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The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

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Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#131

Post by sixplusone »

FussyZeus wrote: post #116
sixplusone wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately OS/WM/DE makers didn't provide a common API, so now web browsers are the "Lowest Common Denominator" for cross-platform apps.

This is an odd offshoot issue that comes I think from the larger movement towards web-based applications and hosted "services" replacing bespoke desktop apps. I have to say I feel a bit old hearing developers say "well why didn't the OS developers provide common APIs for creating applications?" which in my mind, is asking why Toyota Corollas and Ford F-150's don't use the same engine. The answer being they were two e…

>why Toyota Corollas and Ford F-150's don't use the same engine

Yeah, they're now a weaker (browser) engine bolted on with adapters to the gui engine. Everyone gets to go through the js bottleneck.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#132

Post by sixplusone »

buboard wrote: post #128
sixplusone wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately OS/WM/DE makers didn't provide a common API, so now web browsers are the "Lowest Common Denominator" for cross-platform apps.

There are a ton of cross-platform GUI libraries

But this is part of the problem. I should have said "provide standard API" above. These libs aren't standard.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#133

Post by jhatax »

Here’s my XUL development story:

I built and managed (2009-2011) the XUL-based Elasticfox extension for Firefox that allowed users of EC2 to manage their compute resources on AWS. The extension pre-dated the AWS Console and introduced features such as resource tagging and search before they were part of the SDK.

The extension wouldn’t have been possible without XUL. In fact, it isn’t possible today. MDN documentation was really great even in those days, as was the community which answered a number of my questions. I was doing something really new, especially with calling into EC2 APIs, background refreshes, using Prefs.js to save tag information, etc., and the community was really responsive and supportive of my work. Quirks aside, my experience with XUL was great. Users truly appreciated the extension over the Java-based CLI, and a number of ideas (mine or those from the community) eventually made their way into the AWS Console.

I spent my last year at AWS working on the S3 Console using web technologies. I found XUL development to be easier than hacking CSS that year (circa 2010-11).

Edit: Added a note up top that this is my XUL story.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#134

Post by buboard »

mc3 wrote: post #130
twgrp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt exists.

I think Electron is popular because you can hire web devs to make a desktop product. With JS you can write code that runs on your server (NodeJS) desktop (Electron), browser and mobile app (Cordova). It's not a great experience but it is good for rapid development, easier hiring of skills (just need some web devs!) and the code reuse might be helpful for bug reduction.

Its also slow and bloated. You get what you pay for

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#135

Post by abacadaba »

jasonlaster11 wrote: post #37
BoumTAC wrote: post #20

can it cause perfomance issue ? I know for example the devtool is written in react and it's a lot slower than chrome devtools (I don't know how chrome devtool is written) and the javascript debugger is sometime not even usable because it's so slow.

Hi, Firefox DevTools Debugger engineer here. We've focused on performance and quality over the past six months and believe it should be much better. If you're still seeing issues, feel free to record a performance profile and send it to us: - https://profiler.firefox.com/ - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=DevTools&... I'd be happy to fix it!

ty for the effort! this is pretty much what has kept me developing chrome first.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#136

Post by hunterloftis »

pfraze wrote: post #18

Incidentally, so is Beaker browser's. We use lit-elements, which I like a lot.

I've also been enormously impressed with the design of lit-element, which carefully balances ease with simplicity.

Just enough abstraction to automate the hard stuff without dictating your architecture.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#138

Post by the8472 »

jasonlaster11 wrote: post #37
BoumTAC wrote: post #20

can it cause perfomance issue ? I know for example the devtool is written in react and it's a lot slower than chrome devtools (I don't know how chrome devtool is written) and the javascript debugger is sometime not even usable because it's so slow.

Hi, Firefox DevTools Debugger engineer here. We've focused on performance and quality over the past six months and believe it should be much better. If you're still seeing issues, feel free to record a performance profile and send it to us: - https://profiler.firefox.com/ - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=DevTools&... I'd be happy to fix it!

I find it mildly amusing that there's a profiler in the devtools. And yet there is another profiler that is at times more powerful than it. I have used the gecko profiler from time to time to identify which feature the page was using that slowed down the entire browser. Multi-process means just debugging a single tab doesn't give you the whole picture.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#139

Post by the8472 »

thayne wrote: post #28
BoumTAC wrote: post #20

can it cause perfomance issue ? I know for example the devtool is written in react and it's a lot slower than chrome devtools (I don't know how chrome devtool is written) and the javascript debugger is sometime not even usable because it's so slow.

chrome devtools are also written in javascript (although I'm not sure which framework if any they use). You can even debug the chrome devtools with chrome devtools (I think the same applies to firefox, although I've never accidentally gotten into that state like I have in chrome).

about:config -> devtools.chrome.enabled = true

then you should have additional entries in the tools -> web developer menu.

Re: The Firefox UI Is Now Built with Web Components

#140

Post by the8472 »

spankalee wrote: post #126
tomc1985 wrote: post #91

Everyone celebrates this, as if it were something worth celebrating. Yet all I see is another stake through the heart of desktop and native UI.

You don't think XBL was more native than HTML do you?

it used native widgets
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