Mozilla - From Browser to Desktop Environment?

An anonymous reader asks: "A while ago OEone released a thingy called Penzilla which was basically a Mozilla desktop environment like GNOME or KDE. Everything was written in either DHTML or XUL and ran within the Gecko engine. Recently a new project, Robin was released that is basically a desktop running within Mozilla using XUL as well. There is NetWindows that attempts something similar for more interactive web applications. What advantages would a 100% Mozilla engine desktop hold and what are the disadvantages compared to much more complex environments such as GNOME or KDE? Is a Mozilla desktop possibly more elegant or efficient for the typical user? Is the XUL runtime environment more robust than troublesome C/C++ widgets? It seems like most applications could make the transition as the growing collection of Firebird extensions like ChatZilla and Gnusto and have shown."

Comments

Re:First Post

[trompete]

I like Mozilla as a browser and as an email application. Desktop....hmmm I don't mind using C/C++ widgets. Once you learn how to do it, it isn't that hard. I thought tha people didn't like when a browser became the desktop environment. IE anybody?

Let's see...

[perlchild]

Microsoft doesn't need to explain why it's system is better with the browser integrated into everything, everyone takes it as fact(or debunks it at myth)
Why treat mozilla differently?

No seriously, I imagine the goal is that since mozilla is cross-platform and has a bunch of nifty features, a full-blown desktop written in it would be able to compete with java's desktop system for thin clients and similar ideas(probably with great success, as while Mozilla itself is fairly large, it's also quite a capable system, and fairly self-contained).

It has many features modern thin clients would need or at the very least, like to have(software updates downloaded from the web, ssl/tls based security, multiple user profiles), it supports most "thin clients" activities except for document production(by itself: the ibm-related announcement on slashdot today, about a web-available office suite makes that a non-issue) With the proper XUL environment available, you have almost an os-toolkit, themable/skinnable for those so enclined... What more could you want? (Yes you need an OS under it, but at least, you're not limited to the choice of any particular one)

unnecessary

[ratsnapple tea]

This is exactly what's wrong with the Mozilla project. Whatever happened to "make each tool do one thing and do it well?"

Re:unnecessary

[Eneff]

Mozilla != the UNIX philosophy.

The point behind Mozilla always was to have a platform from which people could create full fledged cross-platform applications using CSS, HTML, ECMAscript and XML.

It just so happens that the first major application was a web browser.

I'm starting to subtly push taking advantage of Mozilla's front end capibilities within my company's application, myself.

Re:unnecessary

[Planesdragon]

This is exactly what's wrong with the Mozilla project. Whatever happened to "make each tool do one thing and do it well?"

It fell apart, because "each tool" has to work with every other tool in existance.

Mozilla (and OpenOffice, Gnome, and KDE) are necessary corrections to the "one tool one thing" paradigm. Each project has multiple tools in it, and can be used to do many differnet things--but each tool was designed to be used with a specific set of other tools, and the tool authors are upfront and honest about this.

And for those of us who AREN'T tool authors, getting a "thing" working is as simple as grabbing a toolbox from Sears.

Re:unnecessary

[Coryoth]

In some senses they actually did do that. They made a very impressive rendering engine, and a means of rending GUI widgets via that rendering engine. It seems to do that very well. The fact that other people have taken that and used it to build a wide variety of complex applications is hardly the fault of Gecko and XUL.

What you are saying doesn't really make sense. It's like blaming QT or GTK+ for every app ever produced with them.

Jedidiah

Re:unnecessary

[OmniVector]

well, with mozilla it's hard to say much about doing one thing well, but firefox is quite good at just browsing the web. however they aren't talking about making mozilla a desktop environment, they are talking about building a desktop environment out of XUL. this would be just as separate from mozilla as firefox is from thunderbird.

Re:unnecessary

[MacJedi]

It fell apart, because "each tool" has to work with every other tool in existance.

You make it sound like this is impossible to achieve. All that you need is a well defined API. What do traditional unix command line tools all have in common and use to communicate with eachother with? STDIN, STDOUT and STDERR!

Sure, for GUIs you need a bit more: copy and paste and drag and drop, and maybe something along the lines of Mac OS X's "Services" but I don't think the unix "each tool does one thing well" paradigm is doomed to failure.

Re:Robin Homepage is trippy

[ErisCalmsme]

I tried to go to the homepage to look for screenshots and thought it was broken. Then I realized that it was a running version of Robin. It has a "start button" menu thing with some programs. Crazy stuff!

HTML on Steroids

[Gortbusters.org]

Seems to be that this whole XUL/XAML/DHTML craze is all about creating more interactive web applications, not about rewriting the destkop system.

After all, the C++ code that implements the scrollbar, or button, or whatever isn't going away, it's just being described in a standard manner. I guess that gives the application more portability, in theory.

To switch gears with some thoughts on XUL (and XUL like technologies)... The other day I was reading how interesting XUL was on phpPatterns and using it to build a web-based desktop-like application. The one example people like to point to is that AmazonBrowser. Perhaps the greatest potential for these XUL like languages is for those web features we have a tough time building today.

Whoever thought of HTML frames probably wanted XUL, but knew that nothing like it could be done right now, so frames were a cheap navigational system that could provide a semi-familiar GUI to end users in that only the "content pane" gets updated.

HTML interfaces will still be around. Not only because they're still a great mechanism for internet information display, but because people are used to them. They're used to website design, they like the way it is. XUL-like apps will probably be most used as embedded application interfaces for managing devices... at least in the beginning.

Re:HTML on Steroids

[costas]

Let me just point out there are other ways to make more interactive web apps: JSRS is a free JavaScript Remote Scripting library that lets client-side JS communicate with the server: think listboxes or menus that get populated based on button clicks or check-boxes in the web page, without re-loading the page. It works here and now, and on IE, Gecko, KHTML and Opera (not a plug, just a happy developer).

You can see JSRS in action on my newsbot, where it lets you rate articles dynamically without re-loading the web page or submitting forms (in my example the server-side solution is Python Webware, but JSRS is simple enough to get to work with anything, and in fact there are already libraries for PHP, Perl, ASP, etc).

Will never work...

[Thng]

No, it is missing a substantial feature for the end user: you can't right click on a box in minesweeper and have it flag it as a mine. Without a full-featured Minesweeper and Solitare application, this will be doomed to failure.

However, it could possibly be saved by a talking paperclip, or maybe a talking gecko that doesn't complain about car insurance.

Re:Will never work...

[GeorgeH]

Actually, there are Minesweeper and Solitaire clones for Mozilla, as well as plenty other games.

Mozilla

[isorox]

Mozilla - the new Emacs. Bloated, and lacking a decent text editor!

*sigh*

[tolan-b]

How many times do people like you have to be corrected before you get it?

There's nothing wrong with integrating your browser with your desktop. It's when you do so in a way that can't be undone to leverage your monopoly position to kill off a competitor that it becomes bad.

Who the hell modded that insightful?

your desktop might already be a browser

[kendoka]

In the sense that your Windows desktop is just an explorer window that doesn't have a bar at the top, you already have a browser as your interface in that the windows are all capable of hosting HTML.

I think with Win95 OSR2, a lot of the UI was rewritten. I remember hearing that help was redone as HTML, and at least some of those extended views we see in 2000 and XP is done in HTML. Anyone remember Active Desktop? My take on it was it was just one or more MSHTML controls hosted in the explorer window. Neat idea, didn't really serve a purpose... That was always my take on the can't seperate ie and windows arguement - they used the MSHTML control in a lot of different things...

browser-based, opensrc, application alternatives

[dan_bethe]

This article discusses a new browser-based spreadsheet application in testing, just announced today on the OSCom mailing list. It also discusses browser-based open source applicaton alternatives in general.