So is this like PhoneGap for desktops? it was about time
Actually, check out Adobe Air (for ajax developers). Basically it's webkit as a desktop app and pretty mature. I've used it in the past, but I think Mozilla has a big opportunity here as Adobe has pretty much abandoned the web desktop aspect of AIR to focus on flash/flex for mobile. Also, Adobe removes some of the best parts of webkit like web workers and I recently found a giant performance bug in their javascript e…
Does Air still require a shared runtime component to be installed beforehand? We all know how well that worked with Java.
Actually, check out Adobe Air (for ajax developers). Basically it's webkit as a desktop app and pretty mature. I've used it in the past, but I think Mozilla has a big opportunity here as Adobe has pretty much abandoned the web desktop aspect of AIR to focus on flash/flex for mobile. Also, Adobe removes some of the best parts of webkit like web workers and I recently found a giant performance bug in their javascript e…
Appcelerator Titanium is another option in this category, and is focused on building applications using JS/web standards.
yes, but if im stil up to date on that, it has its own gui frameworks that your app is tied to forever. Might aswell write the app in Cocoa or Win32 then.
Correct me if Im wrong, can you deploy your client side web app as a desktop application without using the Titanium framework stuff?
Am I the only one who thought this was some attack on Chrome? Whenever I hear talk about browser chrome I always think that Google's name choice was a little confusing. Probably best in the end, though, since it's a catchy name.
Their attack on Google can always be titled Less Chrome.
How is this different from xulrunner? In reading the description it sounds like a way to make a webapp behave like a desktop app but it's a little unclear.
Chromeless requires you to write your apps in HTML5/Javascript, whereas XULRunner requires you to write your apps in XUL/Javascript. Given that HTML5 is a much more widely known standard than XUL, I'm glad that Mozilla is pushing forward with Chromeless and relegating XULRunner.
Ideally, Chromeless would allow you to take your webapp and (with minor modifications) turn it into a desktop app or vice versa.
I can't tell if this is an alternative to something like QtWebKit. There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration.
> There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration. Mozilla's actively opposed to any form of JS/native code integration, undoubtedly because that would dilute the effective proprietary control over the Web platform that it shares with a small group of fellow browser vendors. (And maybe because it would wound the personal vanity of its senior developers.) It's already briefing friendly journalists aga…
How is Mozilla's control over the W3C HTML standards process proprietary in any way? Mozilla is only one of a number of vendors on the W3C, and is certainly not the most powerful of those vendors.
> There doesn't seem to be any emphases on native code integration. Mozilla's actively opposed to any form of JS/native code integration, undoubtedly because that would dilute the effective proprietary control over the Web platform that it shares with a small group of fellow browser vendors. (And maybe because it would wound the personal vanity of its senior developers.) It's already briefing friendly journalists aga…
How is Mozilla's control over the W3C HTML standards process proprietary in any way? Mozilla is only one of a number of vendors on the W3C, and is certainly not the most powerful of those vendors.
I didn't suggest that Mozilla has sole control over the HTML (etc.) standards. It's one of the five browser vendors who collectively have de facto control over the Web platform, and it's one of the four non-MS browser vendors who collectively have de facto control over "open Web standards". Thus, for instance, the reason that Google Native Client is not set fair to become an "open Web standard" is because three of the four non-MS vendors oppose it for reasons of self-interest. Similarly, it's going to have trouble getting real-world adoption because MS opposes it too, for basically the same reasons. You'll note how the desires or interests of other actors, like the non-browser-vendor W3C members or Web users and developers at large, play no role in the calculation.
Am I the only one who thought this was some attack on Chrome? Whenever I hear talk about browser chrome I always think that Google's name choice was a little confusing. Probably best in the end, though, since it's a catchy name.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/chrome ^ I think Mozilla called their thing Chrome for a long while.
In case I wasn't clear, I meant that _Google's_ choice of browser name was confusing, given that it was an already-existing term.