Writing software with UXP

[Schimon]

Greetings!

I suppose that this was already discussed before.

Since ChatZilla and the possibility to run it independently with XUL-Runner, I wonder whether UXP allows to develop standalone software.

I would also suggest to create a selection of simple software, such as text editor, image viewer etc. as realizations to attract developers.

UXP might be a preferable choice than FLTK and GTK+.

http://chatzilla.rdmsoft.com/xulrunner/

Further more, a collection of UXP software might trigger ReactOS developers to utilize UXP as a recommended toolkit, and consequently extend the reach of Pale Moon and attract even more activity and developers.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30541

Related: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=20444

Thank you,
Schimon

[Moonchild]

There's a bare-bones xulrunner that can be built from the UXP source tree to run arbitrary XUL applications on the platform.
There aren't any clear or active projects that I know of making use of this right now.
Note that "therisonlyxul" dot org is under the control of an adversary to our project and has at best only been updated in a limited and biased fashion, and should not be relied on.

[Michaell]

I do not like the trend of developing browser-platform based stand alone applications. They are too large for simple programs. Use a real programming language to develop small applications. Or, add the functionality to the browser with an extension - the old Firefox addons system had a few good ones. An extension doesn't have to load all the same background code like an XULrunner type application does (that's why I dropped the XULrunner idea myself).

Also, if more complex extensions are developed, it'd be nice if we had an extension site that let us post comments like Mozilla did so everyone wouldn't have to install them to find out if they're good and safe. (I know we can post a topic here but's it's not as nice as having on the same page. But if the authors would put a link on their extension's page to the forum topic that would be a good intermediate step.)

[Moonchild]

They are too large for simple programs.

Well it depends on what kind of program you want to make. If you want to write something that interacts with the Internet (especially securely) and/or that could benefit from being able to render HTML/CSS content, then writing something like that from scratch would just be stupid and reinventing the wheel.

[moonbat]

If you want to write something that interacts with the Internet (especially securely) and/or that could benefit from being able to render HTML/CSS content

There used to be embeddable web browser components starting with IE's ActiveX interface and a Mozilla equivalent too, but all sadly history on the desktop. Android has a SystemWebView for this.

[vannilla]

but all sadly history on the desktop.

Strictly speaking that's what WebKit is for, but in the real world nobody really uses it for anything that is not a web browser so it kind of lose this utility.