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Creating Applications with Mozilla
On the first and most obvious level, the book is just the typical, thorough treatment of the important APIs that we've come to expect from O'Reilly. There are chapters addressing all of the important layers of the Mozilla platform and plenty of examples that show you how to customize the platform. Some may want to change the icons and others may want to add more robust features. The range of possibilities is surprising and coders are creating one-to-one communications enhancements, add-on widgets, and even games. There are certainly some things missing, and some areas that could use more detail or more complicated examples, but the book is already 454 pages long.
On another level, this book is also one of the first finished documents that explains what the Mozilla group has really been up to for the past five years. Some have abandoned the project, and others have attacked it as fundamentally misguided. This book shows why it took so long by demonstrating all of the cool features added during the long march to a new, thoroughly extensible architecture.
Are the results enough to justify the time and the effort? Some note that the features may be a bit overhyped, because building your own browser with the Mozilla API is like making a pizza with $15 and a telephone. While there's a large part of the book devoted to the work you can do to change the look and feel of the buttons on your browser, the book and the project offer much more. The Mozilla project is one of the biggest threats to simple tools like Visual Basic to come down the pike in some time. The various layers offer many ways to provide good, customizable interfaces to databases, the web, and much more. I can see how many corporate development shops may want to start making Mozilla the platform for a license-free front-end, simply because it's a straightforward tool without extra costs or restrictions.
At the most abstract level, the book is a great way to get a taste of modern software development. Computer scientists sometimes fix problems by adding more and more layers of indirection. This may not solve anything, but at least there are hooks for a real solution to use some time in the future if some one ever does figure out how to make the box do it. The Mozilla browser is one of the most extreme examples of this philosophy to ever emerge. Emacs was something special, but this is even more insane. Everything can be changed around by rewriting some XML and Javascript and most people don't need to juggle the pointers in grubby C to do amazing things. I realize it's not as beautiful as Lisp to some, but it's got a clarity and level of abstraction that's stunning to behold. Lisp was just procedural, while XML is more like logic programming.
This relentless customizability embodies one of the deepest reasons for the success of open source. Technology is inherently complicated and the only way we can use it is if we can look under the hood. You can say all you want about CVS trees and bazaars filled with competing code, but opening up the interface is one of the most powerful themes of open source. It's not about teaching people to build their own VCR or PVR from scratch, getting the VCRs for free or even debugging the VCR's source code -- it's just about making them easy enough to program.
The book illustrates how Mozilla opens up the API to create a relatively easy language for people to use. The real open source is not the C in the tar ball, but the XML interface spelled out in the book. Many people feel that the most important thing that the first browser designers did was make it easy for people to see the HTML tags marking up the document in front of them. The new Mozilla takes this transparency to a new high.
If you look at the book at all of these levels, you can see that this is one of the most important documents to emerge from the open source community in some time. At first glance, it's just another set of APIs for us to wiggle. I realize it's not fair to credit the Mozilla team or the book authors with creating the browser or XML ex nihilio -- they just jumped on some of the most popular bitwagons propagating across the Net. But the result is a stunning completion of a very important and cohesive vision. The book doesn't crackle with bleeding-edge novelty, but shines with the certainty of a job well-done.
Peter Wayner is the author of Translucent Databases , Disappearing Cryptography , and a number of other books. You can purchase Creating Applications with Mozilla from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
How is developping a web application which will run only on Mozilla different from doing an IE-only website ? Honestly, I'd like to know.
It could be a stand alone app that uses mozilla as the core functionality. It's my understanding Mozilla runs on almost every available platform where IE is windows specific (the mac version is nothing like the windows version).
That being said I run mozilla on mac os 8, 9 & 10, linux, solaris and windows. I'm not sure what the problem would be.
from what i've read in the past it sounds like mozilla can be used to develop just about anything. is this true? who has done it? what about applications? it's odd to think of a browser as a platform for application development. i'd really like to get my hands on a good explanation. perhaps this book.
This is one way in which you just know that the Mozilla developers are at the top of their field(s) -- deciding to go with XML full-fledged (several years ago, too) was one of the greatest decisions they've made so far. The XUL interface, which is basically XML-based at its core, is about as flexible as one can get with the UI experience.
Furthermore, and of particular interest to someone like myself, the XML format offers a number of advantages for computational physics: clear markup of input data and results, standardized data formats, and easier exchange and archival stability of data.
I will definitely use a few dollars of grant money to purchase this book and keep it in the labs for all to read and enjoy.
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
On another level, this book is also one of the first finished documents that explains what the Mozilla group has really been up to for the past five years. Some have abandoned the project, and others have attacked it as fundamentally misguided. This book shows why it took so long by demonstrating all of the cool features added during the long march to a new, thoroughly extensible architecture.
To me this is the one of the most important parts. I'm not a programmer, nor will I ever be I think. But from an evangelism perspective, I can point to this and say: "See, see? They were not just f-ing around for years, they were building something with amazing functionality!"
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
You can't programme in IE like you can Mozilla just a few XUL and soms css and presto a new application ;-)
Sorry it is $27.97 Even lower!
How come Lisp become 'just procedural'?! Do u have any idea baout what u r writing?
this could catch on. Why on earth do you think they were so hot to kill the browser market for anything but IE?
Hint: It was *not* to simply have the most popular browser that they made no profit on.
KFG
It's illegal except when microsoft does it :)
But for the extra 2 bucks, you get a free bucketload of pleasure that you can only get from ordering from a comapny that didn't try an patent one-click purchases.
mozdev has it for free
How exactly? You can change the background of the rebars and the title bar text, but that's it. You must not understand exactly how open Mozilla is. With the source code and the APIs you can do absolutley anything.
In true open source fashion, the book is also available in online form at http://books.mozdev.org/chapters/
Anyone have links to current projects using Mozilla as a basis? I mean, non- browser specific projects?
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
Isn't so much about standards, it's more about de-facto standards and their general tendancy to change. I couldn't see devoting 5 or 6 months to develop a custom application specifically for Gnu/Mozilla when one year down the road they may decide to alter the XUL "standard" and totally screw me.
This is why stuff like TCP/IP and "C" took off, because they were in the hands of a standards body who were responsible and considerate of issues like this.
The Gnu/Open Source community needs to take into consideration that since they are working their way into the mainstream they *must* begin to be more proffesional and intelligent in matters of "standards" or they risk alianating the commercial development community.
That would be a serious mistake on their end, serious indeed.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
What embedding Mozilla promises to me is the ability display and interact with appropriately transformed HTML and XML documents in any kind of application without having to reinvent all the complex machinery to do that. XML apps like MathML and SVG are particularly important to me, but who wants to write the code to display them? Now lots of things are possible that have little to do with browsers. I like it.
Helium balloons want to be free.
http://www.bookpool.com has it for $24.50
Developers have also used Mozilla to create games, development tools, browser enhancements, as well as all sorts of other types of applications.
...
Anyone got good examples of these types of applications handy?
I'd love to know what Mozilla-based games there are, for example
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It's true - I hate to have a go but Lisp is NOT a proedural language. It is a FUNCTIONAL language.
With a few nasty side effects....
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
Good work, chum.
pooptruck
I know this is short notice, but I'm going for dinner with one of the the authors tonight in two hours time, and then going to his talk with the Internet Society in Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). The details of the talk are here.
For a group of people which rely on so many open standards (and indeed, complain when companies don't use them!) I've yet to see little progress here on ensuring XUL remains an open standard. Which is a pity, because otherwise it has little to recommend it, no matter how extensible it is.
Also, does anyone here know anything about performance issues? Visual Basic nowadays is fairly reasonable for certain aspects of enterprise solutions, but if this is anything like Mozilla I'm not sure I could recommend it as being a good platform for applications.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Anyone planning to go to this probably knows already, but Brian King is giving a talk on Mozilla in Trinity College Dublin tonight. More details at http://netsoc.tcd.ie/events/0203/mozilla.php
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
From quickly browsing the free online version of
the book, I couldn't tell if it was possible
to use the Mozilla API to create open source
versions of iApp's like iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, etc. I know anything is possible with
software but how hard would it be to create these
gnuApps with Mozilla instead of using gnome/gtk+/QT stuff. The GUI would be a piece
of cake but what about the other pieces of code
for the gnuApp's?
It's very nice that you can write all these games with XUL and mox, but not a challenge. So here's my challenge: Write an API that is so incompetant that no one can write tetris for it. Shouldn't be hard, just patch windows.
Well the subject of my comment pretty much gives away the comment.
ActiveState http://www.activestate.com (The Perl,Python,PHP,Tcl people) have a great IDE application written on the Mozilla engine called Komodo, it's up to version 2 now and certainly worth checking out.
Now if only ActiveState would just open source it, after all it's base is open.
i have to say that i have converted a bunch of cgi's that deliver HTML to cgis that deliver XUL and provide RDFs. the interface is awesome ... so many things you cannot do with IE alone (unless you cookup some ActiveX)
... i hope an activex control for IE is around that will allow IE to use XUL
it was rough in the begining since i had people that were not using mozilla and even now some people just use mozilla because they have to.
but the power of the lists, tabs, etc are awesome compared to having to write javascript/layers/etc crap that takes more effort than the cgi environment to code.
i love it
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
One of the big updates being done for embedding purposes in the big 1.2 push is to get a basic installation prepared which can be used for all sorts of Gecko/Mozilla-based applications. See it coming to an application near you soon!
This is a very important development as it means that the full Mozilla suite will no longer need to be packaged with your custom application. The basic installation may even be installed on the system already - and can then be discovered and used by your system without installing a second copy!
This miraculous beast is the GRE, and its webpage is here.
Very Insightful
buy.com has it for $25.16.
And they have free shipping!
There are several book price comparing services, I like this one: www.bestwebbuys.com
There are a couple of very interesting examples developed using this technology out already:
- OEOne, a complete desktop environment.
- Kimodo, a python and perl IDE.
I myself am working on a Bible program that will run, locally, under Mozilla. This is probably the future of desktop application development for most stuff."He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
It's obvious from reading your comments (all 6 of them) and your high user id # that you're a bit of a newbie, AND a windows luser (remember - you're the one who started with the personal comments).
Please keep that in mind the next time you are tempted to use an ad hominem attack.
Micro$haft, Micro$hit, Microcrap, whatever ... it's still a piece of shit that only got to be the dominant desktop "OS" by lies, deceit, fraud and illegal activities.
Note to moderators: please check parent post, which was way off-topic and/or a troll, before rating this as flamebait. Thanks.
As pointed out in a discussion a couple days ago, this RedWolves2 guy is embedding his associates ID into his amazon links, in order to make a profit. And he's not telling anybody about it. He's done this a dozen or more times, and seems to be using Slashdot primarily for posting these Amazon ads. Moderators don't seem to be catching onto why this is a bad thing, and are modding up his posts. A user named Schlach had a couple great posts about why this is sleazy behavior. One's here, and the followup is here. Both are worth reading. Incredibly, I've been modded down for pointing out this questionable behavior on the part of RedWolves2. Read Schalch's comments and judge for yourself.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
If you buy it from the Slashdot link, you are supporting Slashdot; if you want to save money, go to BookPool. I don't see why we should make money for RedWolves2 (his link contains his referrer ID), and AFAIK, Amazon still has the OneClick patent in their name...
It's been going strong for a few years now, and the developers have just included support for US TV listings, with European listings in the works.
Subscription to the service is (a very reasonable) £4.99 GBP/year.
slainfu
"I can't be a terrorist if you're sucking my bum."
$24.50 plus shipping, as of 16 October, 2002
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
Hiyas, Pave! Good trolling!
Folks, this is a rip of the preface of the book.
Have a look for yourself and then mod this troll down.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Is the ninety-nine percent based on visitors to your porn site? Many non-IE browsers must claim to be IE to avoid annoying warnings or blocked pages from IIS-based websites. Ignoring that, 99% is still a ridiculous exaggeration.
I've been developing a Mozilla-based application component since August 2001. It's an HTML-rendering MOO client, and recently I've been pouring some 90% of my free time into working on it.
75% of that 90% of my free time lately has been updating the application to newer standards which have come into place since August 2001. For example, the Navigator/Mail/Editor/Chatzilla options used to be on the 'Tasks' menu in Mozilla, and were moved to the 'Window' menu around 1.0rc1. Bang, suddenly my application stops working properly, and less importantly, stops being a friendly component which works like all the others. A patch from a friend moved just about everything over to the 1.0rc1 way of doing things, and all was fine. Not everything worked flawlessly, though. The 'MOO Client' menu option didn't have an associated key visible, and the 'Window' menu inside MOOzilla didn't have any visible keys. The menus inside the application had long since stopped graying-out/disabling properly depending on what you have selected in the window. Many hours of last weekend was spent fixing these problems by conforming to new command handler expectations, and so on. (Where 'new' means 'changed since 0.9.6'. ;))
XUL is a wonderful tool. However, it runs dog slow on OS X. You don't have to take my word for it, just look at the Pheonix project. Pheonix is available for Windows and Linux, but not for OS X. Why? Because Chimera exists for OS X, which is faster (I'm using it right now) and integrates with the OS better. But... it doesn't support XUL. That's why it's faster. So where is my Mozilla application left? Stuck in the massive Mozilla suite when it's run in OS X. Mozilla, at startup, uses over 120 megs of RAM on my TiBook. Thank God for good VMs.
When initially writting MOOzilla, the XUL documentation was shit. The only place to go for any idea of how things really worked was deep inside the Mozilla source. And sure enough, this worked. The official XUL documentation at that time had sections which trailed off in 'blah blah blah' often because someone got bored of writting. I specifically remember it once read 'This is very important because blah blah blah'. Arrrg! How frustrating!
Mozilla is a powerful application development environment. XUL is a wonderful tool. Books like this one are going to make the world a better place for Mozilla component developers. And more cross-platform software developed with Mozilla makes the world a better place for users. Now... if only we can somehow apply this book heavily to the head of people who don't want to download Mozilla to try out an application, because they don't want to use it as a web browser. *sigh*.
The XUL interface, which is basically XML-based at its core, is about as flexible as one can get with the UI experience.
When I last checked, XUL did not have coordinate-based positioning, but rather nested-based. Coordinate-based works better with visual screen builders IMO. True, it does not auto-scale as well, but when the boss wants something very specific WRT GUI layout, coordinates are much easier than nesting to give him/her precisely what they want.
Table-ized A.I.
how is that a troll? it is insightful no matter where he got the material. it isn't false information and it isn't inflammatory.
do you have any idea what a real troll is? or is it just a word you like to toss around to people you don't like?
Crap! No better yet, DOUBLE CRAP! Has the entire concept of higher level programming languages been lost?! WTF people we have to stop the mad-people (madman is not PC apprently) from screwing up the whole concept of high level language.
High Level Language is to make it easier and quicker to code. Remember doing "Hello World" in ASM? Then compared to when you wrote it in C? Where did that innovation go? I remember having to code 300 to a 1000 lines to accomplish what I was able to do in 10 lines in C. Also complexity was reduced in high level languages. Where did that mindset vanish.
Now I have some yahoo trying to tell me to use Mozilla as a front end to programs? Does using Mozilla some how make life easier for me? Quicker development times? Less errors? Let me think
NN NN OOOOOOOO !!
NNNN NN OO OO !!
NN NN NN OO OO !!
NN NNNN OO OO
NN NNN OOOOOOOO !!
So once again we have another programming FAD! Aww crap can I just get a good programming language...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Do you do any database access with it? Are there Native 'Mozilla' database modules, or do you use ODBC?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Micro$haft, Micro$hit, Microcrap, whatever ... it's still a piece of shit that only got to be the dominant desktop "OS" by lies, deceit, fraud and illegal activities.
*sigh*
There is merit to Microsoft and their software. Just like there's merit to the scientific advances made by Nazi Germany or by the unchecked USA's Department of Defense.
MS is evil and annoying, but not entirely without merit. If they were, they would have gone away by now. (It doesn't matter if the merit was bought/stolen, it's still merit.)
But is the book any good. All I got from the "review" was that the reviewer thinks Mozilla is cool. What about the book? Was the book good? Was it well written? What did the reviewer like about the book, not the subject, that warrants a 9? Why not a 10, what didn't he like about the book?
LoRider
Don't click his damn link. Everytime there's a book review, he puts up a link to the amazon.com page with his userid in it so he gets a commission if you buy it. He's a troll, not insightful.
I'll admit my use of the word "Troll" was a bit loose, however:
My Review
by Pave Low
While this is a nice repost of the preface, it's altered just enough and titled so as to make the poster look intelligent. Please take the time to peruse his user info and notice the quality of his comments. He's just being a karma whore to make up for some very bad posts of his.
Personally, I would find reposting of the preface redundant: this article is a *review* of the book, we're aware of what it's about. Even so, this is not a straight-up repost.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
And here I thought he was one of the knights who say "Ni!"
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
*snicker*
I can see how many corporate development shops may want to start making Mozilla the platform
I bet you can also see leprechauns.
XML is more like logic programming
XML is a database markup language, not a programming language
The new Mozilla takes this transparency to a new high
Not as high as you, obviously.
I'm sure it's cool, clever, whizzy, and all that, a good application of XUL technology.
But why charge for it? Anyone running Mozilla will ALREADY have a Desktop Environment, be it Windows, Mac, or one of Linux's many (free) choices.
What room is there for another competitor that offers NOTHING except a few slick buzzwords?
and your high user id # that you're a bit of a newbie
Slashdot should scramble those to not attach "information" to ID's.
So...indict someone's current post thru their past writings. And call him an evil troll for playing the system like a fiddle to his advantage.
Why don't you blame the system instead of bitching and whining about people using(and not abusing) it?
------------
...are we lucky enough to be able to read actual comments from gurus and gods like John Carmack, Jack Wagner, Jon Erikson, and Steven Woston. No other place on the Internet counts as many top-flight professionals among its members.
This site is truly a treasure.
Mind you, it's not that bad a suggestion. Maybe they can auction off low UIDs to help raise money to keep the site going.
Sash is an example of an application-development framework built on IE. Sash is an IBM project -- I believe it might be open source. Not sure. Does seem to be free, at least. You build apps on top of Sash (they call them, ahem, "Weblications"). The core functionality is mostly provided by IE.
Sash-XB is another IBM project, which builds on Mozilla in the same way.
If you dont, few authors will choose to make them available online in the future.
The book is good and interesting, but it reminds me another book, Programming Jabber: a lot of examples in the book, and no available examples in real life (besides Jabberd itself).
Less is more !
You do have a good point.
If I considered this good information, I would feel guilty about getting him modded down just because it's him and of what he did. Good info is good info. I do feel guilty that I'm glad he's not getting his precious karma, and it's small of me to get into the mindset of a karma war. Karma means nothing.
However, this system is in place to rate the "jewels" highly, and an altered repost of a preface is redundant, IMO, as I said before. This article is a review, I think it explains the book fine.
Just my opinion. Sorry if you disagree or fault me for pointing out undeserved karma.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Why can't slashdot at least implement a timer that doesn't allow people to post based on the byte size of the slashdot article itself.
Posting Rights Management, yeah, that's what we need. Slashdot, home of the free thinkers. :)
Geeks seeking attention.
You got that right. This wasnt so much a review as it was a few paragraphs about how smart those Mozillians are, and how cool XML is.
:-)
Thanks for the info buddy, but i was looking for a book review - you know, where people talk about the individual chapters and what can and cannot be done with the code samples... things like that.
Oh well. Guess we'll have to go read it online ourselves first, and then decide wether to buy it.
Mod this book reviewer down (Score:-5 Cant Review Books To Save His Life).
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
Sorry, perhaps I should post with my original account so my arguments are somehow more valid.
I run Komodo, so I know you can build on the Mozilla base, but other than the miriad of browser variations built on it, just what the heck can you do? If I were to replace some Perl/Tk stuff I wrote (simple filing tools, that kind of stuff, on Windows) would I be able to build it all on Mozilla? Anyone care to describe some applications that developing under Mozilla would be relevant for?
Dude-- read the review. Here are a few sentences from the top: On the first and most obvious level, the book is just the typical, thorough treatment of the important APIs that we've come to expect from O'Reilly. There are chapters addressing all of the important layers of the Mozilla platform and plenty of examples that show you how to customize the platform. Some may want to change the icons and others may want to add more robust features. The range of possibilities is surprising and coders are creating one-to-one communications enhancements, add-on widgets, and even games. There are certainly some things missing, and some areas that could use more detail or more complicated examples, but the book is already 454 pages long.
Sounds like he talks about what can and can't be done with the code samples and even a bit about a few of the individual chapters. He just didn't do one of those boring Slashdot reviews that goes through each chapter one by one. I can get the chapter breakdown from the book's website.
And if you ask me, knowing what to do with the XML is pretty important. If the Mozillians are smart, then that means there's something of value int he book. I really don't want a well-written, witty book about how to write assembler code. Dis
Is that the way Microsoft went about killing Netscape was by building a browser that could be easily customized and utilized to create client side applications.
Internet Explorer has been doing what this book talks about since about 1997. It is the reason why many products like Quicken, etc. require IE to install, and by requiring IE, Microsoft guarantees universal deployment of the browser. In so doing, they chipped away at Netscapes marketshare.
Sorry, I just chuckle whenever I hear people talk about this with regards to Mozilla as if it's a new concept. You mean you never knew you could do this with IE?
My implied point in my response was that it was the poster who was being juvenile by so responding, rather than responding to the on-topic argument vis. standards.
PS: I'd post w. my original account, but it's so far back in time that I forgot the pw, email, etc.
I can get plenty of opinions about XUL by looking through previous Mozilla /. posts. I just want to know if I should buy the book. Do they have a tutorial and step us through a FOO test application? If so, what is the application? What other tools do I need to create the application?
This isn't even close to a book review. He does nothing but glower over how great Mozilla is (which we all agree on), but says nothing about the quality or content of the actual book.
The book itself *IS* good (at least that which I have read so far). You'd never be able to tell from this review though....
I laud Mozilla for going down this road and it is clear to me that the core developers for Mozilla are a step above your standard programmer. Some accuse Mozilla for not following a method that would create "standards" for their XML GUI description language, but I have found that the successful "standards" usually follow already adopted and reasonably mature technologies. You do not know how you want to design something until you have done it, used it, and given it to other people to play with. Only after an application has grown sufficiently to include all the thousands of unexpected details is it sufficiently mature for people to talk about standards. For example, I consider the EJB specification's largest failing is that they tried to standardize it before it was actively used for a couple of years. Only now that we have some mature app servers do we really have an idea what needs to be in the core EJB specification. If EJB had followed this road, maybe application developers would not need to use vendor specific code for the critical parts of the functionality. Like OO, the mantra of "standards" seems to be more of a marketing tool to get Fortune 500 companies to cough up millions of dollars than something that really influences how sophisticated and successful applications get developed.
I have my own questions for the Mozilla team. How do you deploy "overrides" of existing configurations. Suppose I want to deploy a "batch" of changes that I want to turn on or off. Is there a way to create configuration "layerings" in XML files so a group of data specifications can be conditionally included from a set of external files? How much scripting is allowed in these files? If I want to write conditional code for specifying a color (such as a color choice per day of the week), is there a way to write scripting solutions for that need? Of course, I could read the book but I am lazy and I suspect that it would not give a full answer.
Here's the second paragraph again:
On the first and most obvious level, the book is just the typical, thorough treatment of the important APIs that we've come to expect from O'Reilly. There are chapters addressing all of the important layers of the Mozilla platform and plenty of examples that show you how to customize the platform. Some may want to change the icons and others may want to add more robust features. The range of possibilities is surprising and coders are creating one-to-one communications enhancements, add-on widgets, and even games. There are certainly some things missing, and some areas that could use more detail or more complicated examples, but the book is already 454 pages long.
Sounds like a discussion about the quality and content of hte book.
Don't be a moron.
Though integrating IE (or any browser for that matter) into a web app doesn't quite sound right. Talk about recursive code. I think (hope) that the author is talking about an application that has html-based components of the interface (like the aforementioned Quicken). Or am I missing something here?
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
The XUL interface, which is basically XML-based at its core...
XUL is NOT an interface, it is a markup language that can be used to describe the elements of a graphical user interface. XUL is not "basically XML-based at its core," it was entirely defined using the XML standard.
Furthermore, and of particular interest to someone like myself, the XML format offers a number of advantages for computational physics: clear markup of input data and results, standardized data formats, and easier exchange and archival stability of data.
This is what has always bugged me about XML hype (which mostly went away after the bubble burst, thank god). XML makes it easy to define standards -- however, the definition of the standard is usually the easy part. The problem has always been getting everyone else to use the standard. There is nothing inherent in XML that allows easier exchange of data. This only comes about when people agree on a standard.
I will definitely use a few dollars of grant money to purchase this book and keep it in the labs for all to read and enjoy.
If your interest is XML, your money might be better spent on an XML book, since XUL would not be useful for marking up physics data.
I do not do any database access with it (I've been using it to create client-side apps, and all our database access is on the server side); that said, I know it can access SQL databases using PHP. There may be other methods as well.
How close is this Mozilla thing to supporting that?
Nice review, but getting back to the book itself, I've tried reading it and I think it's a piece of shoddy writing. I can't believe O'Reilly published that. It's totally disorganized and vague. It reads like a first draft.
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
IIRC, Netscape (back when they were a company) had been planning on something like this at least since Aurora was "pre-announced" way back when Internet Explorer 4.0 came out. It has just taken them a bit more time to get there ;)
DCMonkey
let's say i develop a web application for IE. sure, everybody has IE, but let's say that it needs IE7.456bugfix3revision89. or whatever. can i redistribute it with the app? uh, no.
but with moz, i can redistribute the app and the browser, however i decide. i can also redistribute the parts i need, like say the runtime, while leaving the bulk out. can i do that with IE. uh, no.
lastly, how does this compare with SashXB?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Using a browser as a framework for building a client-server application is not new. This same functionality has been available since Internet Explorer 4, using HTA technology.
I dont think so.
Looser.
RedWolves is a looser !!!!
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Troll seeking attention.
Overall, you need standards like those for TCP/IP and ANSI C much more urgently for closed-source products.
" It's certainly not cool XUL apps you simply point your browser to - the security Nazis in the mozilla camp have ensured this won't happen. Mozilla apps will only ever be useful in closed intranet environments, nothing more. "
Note that the author says it like it's a bad thing. The reality is that browsers are used as much if not more on Intranets than Internets.
BTW Mozilla-xft makes "/." look great.
"To me this is the one of the most important parts. I'm not a programmer, nor will I ever be I think. But from an evangelism perspective, I can point to this and say: "See, see? They were not just f-ing around for years, they were building something with amazing functionality!""
Now you know the difference between the effects of "instant gratification" and "patience" are.
That and the fear of MS taking over the web.
BTW Browsing with Mozilla-xft. "/." looks great.
My home machine is an Athlon 900 with 640MB of RAM. My work machine is a Duron 800 with 384MB.
I've yet to see a version of Mozilla, up to an including 1.1 and Phoeniz 0.2, whose UI performs adequately. Gecko is fine, Galeon is great, XUL is not. Why is Mozilla so slow, and if I can't stand having mymenus lagbehind my mouse clicks, why should I expect my users to?
Yes, that's a serious question.
Have you thought about using Sun's "Web Start" technology in making installing and keeping current easy?
BTW Mozilla-xft makes "/." easy on the eyes.
Hmm. As XUL is an open standard is their anything to stop MS emeding it in one of their browsers. It still wouldn't work as well as Moz XUL but it could stop people from switching. Say I developed a XUL app for a company and said it will work on any Platform (well most) all you have to do is install mozilla. This could make XUL the killer app for mozilla if enough developers get into it. M$ realising that it has a new threat to its monopoly releases an MS XUL or XUL# or something. Whcih workes with IE or windows. This will stop people having to migrate and create inconsistancys . Eventualy everything will be written so that it works in MSXUL. and we will all be back to square one. It would take even M$ a while to intagrate XUL into their browser quite as well as it was done with Mozilla (took its time but worth it now). But they have the resources to do it.
Don't buy the book, save the trees, and read it off line. You can still send an electronic donation to the authors, and 100% goes to them, not to the publisher middle-men.
Huh? I was using an Athlon 800 with 256MB of RAM and Mozilla 1.0 for Windows ran great on it (I just replaced this machine this morning with a brand new Athlon XP 2000+). The problem is that the XUL/Mozilla GUI in Linux is still not as fast - strike that, nowhere NEAR as fast as in Win32. I just don't know why, if it's Gtk+ cruft or what. Frankly, anything above a 500Mhz PIII era machine runs modern versions of Mozilla (1.0+) in subjectively fast time (i.e. you don't notice UI lagging). The Moz team needs to work out their UI performance problems on Linux (I haven't used Mozilla on Linux in upwards of 6 months, so I'm assuming it still has the same issues it used to).
Try http://bitflux.ch/editor.IIRC from one of the authors of the book.
For remote access, all the server has to do is send XML data to Mozilla. Also, Mozilla natively supports the SOAP API, so it can access any SOAP data source. Cool, huh?
;-).
It's a little different if you are talking about accessing client-side data sources. Mozilla/XUL is (kind of) a virtual machine (VM), meaning it doesn't intrude too much upon the client's OS. But, XUL/XPCOM has bindings for all kinds of programming languages, such as C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, and the list keeps getting longer (Good intro here). Thus, on the client-side you can use the database capability of any of these to talk to the Mozilla elements. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to whip up just a little communication between Mozilla and ODBC
I would like to relate a recent experience with NETSCAPE 7.0. Please excuse two paragraphs or so of background information...
But I digress... So back to *N*E*T*S*C*A*P*E* I installed Netscape for my mom, because Internet Explorer is trash. Netscape, in my opinion, is lacking in many areas (such as usability), but I'll classify it as software, rather than trash. So I installed it. The install went along pretty smoothly and before I knew it, I had Netscape launched. The new graphics are MUCH nicer than the extremely crappy ones in Communicator 4.x. But the initial screen was SOOOOOO cluttered!!! Buttons and tabs and side bars EVERYWHERE! As an experienced user of computers and web browsers, I couldn't hear myself think, so to speak, in all this optical noise. I immediately turned all that crap off and modified all the settings to my liking, so that my mother, who has much less experience than myself, would actually be able to use the damn thing. And then it happened. The next time I launched Netscape, everything locked up and the disk started crunching and grinding away like there was no tomorrow. Even the ctrl-alt-delete window took forever to show up. I ended up forcefully shutting off the power, because I couldn't even log out. (Yeah yeah... File a bug report--but do you HONESTLY think that my mother knows what a bug report IS, let alone knows how to file one?!!) And this is where the background information on XP comes in... I guess it REMEMBERS what made it crash and when you reboot it (or log out and log back in) it does it over again, consequently putting itself in the same situation and locking up again. That's what happened. Whenever I logged into my mother's account, the whole computer became so unresponsive (from the grinding and whatnot) that I couldn't even open up the huge, cumbersome Start menu. (Mafiasoft. Where do you want to pay today?)
I noticed that the other account, that I had originally set up for her out of the mere habit of always giving myself three or four accounts on my BSD boxen, still worked fine, so I logged into it, created yet another new account, moved all her files over, and deleted her original account. Oh yeah, and I removed Netscape and purchased a copy of the newest Opera 6.x for her. Sure, its initial screen is a bit cluttered and I have a few complaints about the increasing complexity and proliferation of seemingly unnecessary features (that other people probably want, just not me), but it's small, fast, and it WORKS. Extremely well, I might add. (It's what I am using right now under FreeBSD with Linux compatibility turned on.) Now she's happy as can be... And I know for a FACT that I will not buy a computer with Windows XP. And I am pretty disappointed with Netscape once again (not so much for the crash, but very much so because of the clutter), as I have been for several years. (Yes, I will continue trying it from time to time, because somewhere deep inside, I believe that it will BECOME a very good, reliable web browser. I just wish it'd become as SMALL as Opera (3 megs or so) and as fast. Netscape is very, very slow.)
I hope if any Netscape developers are reading this, that they'll take this as constructive criticism rather than as flamebait. Oh yeah. And YES, I know the Gecko engine is found in Galeon and several other browsers.
For the record, my home system is an Athlon 1200/512Mb and my laptop a P4 1400/256Mb. Both run Linux -- which isn't Mozilla's primary platform. None have lagging menus.
People I know who're using mozilla -- including some newbies -- say it's faster than IE. This is probably because of the better rendering engine (and not having to close Casinoonnet popups and X10 popunders :-)
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
>Coordinate-based works better with visual screen builders IMO. True, it does not auto-scale as well,
>but when the boss wants something very specific WRT GUI layout, coordinates are
>much easier than nesting to give him/her precisely what they want.
Just remember, your boss probably doesn't use your GUI everyday. Regular users tend to multitask, and they have needs to vary the screen size allocated to the applications. Or they might be using a small PDA screen rather than a PC. The incremental investment of work up front is generally worth it in the improved end user experience.
If Karma is nothing refrain from posting with the bonus.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Anyone who who uses "loose/looser" instead of "lose/loser" should be sterilised immediately.