexability is Komodo. It's an IDE that is completely built on top of mozilla, and I believe it is excelent. I have done some testing of it's PHP abilities and I would use it, if it wasn't so expensive.
Mozilla's goals state that portability precedes all.
I'd sooner see Mozilla's XPCOM re-written to use CORBA, but maybe I'm just a quack.
* XUL is an easy way to make a GUI for your program.
...?).
* It's cross platform so your GUI will work on other platforms as well, without (much) modification.
* It's designed from the start in a language and format that's supposed to be sent over the internet (use your PC visually from anywhere).
* It's also language independent! You don't need to program in a specific programming language to make your GUI. Ok ok, you need to learn how to write an HTML-like language, but almost any programmer can do that. You're NOT tied to using a specific C++ or Java library to make your GUI. Swing is a cross platform GUI but you need to program Swing in Java.
The big implication seems to be that all programs, written in all languages will be able to standardize their GUIs by using XUL. And I've read that it's easier than all other methods (Gnome, KDE,
In 100 years, people all over the world will probably be using 1 Open Source Graphical Interface (with different underlying Operating Systems). Mozilla's XUL is a first step in that direction.
Some extra functionality is needed, but should be added slowly and sensibly. Using SVG like MacOS X uses Display PDF would be nice. But in the meantime XUL seems to provide enough functionality for most programs. In the end, XUL should take over the GUIs not just for individual programs, but also for the whole OS.
The article stated that XUL doesn't have floating windows withing XUL and that's why it won't take over as OS desktop yet. How about making a floating window just another XUL window inside the main window?
And what about this screenshot?
ByzantineOS
Doesn't that show multiple XUL windows at the same time?
- -- Truth addict for life.
There was a story posted about OEOne, who built an operating environment "homebase desktop" using mozilla on top of RedHat. Thought some /.ers might be interested if they missed that one.
wxWindows is not only trying to do. It's the BEST try by far at cross platform development.
About concerns for big bloated C++ apps, they are much more clean an concise than equivalent Java platforms, (even if C++ lacks the usefulness of Java serialization). And Java has nothing to do against wxPython (Ask E. S. Raymond !!!)
The best thing of all is that wxWindows is under INCREDIBLE ACTIVE development besides having more than 10 years of history and experience.
And it has NONE of the license restrictions of Qt.
Go, a give it a try.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/27050.html
vodka, straight up, thank you!
The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence.
``This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation,'' began the magician, ``ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?''
The master raised his eyebrows slightly. ``It is indeed amazing,'' he said.
``Corporate Headquarters has commanded,'' continued the magician, ``that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?''
``Certainly,'' replied the master, ``I will have it transported to the data center immediately!'' And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased.
Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, ``I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?''
``Yes,'' replied the master, ``the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center.''
fifth sigma, inc.
I've been doing application development in IE for years. Why would I want to switch to Mozilla now when the majority of corporate intranets use IE?
The idea of XML-based interfaces is definitely in the air. But XUL seems a rather ad-hoc approach compared to the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which can represent any two-dimentional graphic component. SVG seems to be heavily backed by Adobe, and Adobe tools, such as Illustrator 10, are already SVG-enabled. There is a Mozilla plug-in for SVG, and one hopes that native support will follow.
I won't say Mozilla was always fast, but lately it's gotten a lot faster.
I use Mozilla on a Pentium III 600 and it's quite snappy; about as snappy as XP is on a similar machine.
Please try to actually download and use a recent build before making uninformed statements, thank you.
Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp
such as Emacs?
cpeterso
Linujournal had this information about Mozilla's application framework two years ago in a story about "the many faces of mozilla" "You can build all sorts of applications on top of the Mozilla applications programming framework." Here is the URL if you want to read it. http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5183
His dilemma is thus:
That's why he mentions 'trusted scripts' as a possible solution. It'd allow him access to the HD from his web application without changing the security policy.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
I get that, every time I try to use Microsoft Office.
I wonder what that paperclip would be like if it was ported over to Visual Studio:
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
While I disagree with just about everything the article has to say, it does just slightly miss a good point.
Personally, I hate the fact that the Mozilla developers decided to stick every feature any browser ever had, into Mozilla, but it does end up with some good features as well. The biggest problem with Netscape's version, is that they are so busy keeping advertisers and web designers happy that they remove features that users want. Javascript controls and image settings are just the high-profile examples.
Most people aren't going to be deciding if they should use Netscape 7 or Mozilla, they are going to download Netscape 7 and decide if there is any reason to leave Internet Explorer behind. When they don't find anything they like, that's the end of the opportunity. And for every user that finds a killer feature, there is at least 10 other people that they will tell about it. So, Netscape is so busy trying to please everyone, that they are becomming their own worst enemy.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"Right-click menus and the taskbar(dock) are both ripoffs from NEXTSTEP (which you probably know as Mac OS X these days). "
Well, Borland was using Right-click menus in the late 80's. I don't know if this predates NEXTSTEP or not.
Why does anyone need sun Microsystems anymore? Intel processors are now running at workstation and server speeds. You can cluster Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Data Center to surpass the SunFire offering in terms of cost, performance, and interoperability. Once .NET Servers are unleashed onto the world, Sun won't be able to provide the needed Palladium support required to interact with the internet community because all sites will require Palladium copy protection to prevent theft of material.
Based on the number of users divided by the number of vulnerabilities. Imagine if your parents and kids had to configure Linux! There would be so much chaos because of improperly configured systems that the whole computing world would stop. The reason Windows is perceived to be insecure is that most people don't know anything about computers, and STILL Microsoft has only a limited number of problems.
Remember Grandma, and Junior aren't computer scientists and they can still run Windows securely. If they tried to configure Linux, Unix, or Solaris they would screw it up folks. We would have service packs up to the wazoo.
Sincerely,
Martin Marvinski, MCSD, MCSE, MS
Do you know who's rule (or edition of the rule) was that? Jamie Zawinski's, who was the lead coder of the 'Netscape of Old'. Irony :)
Maybe someone should've mirrored that comment on Salon... but, well, probably they hate us enough already since their Saloning can't keep up with a Slashdotting...
Check out this example application designed with and for Mozilla and other standards compliant browsers.
who says we pay for them?
with your soul and mine
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
because if mine had userland applications that can freeze me out I'd be concerned.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I agree that XUL seems to be an elegant way of creating GUI's making them cross platform.
The point however is that Mozilla isn't very cross platform, every embedded linux project (or WinCE for that part) has chosen another browser engine. And those experimenting with Mozilla are usually trying to create a more light-weight GUI.
Apart from being bloated the great thing about XUL is that it's making it possible to add much more plug-in bloat easily. Though it will probably demand more of the platform.
POSIX, X Window System, NFS, LDAP, GTK+ and Gnome.
All of these can be run on any platform, providing a cross-platform, single-login environment. And throw in Scheme and Common Lisp for languages even more powerful and high-level than Java or C#.
Substitute or add C++ and wxWindows or Qt and KDE or Objective C and GNUStep or whatever you like for Lisp, GTK+ and Gnome if you don't like copyleft or too much openness or multiple languages. Why, you can even use Java or .Net now.
Even MS had an open standards strategy to migrate all users to Xenix, before it realised it had power enough to get users into a proprietary lock-in.
See Fink for the Mac OS X. It's based on Debian, and install all the missing part of open standards support on Mac OS X. Granted it would be more difficult to do on MS W32, but not impossible.
CygW32 is already part of the answer; refine it, rework it for dpkg, integrate better with MS W32 -- especially making X Window getting its configuration from the registry and integrating its windows on the MS W32 desktop -- and you have everything Mozilla is supposed to do, but better, faster, more powerful. And native.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
The GNU version of the classic hello world program actually contains a mail reader.
... Mozilla project's lousiest effort (in terms of stability and usefulness) is their cross platform GUI code.
Microsoft didn't have to stop them on that front.
They did it all by themselves.
It is trivial to crash any version of Mozilla browser due to the GUI toolkit bugs in less than 5 minutes on any platform for which the browser is available.
One doesn't even have to try really hard.
Furthermore, the project developers have steadfastily ignored all quality feedback reports pertaining to buggy GUI code.
I remember posting my first feedback in '99 and the same bugs are still in the browser.
It's quite sad, really.
Or you just browse through the proxomitron http://home.arcor.de/six/
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
If you select the "Classic" theme, Mozilla will actually use the native theme engine to draw the skin, for platforms that have a native theme engine. I believe this includes at least XP, perhaps also some versions of Gnome.
Any XP users out there who can tell how well this works?
I looked into SVG as an alternative to DHTML, and while it's good for output it's lousy for input. You have mouseclick and mousemove and that's about it. No lists, menus, text boxes, etc.
SVG needs forms capability before it can be REALLY useful.
How do you get it to work?
All I get is some pretty XUL but no data.
So how do you go about it? I'm asking this question in earnest -- I've written web apps with JavaScript/CSS/(X)HTML/PHP/Perl/Python, but I've never done any desktop development. This sounds like a great way to distribute desktop software for people who don't know C++ or Java. But I'm not exactly clear on how you would write a program that takes advantage of Mozilla as a platform. Is it just a local file that the user accesses from the URI bar?
Anyone know of any good references on writing these kinds of plug-in programs?
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
NO COMMENT JUST A SUBJECT.
If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all. So now we have to listen to some cunt's anti-US jibberish without letting the fucking cunt know that most of the people in the US think she should be deported/hanged/shot for her treason-laden speech? Fuck you. BTW, Jessica Quindel is a cunt, and you are the clap that feeds on it.
Uh, are you using a Qt port of Mozilla?
or do you mean XUL?