XUL Explorer - Updated!

XUL Explorer is a small tool I started a while ago to allow me to quickly create and preview short snippets of XUL. At the same time, I used the process of building XUL Explorer as a use case to help me discover and learn various parts of the Mozilla platform. With the help of some great contributors, it’s been extended beyond simply previewing XUL.

As a tool, XUL Explorer has been serving me well, but I have been wanting to refine it as an application. As I continue to discover how to use the Mozilla platform to it’s fullest, I want to push those concepts back into XUL Explorer. Therefore, I give you XUL Explorer 1.0a1pre, with the following changes:

• Proper build system - Project is now using the Mozilla build system which makes building on all three platforms a breeze.
• Auto-update system - The built-in Mozilla auto-update mechanism has been enabled. The application will periodically check for updates on my server and download/apply them as needed.
• Updated XULRunner - The bundled XULRunner runtime is now based on the 1.9.0.x branch (same as Firefox 3.0.x). Now you can play with the new XUL elements and platform features.
• Updated DOM Inspector and Venkman - XUL Explorer now bundles the newest versions (from the 1.9.0.x branch) of these extensions. Using the Mozilla build system makes this simple too
• A couple small bug fixes and UI tweaks

With the build system changes, I can finally start taking localizations in a manageable fashion. If anyone has a translation you’d like me to add, file a bug here.

Install Windows, OS X (Intel) and Linux versions from here.

A big thanks to Dave Townsend and Matt Gertner for providing some great samples and documentation. Also, the work I have been doing on Prism and Fennec has been helping me expand my knowledge of the Mozilla platform too.