Comments on: Mozilla Platform, Wizards and FizzyPop

By: .jon

.jon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:58:57 +0000

Great! Thanks for reply (and helping us poor undersupported XUL developers!)

What was especially bad, when I started XULrunner development, was, that different tutorials on how to start such a project and how to lay out the paths was showing a different directory-structure. So, a little command-line utility, that “just works”, will be very nice to get going.

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:28:34 +0000

@.jon - I intend to use the same templating system for the web application and the desktop tools, so the templates can be shared between the two apps.

I am also updating the XUL Explorer code to use the newer templates. I expect to create a simple commandline driven generator as well, so editors and IDEs could spawn out to the tool to make new projects (on the desktop).

By: .jon

.jon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:11:42 +0000

Oh, and do you know about the XULBooster plugin for Eclipse. It is pretty nice already and paired with other Eclipse plugins (ATF, WTP) it could (needs some work done, though) make use of the complete implementation of Mozilla as Eclipse plugin (along with Javascript console, Firebug like CSS editing, DOM Explorer and integration into the Eclipse debugger). Along with the powerful XML and SQL tools available for Eclipse this would be my personally preferred choice. But that is just personal. Heck, with the Aptana/Jaxter plugin Eclipse has even a web-server, that offers client-side Javascript. Which would hint at my previous post

By: .jon

.jon — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:06:12 +0000

Why do you think more people are using the web than their desktops? XULRunner is interoperable.

Please, if you really need to do this as a remote service, would you mind using server-side Javascript instead of PHP? There *is* people who dislike web-applications (being forced to put the plug in, being dependant on the internet/a service provider) and installing Apache+PHP is just too overdoze for me. I do not want to have Apache running on my WinXPpro. However, there is POW, a web-server, that runs in Firefox, Thunderbird or, stand-alone, as XULRunner application and which can be scripted.

If I’d be you, I would add POW to XULExplorer (very nice program, btw. Gets things done!). There is server-side javascript backends for Apache and other web-servers. Not sure how IIS handles it but it should do with a little bit of boilerplate (ActiveX).

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:03:26 +0000

@Ionut - I think an option to output a Komodo-compatible project sounds like a good idea. I use Komodo Edit myself.

By: Ionut Gabriel Stan

Ionut Gabriel Stan — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:03:40 +0000

Komodo Edit has a very helpful project wizard/template for Mozilla extensions. It doesn’t offer all the customizations Ted Mielczarek solution offers but it helped me, and the Python build script is very nice. Double click and you’ve built your extension. You also get XUL/XBL autocompletion hints in the editor. Anyway, there are lots of things to improve. Actually, I’m working on a little Komodo extension right now.

The other thing I liked is that I can quickly try some Mozilla specific javascript snippets with a little macro.

By: David

David — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:56:06 +0000

Django and Python would take you about 2 hours to learn. Be happy to help you get it bootstrapped, and perhaps contribute.

David

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:29:14 +0000

@David - I’m trying to keep this simple (and not need to learn new frameworks to get something moving).

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:28:11 +0000

@pd - Don’t wait for Mozilla to build an IDE. There are many IDEs out there now. Instead, why not make a Mozilla plugin to you favorite IDE?

By: Mark Finkle

Mark Finkle — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:26:20 +0000

@Shawn - Mozilla webdev still uses SVN.