XULRunner Developer Preview Release Available

TeachingMachines writes "A stable developer preview release of XULRunner 1.8.0.1 is now available. Based on the Firefox 1.5.0.1 codebase, it is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. From the Mozilla Developer Center (beta): "XULRunner is a Mozilla runtime package that can be used to bootstrap XUL+XPCOM applications that are as rich as Firefox and Thunderbird. It will provide mechanisms for installing, upgrading, and uninstalling these applications. XULRunner will also provide libxul, a solution which allows the embedding of Mozilla technologies in other projects and products." Help with programming with XUL and its related technologies can be found at XULPlanet. Beginning programmers will benefit especially from the XUL Tutorial. Also check out the XUL Element Reference to get an idea of what's available. "

A couple of other resources are worth mentioning. First, there is the XUL Programmer's Reference Manual which covers interface elements for XUL version 1.0. "Rapid Application Development with Mozilla" is available for download at Bruce Perens' Open Source Series page. If you get the book, make sure to check out the errata. Unfortunately, the author Nigel McFarlane has passed away, so this is likely the final version. One final reference, "Creating Applications with Mozilla," is available here.

For those individuals who are looking for an extremely powerful application framework that is relatively easy to use, Mozilla is definitely worth a look.

Comments

Oblig. Ghostbusters

[shepmaster]

"There is no Dana, only Zuul."

Or, as the Wikipedia points out:

"There is no data, only XUL"

Re:This is what lost the browser wars

[tetromino]

First off, JavaScript. It doesn't matter if you can use XUL from other languages because parts of it are implemented in JavaScript. JavaScript is a horrible, horrible language. I recently discovered that JavaScript supports closures - which helped explain the horrible memory leaks I was experiencing with JavaScript. Stuff that was supposed to leave scope didn't because it wound up in a closure. Lisp/Scheme developers know what a closure is. JavaScript developers probably don't.

I suspect that I am feeding a troll, but here goes...
Your comment is much akin to the following:

• C is a horrible language -- pointers are too hard
• Java is a horrible language -- I can't wrap my mind around object-oriented programming
• Perl is a horrible langauge -- regular expressions confuse my poor brain
• Lisp is a horrible language -- parentheses terrify me
• Python is a horrible language -- I keep on messing up the indentation

Bottom line: if you can't be bothered to learn the grammar of the language you are using -- hell, if you don't find learning new languages and grammatical concepts positively exciting -- perhaps software development is really not for you. You might want to look into becoming a manager.