Comments on: Firefox 3 – XUL Application Runtime

By: Ron Phillips

Ron Phillips — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:20:41 +0000

Sorry, got answers on IRC: Yes, about anything that runs in FF will run in XulRunner, and vice-versa, and XulRunner supports SVG and APNG.

Ron

By: Ron Phillips

Ron Phillips — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:38:43 +0000

Noob questions: I can write applications that can run in Firefox, or, if I don’t need the “browser baggage,” can run in XulRunner, is that right? And I can use SVG and APNG, or are those some of the baggage (i.e., Firefox only)?

I realize these are gross generalizations, but that’s what I need at this point.

Ron

By: Andrew Wooldridge

Andrew Wooldridge — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:08:32 +0000

This sounds more like a bid to compete with Adobe Integrated Runtime and Silverlight. There have been calls to have XUL based apps for years, but it seems like things have been progressing more rapidly now that AIR and Silverlight (and JavaFX) are out.

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:44:17 +0000

M.J.G – Getting Firefox to run as a XULRunner application would take more work. There are pieces of code that would need to change and be tested. As I say in the post, we are not giving the ‘firefox -app’ approach a high priority. Therefore, we are also not giving Firefox-as-a-XULRunner-app a high priority at the moment either. This experiment will give us data to make future decisions.

By: M.J.G.

M.J.G. — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:26:43 +0000

If it’s such a good idea to run XUL apps off Firefox, and Firefox shares so much with XULrunner, why is Firefox 3 not running off XULrunner?

I still remember the discussion about basing FF (and TB and SB) on XULrunner, and the very same objections people had against that are reasons why not to run XUL apps off Firefox.

MozCo makes me scratch my head again and again lately. I don’t have much more hair to spare!

By: Mark Finkle’s Weblog » WebRunner as a Firefox Extension

Mark Finkle’s Weblog » WebRunner as a Firefox Extension — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:04:32 +0000

[...] has release an alpha release of WebRunner deployed as a Firefox extension and launched using Firefox as the runtime. That’s right, delivered using Firefox’s extension mechanism and launched using [...]

By: skierpage

skierpage — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:16:54 +0000

mawrya,
For me, the reasons this is exciting include: the barriers are lower; I get a new Firefox build nightly and thus updated Gecko every day from the update channel; I’ve got too many Gecko runtimes on my machine as it is; I’ve got way too many EXEs on my computer. This lets me make little XUL apps to test features that seem broken in Firefox alphas. It’s also a quick way to fire up a browser that doesn’t use my profile without having to exit my running Firefox instance. Good stuff!

By: mawrya

mawrya — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:34:48 +0000

So, what is the UP side to this approach vs. XULRunner? Just that you already have Firefox installed so the barrier to getting into XUL dev is lower? I’m just trying to understand why this “feature” is available…from your post it sounds like its not to be relied upon as its future is uncertain, there are down sides, and it has all the same stuff as XULRunner but not as much control. So, why does it exist?

And thanks for the info!

By: Sans Browser » Blog Archive » Super Add-Ons Possible!

Sans Browser » Blog Archive » Super Add-Ons Possible! — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:44:15 +0000

[...] Looks like my idea of Super Add-Ons might be possible with Firefox 3! [...]