I decided to take a detour in my XULRunner session at MozCamp. I have done several XULRunner talks over the last few years. I usually focus on the functionality built into the platform and discuss the benefits of using Mozilla technologies to develop applications.
This crowd was very Mozilla savvy and many had at least experimented with building XULRunner applications. So, instead of my normal slide deck, I went with a “walk-through” of using the Mozilla build system to create a XULRunner application. I did the same with setting up an auto-updating XULRunner application. I think the Mozilla build system is something any XULRunner developer should learn and setting up auto-updating always seems to frustrate developers.
The talk went very well. Thanks to Robert Kaiser for helping me fill in some blanks. We had some good discussion and I could have spent a lot more time covering some of the smaller details. I think I might look into expanding this “walk-through” format.
Another topic we talked about was the potential of XULRunner on mobile devices. Many developers are excited to see XULRunner become available for mobile platforms. The ability to move XUL applications from desktops to mobile devices is fairly powerful. Fennec, for example, runs just fine on any supported XULRunner platform – without any changes.
The format of the talk was a refreshing break from the norm. Utilitising the build system for XULRunner apps (and extensions) is something that should be advertised and documented more as it is quite powerful once over the initial learning bump. Thanks Mark.
BTW, didn’t someone say they would gather all the examples and links to repos’ into one place on MDC? Or is it already there?