7 ms·

I hope to see Firefox eventually providing an embeddable framework, considering that Chromium isn't just monopolising the web browser space... it's spreading in

by ljm 7y ago

I hope to see Firefox eventually providing an embeddable framework, considering that Chromium isn't just monopolising the web browser space... it's spreading into desktop applications through Electron. Left unchecked, Google will manage to poke its fingers into every pie within reach. It seems like the ideal solution of using the OS's native web toolkit hasn't been successful so far. So the next best offering (aside from building on Qt), is to have an Electron competitor too.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
I regret XUL was abandoned - it was a great idea, but much ahead of its time.
- teknopaul 7y ago
  Plus one. This was the beggining of the rot in Mozila. This marked the moment the went from making general purpose web/http based platforms based on OpenSource principals to builing a single a www specific advertising platform. I still use Firefox and support them financially. Its the best we have. But they stopped caring about anything other that being the frontpage to the Internet a long time ago. They gave up on supporting developers.
- mongol 7y ago
  That was before Firefox was born, right? Or was the success of Firefox the demise of XUL?
  - simias 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you're asking exactly but XUL existed a long time after Firefox was born and became popular. I remember using a XUL app at work around 2010.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    XUL was the markup language used by the Mozilla Communicator Suite for designing user interfaces. It was what Add-on development used. Mozilla deprecated it not that long ago in favor of HTML but stalwarts have clung to it and complained. I use to maintain a couple Add-ons and developed some simple UIs for it. I was never impressed by it and it was easy enough to use so I had no objections either.
- eloisant 7y ago
  XUL was just a markup language to create interfaces, it became obsolete as HTML got refined.
  - furgooswft13 7y ago
    Even to this day, XUL is far more capable than HTML. It has built-in widgets for many common desktop GUI elements that still need to be created from scratch in HTML+Javascript, and notably uses the native chrome of whatever OS it is running on to render them.
- XzetaU8 7y ago
  Abandoned by Mozilla, not by Pale Moon/Basilisk though. http://thereisonlyxul.org/ http://thereisonlyxul.org/
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  XUL is a great idea but not for browser chrome. That’s an area where it is truly worth the effort to make it fast and light, secure and stable.
- kabwj 7y ago
  XULrunner was a great idea, so the executives of the Mozilla Corporation had to sack it.
rusticpotato 7y ago
Sticking to the apple ecosystem will essentially avoid this fiasco with relying on electron apps. Basically i see three developer types right now: windows, apple, Linux for primary (personal and office). Sticking to apple allows you to sidestep this windows cluster f of expensive apps and shitty electron apps, and the Linux void of polished apps.
- andybak 7y ago
  When I switched from Windows to Mac a while back it struck me that I needed to rely on paid apps a lot more. There seemed to be more quality freeware for Windows. I'm also running a fair few Electron apps on my Mac at the moment.
  - rusticpotato 7y ago
    As long as it’s not subscription and not over $50, and it’s a quality app, I tend to pay for it. I prefer quality and performance over quantity and free
- hpcjoe 7y ago
  Not sure of your meaning of "Linux void of polished apps." Do you mean commercial apps running natively on linux? FWIW, I've been running Linux as my primary desktop through 4 companies and 20+ years thus far. I'm not at a loss for applications, native or hosted, that I use in my day to day work. I'm actually quite happy that I no longer need to worry about installing Microsoft office (current day job uses this suite). Online works great, and when offline, libreoffice 6+ allows me to continue to work with the same docs. Prior to this, Google docs worked perfectly fine for $dayjob-1, and worked perfectly well across Linux, Mac, Android, so I didn't have any significant issues with it. Really, Linux is a fine desktop. Seems to be about 2x more common accessing my blog than Mac, and about 1/2 that of windows. I can't imagine all of those are server users. Must be some polished and usable desktop apps in the mix to be able to see that.
  - thecrazyone 7y ago
    Not sure about the website you run but there might be a corelation to Linux users and your site. It could be either due to your network and the way people came to know about the site or it could be the content among other things
Yoric 7y ago
On Android, Mozilla offers GeckoView. I don't think that there's a desktop offering at the moment. There used to be quite a few (XULRunner, Prism, etc.) but they all died from lack of love.
efreak 7y ago
You mean like Positron? That was abandoned several years ago. So was Spidernode, FirefoxOS/apps, etc. Other dropped projects include Shumway, the JavaScript flash runtime. Basically every interesting thing they do that isn't directly related to improving Firefox seems to get dropped eventually. Then there's GeckoView, which they explicitly decided not to make available as a WebView drop-in to be available systemwide on Android. In this case, at least they seem to have a reason, though it seems to me that having an alternative to Google's WebView would be valuable enough to continue.

by ljm 7y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago

I regret XUL was abandoned - it was a great idea, but much ahead of its time.

teknopaul 7y ago
Plus one. This was the beggining of the rot in Mozila. This marked the moment the went from making general purpose web/http based platforms based on OpenSource principals to builing a single a www specific advertising platform. I still use Firefox and support them financially. Its the best we have. But they stopped caring about anything other that being the frontpage to the Internet a long time ago. They gave up on supporting developers.
mongol 7y ago
That was before Firefox was born, right? Or was the success of Firefox the demise of XUL?
- simias 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you're asking exactly but XUL existed a long time after Firefox was born and became popular. I remember using a XUL app at work around 2010.
- cptskippy 7y ago
  XUL was the markup language used by the Mozilla Communicator Suite for designing user interfaces. It was what Add-on development used. Mozilla deprecated it not that long ago in favor of HTML but stalwarts have clung to it and complained. I use to maintain a couple Add-ons and developed some simple UIs for it. I was never impressed by it and it was easy enough to use so I had no objections either.
eloisant 7y ago
XUL was just a markup language to create interfaces, it became obsolete as HTML got refined.
- furgooswft13 7y ago
  Even to this day, XUL is far more capable than HTML. It has built-in widgets for many common desktop GUI elements that still need to be created from scratch in HTML+Javascript, and notably uses the native chrome of whatever OS it is running on to render them.
XzetaU8 7y ago
Abandoned by Mozilla, not by Pale Moon/Basilisk though. http://thereisonlyxul.org/ http://thereisonlyxul.org/
tinus_hn 7y ago
XUL is a great idea but not for browser chrome. That’s an area where it is truly worth the effort to make it fast and light, secure and stable.
kabwj 7y ago
XULrunner was a great idea, so the executives of the Mozilla Corporation had to sack it.

rusticpotato 7y ago

Sticking to the apple ecosystem will essentially avoid this fiasco with relying on electron apps. Basically i see three developer types right now: windows, apple, Linux for primary (personal and office). Sticking to apple allows you to sidestep this windows cluster f of expensive apps and shitty electron apps, and the Linux void of polished apps.

andybak 7y ago
When I switched from Windows to Mac a while back it struck me that I needed to rely on paid apps a lot more. There seemed to be more quality freeware for Windows. I'm also running a fair few Electron apps on my Mac at the moment.
- rusticpotato 7y ago
  As long as it’s not subscription and not over $50, and it’s a quality app, I tend to pay for it. I prefer quality and performance over quantity and free
hpcjoe 7y ago
Not sure of your meaning of "Linux void of polished apps." Do you mean commercial apps running natively on linux? FWIW, I've been running Linux as my primary desktop through 4 companies and 20+ years thus far. I'm not at a loss for applications, native or hosted, that I use in my day to day work. I'm actually quite happy that I no longer need to worry about installing Microsoft office (current day job uses this suite). Online works great, and when offline, libreoffice 6+ allows me to continue to work with the same docs. Prior to this, Google docs worked perfectly fine for $dayjob-1, and worked perfectly well across Linux, Mac, Android, so I didn't have any significant issues with it. Really, Linux is a fine desktop. Seems to be about 2x more common accessing my blog than Mac, and about 1/2 that of windows. I can't imagine all of those are server users. Must be some polished and usable desktop apps in the mix to be able to see that.
- thecrazyone 7y ago
  Not sure about the website you run but there might be a corelation to Linux users and your site. It could be either due to your network and the way people came to know about the site or it could be the content among other things

Yoric 7y ago

On Android, Mozilla offers GeckoView. I don't think that there's a desktop offering at the moment. There used to be quite a few (XULRunner, Prism, etc.) but they all died from lack of love.

efreak 7y ago

You mean like Positron? That was abandoned several years ago. So was Spidernode, FirefoxOS/apps, etc. Other dropped projects include Shumway, the JavaScript flash runtime. Basically every interesting thing they do that isn't directly related to improving Firefox seems to get dropped eventually. Then there's GeckoView, which they explicitly decided not to make available as a WebView drop-in to be available systemwide on Android. In this case, at least they seem to have a reason, though it seems to me that having an alternative to Google's WebView would be valuable enough to continue.