8 ms·
Mozilla Chromeless 0.2
- ignifero 16y agoSo is this like PhoneGap for desktops? it was about time
- IanDrake 16y agoActually, check out Adobe Air (for ajax developers). Basically it's webkit as a desktop app and pretty mature. I've used it in the past, but I think Mozilla has a big opportunity here as Adobe has pretty much abandoned the web desktop aspect of AIR to focus on flash/flex for mobile. Also, Adobe removes some of the best parts of webkit like web workers and I recently found a giant performance bug in their javascript engine that only exists in AIR.
- mambodog 16y agoAppcelerator Titanium is another option in this category, and is focused on building applications using JS/web standards.
- bni 16y agoyes, but if im stil up to date on that, it has its own gui frameworks that your app is tied to forever. Might aswell write the app in Cocoa or Win32 then. Correct me if Im wrong, can you deploy your client side web app as a desktop application without using the Titanium framework stuff?
- IanDrake 16y agoI believe you're correct about the framework. I think Titanium apps are packaged with the framework statically "linked", instead of installed separately. The Titanium mobile API is basically JS bindings for Cocoa, but the desktop API is mostly OS agnostic. In my opinion, Titanium was smart to make one version for mobile and one for desktops. Adobe should have done the same.
- bni 16y agoDoes Air still require a shared runtime component to be installed beforehand? We all know how well that worked with Java.
- r00fus 16y agohttp://www.adobe.com/products/air/runtime_distribution_faq.html http://www.adobe.com/products/air/runtime_distribution_faq.h... Looks like Air is similar to Java in that respect (or in my more cynical view, Visual Basic - but multiplatform).
- jarin 16y agoYes, but the install is relatively seamless (as long as you already have Flash installed) and only needs to be done once. The AIR update process (for both the runtime and the applications) is also pretty seamless as well.
- IanDrake 16y agoYou can now build MSIs for Windows and DMGs for Macs with AIR that will bootstrap the runtime. That said, I haven't used that option. Up until Craig's lawyers killed my app, I was using the flash installer that was seamless. Same sort of installation process can be seen on TweetDeck which uses AIR.
- yan 16y agoSeeing so much awesome stuff out of the Mozilla team yet again makes me thankful for such an active browser ecosystem.
- rubergly 16y agoAm I the only one who thought this was some attack on Chrome? Whenever I hear talk about browser chrome I always think that Google's name choice was a little confusing. Probably best in the end, though, since it's a catchy name.
- makmanalp 16y agohttps://developer.mozilla.org/en/chrome https://developer.mozilla.org/en/chrome ^ I think Mozilla called their thing Chrome for a long while.
- rubergly 16y agoIn case I wasn't clear, I meant that _Google's_ choice of browser name was confusing, given that it was an already-existing term.
- ra 16y agoI knew what you meant.
- tvon 16y agoI believe "chrome" has meant "the GUI of an application" for a very long time. I think it predates mozilla, but I could be mistaken.
- rudiger 16y agoYou're not mistaken. We were calling it chrome since the Xerox 8010 Information System.
- code_duck 16y agoGoogle seems to be making a habit of that... Closure and Noop are two other examples that come to mind.
- Hovertruck 16y ago
- latortuga 16y agoHow is this different from xulrunner? In reading the description it sounds like a way to make a webapp behave like a desktop app but it's a little unclear.
- cschneid 16y agoI'm not too familiar with what xulrunner does, but this looks like it is very close to Air. Define a desktop application with html & js, but then have lots of additional hooks to make it a desktop app, playing nice w/ the environment.
- Qz 16y agoChromeless 'apps' or whatever are written in 'HTML5', which developers can be assumed to already know, rather than XUL/XBL which they can't.
- quanticle 16y agoChromeless requires you to write your apps in HTML5/Javascript, whereas XULRunner requires you to write your apps in XUL/Javascript. Given that HTML5 is a much more widely known standard than XUL, I'm glad that Mozilla is pushing forward with Chromeless and relegating XULRunner. Ideally, Chromeless would allow you to take your webapp and (with minor modifications) turn it into a desktop app or vice versa.
- euroclydon 16y agoI can't tell if this is an alternative to something like QtWebKit. There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration.
- leoc 16y ago> There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration. Mozilla's actively opposed to any form of JS/native code integration, undoubtedly because that would dilute the effective proprietary control over the Web platform that it shares with a small group of fellow browser vendors. (And maybe because it would wound the personal vanity of its senior developers.) It's already briefing friendly journalists against Google NaCl http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/mozilla_on_jaegermonkey_javascript_engine_extension/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/25/mozilla_on_jaegermon... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/google_releases_first_native_client_sdk/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/18/google_releases_firs... , using comically disingenuous arguments: oh, it's just too bad that NaCl hasn't been blessed by the web standards process that we ourselves control! Opera is behaving similarly: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/opera_on_google_native_client/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/01/opera_on_google_nati... . Of course, it's another thing to extend this attitude to the desktop, where developers have plenty of alternatives to drinking the JS kool-aid. But presumably Mozilla is hoping that the accelerated-Javascript/"contemporary HTML" juggernaut will be powerful enough to sweep a good number of desktop developers along anyhow. Next Big Language and all that, after all.
- quanticle 16y agoHow is Mozilla's control over the W3C HTML standards process proprietary in any way? Mozilla is only one of a number of vendors on the W3C, and is certainly not the most powerful of those vendors.
- leoc 16y agoI didn't suggest that Mozilla has sole control over the HTML (etc.) standards. It's one of the five browser vendors who collectively have de facto control over the Web platform, and it's one of the four non-MS browser vendors who collectively have de facto control over "open Web standards". Thus, for instance, the reason that Google Native Client is not set fair to become an "open Web standard" is because three of the four non-MS vendors oppose it for reasons of self-interest. Similarly, it's going to have trouble getting real-world adoption because MS opposes it too, for basically the same reasons. You'll note how the desires or interests of other actors, like the non-browser-vendor W3C members or Web users and developers at large, play no role in the calculation.
- johkra 16y agoLooks like the decision to stop development of Mozilla Prism was not a bad one. "appify" looks very interesting.
- kleiba 16y agoWhy was Prism stopped? Does anyone know?
- johkra 16y agoYou can read the announcement here: https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/02/prism-is-now-chromeless/ https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/02/prism-is-now-chromeless... Basically: Both can solve the same problem, but Chromeless is more powerful.
- ww520 16y agoThis looks promising. Are there supports for native file system access, databases (SQLite?), and network access?
- Qz 16y agoYes, maybe?, and yes. It's version 0.2 so it's not really the most functional yet.
- misuba 16y agoIt does support SQLite through Firefox 4's IndexedDB spec (sadly incompatible with the Web SQL Database API spec). And there's localStorage as well. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/IndexedDB https://developer.mozilla.org/en/IndexedDB
- ww520 16y agoSupport of SQLite would be awesome. Lots of form-filling CRUD apps can be done.
- lloydhilaiel 16y agofile system access, yeah! It should feel like node.js (on purpose): http://mozilla.github.com/chromeless/#guide/filesystem-access http://mozilla.github.com/chromeless/#guide/filesystem-acces... databases, IndexedDB should "just work", and thinking exposing SQLlite is worthwhile. only the most basic network libraries at the moment.
- jorangreef 16y agoWould it be possible to use Chromeless to tell the operating system to have a specific file opened by its default native application? So you could have a collection of links in a Chromeless app, that represent files on the user's computer, and the user could click a link for say an Excel file, and Excel would launch and show the file? Ideally this is what the new FileSystemApi needs, so that a web-based "dropbox" becomes possible. At the moment, any kind of web-based file manager must result in downloads to get most files opened, and re-uploads, whenever the user changes the file.
- drivingmenuts 16y agoThe recent Amazon outage, in which actual data was lost, would seem to make a case for NOT using this.
- elliottcarlson 16y agoThis has nothing to do with "the cloud", hosted content or anything - Chromless is an application launcher allowing applications to launch utilizing the Firefox engine - think of it as an Adobe AIR type product.
- drivingmenuts 16y agoOK, fair enough. And where are those applications hosted? If it's local to the machine, then great. If it's it's out in "the cloud", then the reliability for applications, which may have been purchased, is iffy at best.
- StuffMaster 16y agoI'd still like Prism to live on...it allows the user to turn any website into an application.
- asadotzler 16y agoThis feature is already beginning in Firefox 4 with App Tabs and will continue grow into the Prism-like platform without the need for a separate product. You should just be able to tell Firefox, "make this site an app" and not have to download Prism to get that.
- StuffMaster 16y agoI want it to run in a separate process and minimize to the system tray though...:(
- jamesbritt 16y agoNice. Looks like an update on Microsoft's HTA (HTML Applications).
- glenjamin 16y agoTheir documentation system seems to be pretty cool. Does anyone know if this is spun off as a separate project somewhere? It looks pretty and seems to tie API functions straight to the equivalent github page - sounds like it would be pretty useful in lots of places.
- lloydhilaiel 16y agoit's homegrown. I spun off the docstract project which pulls docs outta .js and outputs them in json. From their you can render the docs however you want. Docstract itself is permissive open source you can use, here: https://github.com/lloyd/docstract https://github.com/lloyd/docstract
- nrbafna 16y agoany sample applications to showcase?
- lloydhilaiel 16y agototally. check out webian: https://github.com/webianproject/shell https://github.com/webianproject/shell
- jimmyjazz14 16y agoI like the idea of being able to do some parts of a desktop application with HTML but would really prefer not to have to use Javascript. Does anyone know of anything similar to this but that can be manipulated with another language.
- skymt 16y agoMicrosoft's WPF [0] will probably get you the best results on Windows. It's intended to be an easy transition for web programmers to native GUI programming, so it uses an XML-based markup language called XAML for layout. If you want real HTML, you'll need to work out how to interact with your page from your non-JavaScript code. Two easy ways to do that: plugins and compilers. IronPython allows you to embed Python in HTML [1] just like you would JavaScript. (A small Silverlight applet does the real work.) I haven't used this myself, so I can't vouch for how well it works in practice. You can also write code in a language that compiles to JavaScript. [2] CoffeeScript is a popular choice, but there are quite a few others, including several compilers each for Python and Ruby. Some caveats: * This can have performance implications if the compiler produces poorly-optimized JavaScript or compiles on the fly in the browser. * Many of these compilers are toys, so make sure whatever you pick has seen real-world use. * You still need to deal with JavaScript when you debug. [0]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970268.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970268.aspx [1]: http://ironpython.net/browser/ http://ironpython.net/browser/ [2]: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-lang...
- jimmyjazz14 16y agoYeah I was kinda thinking of HTML applications that are not intended to be used in the browser.
- skymt 16y agoYou could use any of the tools I mentioned outside the browser, the latter two (plugins and JavaScript-targeting compilers) with something like Chromeless or Adobe Air. The whole idea of those is to remove browser chrome but leave the engine, keeping development mostly the same. Anything you can do to script without JavaScript in the browser will work just as well in these non-browser environments.
- Plugawy 16y agoWow, it's pretty much the same as Titanium Desktop. (yes - I remember XULRunner and Adobe AIR - but the first didn't have any usable documentation, and the later is just Flash with webkit web view + AS<->JS bridge)
- mgutz 16y agoWhere's the tutorial? Github pages for tutorial not doing anything. I'm very interested as this seems to allow more features than a Chrome Packaged Application desktop app.