Harnessing the Mozilla Platform

Brian King

Independent Consultant / mozdev.org / Mozdev Group, Inc.

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Introduction

• Web Applications are becoming widely deployed.
• Lines being blurred between Client and Server (Web) applications.
• Mozilla:
  • Uses proven Web technologies
  • Runtime interpretation of non-compiled languages such as XUL, JavaScript and CSS
  • (D)HTML falls short in the UI space (e.g. context menus, tabs, ...)
  • AJAX is filling some of the spaces, but not all of them.
  • Cross-platform rich client application development
  • Viable alternative to the more costly development cycle of traditional software development

Development Platform

• XPFE - Cross-Platform Front End
  • Widget Toolkit (XUL/XBL)
  • Style (CSS) and Implementation (JavaScript, RDF)
• Component Architecture - XPCOM
  2,000+ of XPCOM interfaces available:
  • Image handling
  • Security
  • File System
  • Plugins
  • Much more ...
• Cross Platform - "Write once, run anywhere"
• Win, Max OS 9/OS X, Linux, HP UX, FreeBSD, OS/2 ...(see ports page)

Toolkit - Benefits

• Of Language:
  • Separation of content, functionality and style
  • Cross-platform
  • l10n enabled - Easily localisable
• To Developers:
  • Uses technologies that are familiar
  • No compilation
  • Quick Prototyping / Faster development time
  • Promotes Customisability - themes, locales

XUL Features

• Widgets and Controls
• Box Model - boxes, grids, stacks
• Window, Dialog, Page, Wizard
• Buttons, Menus, Tabs, ...
• Tabular data - Tree, Listbox
• Content widgets - (tab)browser, iframe and editor
• Templates
• Hierarchal structures displaying data collected from RDF datasources
• Overlays
  • Modularisation of code in separate files
  • *New* Dynamic Overlays pulled in after document load.
    document.loadOverlay(file, observer);

XBL - Extensible Bindings Language

• 'Bind/Attach' content, layout and behaviour to new widget
• New widgets + extending existing ones
• Still in development - 2.0 spec currently being written.

Accompanying Technologies

• JavaScript
• CSS
• XUL Overlays
• RDF
• XUL Templates

XPCOM

• Cross-Platform Component Object Model
• Components in theoretically any language - currently implementations in JavaScript, C++, and Python (PyXPCOM)
• XPConnect - "Scriptable" IDL interfaces

i18n and l10n

• Excellent internationalisation support
• Infrastructure for multiple-locale applications
• DTD Entities (.dtd) and String Bundles (.properties)
• Menu items, buttons, statusbar, Help files, ... anything that is visible
• Language Packs for UI customisation

Web Services and More...

• Web Services
  • XMLHttpRequest
  • XML-RPC
  • SOAP (sketchy)
• Extras
  • Database support (PostgreSQL, MySQL)
  • New storage model on trunk for 'Places' - using SQLite
  • XSLT
  • XPath
  • MathML
  • "Web ready"

Mozilla Architecture Diagram

Cairo Graphics

--enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2

XULRunner - What Is?

• Bootstrap XPCOM+XUL applications - GRE (Gecko Runtime Environment)
• Customisable executable name, icons, profile directory, and more
• Uses the latest toolkit
• Stable developer releases available

Getting the GRE Runtime

1. Download a nightly (trunk) build
2. Download 1.8.0.1
   
   

   http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner_1.8.0.1_Release_Notes
   

Build From Source

• Standard Mozilla build environment
• Grab the code:
  make -f client.mk checkout MOZ_CO_PROJECT=xulrunner
• Custom mozconfig in file in xulrunner/config/
  
  

  ac_add_options --enable-application=xulrunner
  

Application Structure

application.ini

[App]
Vendor=My Company
Name=mycoolapp
Version=1.0
BuildID=20060425
Copyright=Copyright (c) 2005 My Company

[Gecko]
MinVersion=1.8
MaxVersion=1.9a1

Entry Point

• The application has to know where to start...
• Options
  1. In Preferences
     

     pref("toolkit.defaultChromeURI", "chrome://openkiosk/content/go.xul");

  2. Override the default command line handler with your own.

Registering the GRE

xulrunner -register-global

Modules

• Gecko features: XPCOM, networking, rendering engine, XUL, SVG, XSLT, XML Extras, history, accessibility...
• UI Features: Extension Manager, Find Toolbar, ...
• Embedding APIs: cross-platform embedding, JavaXPCOM, gtkmozembed (Linux only), activex (Windows only)... (Some of these are not complete)

Deployment 1 - Launching from Flat Structure

xulrunner /path/to/my/application/application.ini