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?
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?
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."
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
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 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...)
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.''
Microsoft's problem is that it tied IE to the underpinnings of Windows, which essentially means you have to keep IE around. Mozilla doesn't tie itself directly into the OS.
I'm not sure about the interaction, but I think it will be something like: [Kernel} ---> [Mozilla App Layer] ----> Application
Keep in mind that not every single application written for an OS will run through the Mozilla layer, only those apps written with the Mozilla framework would pass through the app layer.
"What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?" - Weird Al Yankovic
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
Casual user A has a Mac running Linux and the Mozilla framework. User A finds a cool app on the framework and wants to share it with his buddy, User B. User B is running Windows with the framework. User A passes the app to User B, User B runs it with no problem.
"What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?" - Weird Al Yankovic
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!
Casual user A has a Mac running Linux and the Mozilla framework
No, by definition, a casual users is using what was on the PC when he bought it. (OSX or Windows). The term for the user above is 'geek'. So the scenario really plays out:
Geek A has a Mac running Linux and the Mozilla framework. User A finds a cool app on the framework and wants to share it with his buddy, User B. User B is running Windows, couldn't give a flying fuck about what some nerd thinks is 'neato', finishes reading his e-mail, and goes to play Buffy on XBox.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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
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).
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.
- 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.
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.
If Netscape dies [will] the dragon that it spawned burn Redmond?
Unlikely, but I can dream, can't I?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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?
Don't you realise binaries are released of it every night ? Any apps based on Mozilla will just call the pre-built libraries. It's called dynamic linking.
I also disagree with your point about mozilla being bloated. The browser part of mozilla is only around 4-5M, which includes components like networking and the widget set.
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.
I also find that "feature" quite annoying. Web browers should not be bundled with unnecessary stuff like Chat clients, especially AIM/ICQ.
Furthermore, I found the IRC client in Mozilla to be the worst thing ever. Why would anyone settle for it? Is there a lack of clients out there for *nix and windows? The developers should put their time into relevant stuff, like new and exciting features having to do with browsing the web.
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
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
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?
The mozilla guys have spent a lot of time making sure mozilla compiles "across about 25 different machines, and at least a dozen different C++ compilers". The guidelines can be found at http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/portable-cpp.html.
As you can see, Rule #1 is that templates are a definite no-no.
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.
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
Windows is an OS, whereas Mozilla is just an application / framework, which is multi-platform. From what I understand, Mozilla is only tied to the platorm you compiled it under. Ha... another victim of M$ propaganda. Windows(r) hasn't yet been an OS. Each version of Windows(r) has an underlying, unnamed OS and a window manager application running on top of the OS. These Windows(r) window managers are not functionally dissimilar to Linux window managers, nor would they be dissimilar to a cross-platform window manager based on mozilla.
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....
Is there a lack of- Good Grief man, are you mad?!? I have had to peel about 2-3 out every time I load Linux! That still leaves me with 2!
I could remember their names once, but I've been cast down among the MS-ites at work and my mind is slipping - away...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
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
Microsoft's problem is that it tied IE to the underpinnings of Windows, which essentially means you have to keep IE around.
Really?
Then how was Microsoft able to release IE for Solaris and HP-UX?
I'm not sure if you're trolling or not... your argument is pretty bold yet lacking in supporting facts. But if you aren't trolling I would suggest you reverse the argument. I think it's more accurate to say that the more recent versions of Windows depend heavily on IE (consider it's integration into the shell).
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!
- Does AOL even use their own Netscape product with their web subscriptions, or is that IE deal still in play? How retarded can you be?
It makes perfect sense unfortunately. But you need to know a little more about what really goes on and went on behind the scenes.When AOL first "integrated" Spry Browser into the AOL service, many many apps were written to build and serve the content they (AOL) use and show - like Rainman for one. If you dont know what it is, get a job for AOL or an AOL partner. What it means is (still) there is a lot of proprietary non-web ready content out there that needs to be changed over - including tons done by content providers who pay for the priviledge of serving their content via AOL - like WebMD used to and many other channels.
AOL cant switch over until that situation is dealt with - which means writing code for Mozilla/Netscape that allows Rainman generated content to be viewed, as well as many other proprietary formats AOL uses.
When MS decided they wanted a browser and failed miserably at the attempt of creating one, they "acquired" Spry and relabelled the browser IE... which is how AOL got stuck with it.
Hence, CompuServe (an AOL company) already has a Netscape version available while the AOL service does not.
-Rob
WebMaster:
BinFeeds
XXX Thumbnailed Image Newsgroups but
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.
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.
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.
* 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.
fifth sigma, inc.
Please try to actually download and use a recent build before making uninformed statements, thank you.
I'm using dillo at the moment because Mozilla 1.1, the most recent release, is too slow.
It's open on another desktop, though.
Mozilla has gone from unusably slow to just unpleasantly sluggish, I will give it that.
I'll take gtk1 over Moz's buggy (try flipping desktops at just the wrong time when opening menus and you'll get a menu floating in air on another desktop) slow widgets any day.
May we never see th
He is correct. Microsoft uses IE libraries through out NT, 2000, XP OS's. So, if you remove IE you break windows.
You could accually remove IE as long as you replaced all of IE's DLLs that were used in other parts of the OS but what a pain and I'm not sure just how much of IE isn't being used by other parts of the OS. Microsoft has put a lot of effort into making sure each OS is more tightly integrated with their browser.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Will it compile with the Intel compiler on Linux? For better performance...?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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
How? By using this. Think at Winelib, but proprietary.
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...
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
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
Actually, having worked with one of the guys who worked for Spyglass, Microsofts efforts at writing a web-browser was a failure simply because they had no experience in doing such a thing and as such, the costs to develop something were going to be extortionate.
It was actually cheaper to do a deal with spyglass and get a reasonable product at a far lower cost. Believe it or not, this is common practise out there - why write something from the ground up when you can purchase a smaller company who has not only already done such a thing, but better than you could.
Of course, what wasn't common practise was doing a deal where spyglass would get a percentage of the revenue of products sold and then announcing that IE would be free (in effect, giving them nothing). They did receive money in the end, but only through the help of a number of lawyers.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The GNU version of the classic hello world program actually contains a mail reader.
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?
The real purpose of Chatzilla is as a technology demo - to show you what sort of things you can do with XUL and JavaScript.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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, you're right that SVG doesn't have a full set of widgets - it's still in the primitive, low-level drawing language stage, kind of like Adobe Acrobat.
Not that such a higher-level capability couldn't be developed in future versions of SVG. In that sense, it's like another poster said, where the entire Mac OS X desktop could fit inside Mozilla, or any SVG compliant renderer. Just as we got PostScript enabled printers to abstract away the raw rendering interface onto paper, we could conceivably get SVG enabled frame buffers to abstract away the low level device interfaces. Like Display Postscript would be. It's brave, it's cross-platform, but it's probably inefficient and the SVG spec is probably too new and amorphous to bet hardware design on.
To some extent, I think what you're looking for - forms capability - probably won't develop inside SVG simply because it's the responsibility of a separate working group for XForms.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Uh, are you using a Qt port of Mozilla?
or do you mean XUL?