Prism
Personal computing is currently in a state of transition. While traditionally users have interacted mostly with desktop applications, more and more of them are using web applications. But the latter often fit awkwardly into the document-centric interface of web browsers. And they are surrounded with controls–like back and forward buttons and a location bar–that have nothing to do with interacting with the application itself.
Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur.
Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.
The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we’ve moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism.
Prism
Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.
Prism lets users add their favorite web apps to their desktop environment:
When invoked, these applications run in their own window:
They are accessible with Control-Tab, Command-Tab, and Exposé, just like desktop apps. And users can still access these same applications from any web browser when they are away from their own computers.
The Best of Both Worlds
Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.
The User Experience
We’re also thinking about how to better integrate Prism with Firefox, enabling one-click “make this a desktop app” functionality that preserves a user’s preferences, saved passwords, cookies, add-ons, and customizations. Ideally you shouldn’t even have to download Prism, it should just be built into your browser.
We’re working on an extension for Firefox that provides some of this functionality. For more information about the user experience we hope to achieve in Prism, see Alex Faaborg’s blog post. For some of the technical details and new features found in Prism, see Mark Finkle’s blog post.
Getting Started with Prism
We have an early prototype for this working today on Windows, with work continuing on Mac and Linux (for which we should have builds available soon).
To try out the prototype, download and install it: Download Prism for Windows.
Then start Prism. It will display an Install Web Application dialog.
Enter the URL of the application you want to use in Prism (e.g. mail.google.com), a name for the application (e.g. Gmail), and pick where you’d like to create shortcuts to the application.
Then press the OK button. Prism will create shortcuts to the application in the locations you specified and then start the application.
How to Get Involved
Prism is just the first of many experiments we hope to conduct around improving the usability of web applications. It’s open source, like everything we do, and we’re interested in hearing from and working with anyone interested in further developing this concept.
- Discuss, debate and add to the design in the forum. Report bugs in Bugzilla.
- Get the source code, extend it, fix bugs and/or submit patches.
The project lead for Prism is Mark Finkle and contributors include Cesar Oliveira, Wladimir Palant, Sylvain Pasche, Alex Faaborg, and Myk Melez.
This is interesting work, but I am curious about a comment you make here:
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Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web.
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Yet, then you describe Prism as:
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Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.
–
You could describe Adobe AIR in exactly the same way.
So, is the main difference between something like Prism and Adobe AIR, that Adobe AIR is being primarily developed by a company (Adobe), and that Prism is being developed by Mozilla?
i.e. Adobe AIR is built on top of web standards and can run existing web applications and content. It runs on Windows and Mac (and soon Linux), and it also provides additional desktop functionality.
Btw, I don’t see any information on Adobe’s site suggesting Adobe AIR is meant to “replace the web”, but, as you ackowledge here, there are some apps that may provide a better experience if they are running out of the browser, and closer to the desktop.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
October 25th, 2007 at 2:52 pmAwesome! Nice to see this finally come to fruition. When will OS X and Linux builds be available?
October 25th, 2007 at 3:15 pmThe JS chrome-less popup window comes full circle :(
“We believe the web is an open plaform …” but this just closes it to one website at a time.
Yay!
October 25th, 2007 at 3:21 pmJustin: we have builds in hand, but they have bugs too big to release them yet, and Mark Finkle, the primary developer, is currently away at a conference. I’m hoping we’ll be able to provide those builds by next week.
pd: au contraire, we don’t do anything to close the web platform. We simply provide you with a dedicated window to an application running on that platform. It’s the same as if you had opened a new window in Firefox and loaded the application there, but without the browser chrome to get in your way.
-myk
October 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pmlooks promising but i guess it is a very very very long way to go….
ideally, what I personally am much more interested in, would be to use another scripting language (python or ruby) instead of javascript. but i guess prism is a (small) step in a right direction
October 25th, 2007 at 3:37 pmshe: There are Python XPCOM bindings for Mozilla, which would make it possible to use Python in chrome code (i.e. the code implementing Prism) if you were to rebuild Prism with those bindings enabled.
But I don’t think those bindings make it possible to use Python in web content running in Prism. But there’s a project called IronMonkey to implement Python support in the next-generation Tamarin JS runtime. See for example this blog post for more info.
-myk
October 25th, 2007 at 4:16 pmNot to be glib, but there are more reasons than this why people want AIR or Silverlight… I see Prism as a replacement for XUL; not a competitor to AIR.
The web is great, but its a lowest-common-denominator. Web standards bodies are slower than molasses, and because of the delay they make standards that nobody uses, or that languish (*cough* VRML *cough*)
Plus, if you extend the web with stuff like CANVAS, and Microsoft doesn’t follow suit, web developers are stuck maintaining at least two very different code bases… one web app for Firefox/Prism, one for IE.
If you want flash, why not just use Flash? Its an open “enough” standard, isn’t it?
October 25th, 2007 at 5:11 pmbex: I don’t quite understand how Prism is a replacement for XUL, given that Prism isn’t a user interface language, and you can use XUL inside Prism. Can you explain further?
Regarding Flash, as far as I know it isn’t an open enough standard (most significantly, it is controlled by one organization), and some web standards bodies move faster than others, f.e. the WHATWG has been more speedily putting together many interesting specifications that various browser vendors have been busily implementing (including one for canvas!).
October 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pmJust 10 hours ago I saved http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner to make del.icio.us account, I’m sure glad I saw this too!
More power to ya!
October 25th, 2007 at 5:47 pm>Regarding Flash, as far as I know it isn’t an open enough standard
You do realize that Adobe AIR is as much about HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc… as it is about Flash / Flex?
More thoughts here:
http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2007/10/25/mozilla-prism-and-the-disingenuous-web/
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
October 25th, 2007 at 6:28 pmIm sorry but I installed this and I just don’t get what there is to be excited about. A webpage (ie gmail) now has an icon and runs in a firefox window without any buttons. wow.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:36 pmThe project looks very interesting. Can’t wait till more progress is made.
October 25th, 2007 at 7:18 pmPut Prism on a mobile device and I smell killer! Let’s see open phone, open OS, open browser, and Prism. Looks good!
October 25th, 2007 at 7:39 pmVery nice! I haven’t gotten around to trying WebRunner, but perhaps I shall give Prism a try.
Minor nit: The Windows key for switching applications is Alt-Tab, not Control-Tab. The latter is used for changing windows within an application. (Does anyone do that anymore? Also…Ctrl-F6…but that goes back to the Windows 3.1 days. =P) Mind you, I’m writing this on a Mac…but I’m a keyboard junkie…and that keystroke is equivalent to Cmd-` on a Mac, not Cmd-Tab. (Sorry for the rambling rant. :-) )
October 25th, 2007 at 8:04 pmHello,
How do I make it work when in proxy environment?
October 25th, 2007 at 8:08 pmAny Settings window / command mode?
This is awesome stuff because I’ve wanted to develop in XUL on the desktop for a long time, but (somewhat strangely) my excitement is tempered by the erroneous shots you’re taking at AIR and Silverlight.
If you must compare them, get the facts straight, but it’d be better if you guys just went back just taking the high road and kicking butt.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:42 pmI just installed it to try out my website. It’s a video site in Flash (think TV-in-a-browser) and a good candidate to test out Prism. I read the article and the linked blogs and here’s what I think are the main issues:
1. Seriously long load time: I have a powerful PC (dual quad-core, 4gb ram, XP x64, scsi raid) and this thing took over 10s just to launch. Closing and opening again didn’t help speed things up. Loading the website was same speed as new tab in Firefox2.
2. Once you’ve created a “webapp”, there seems to be no way to edit the settings other than editing the webapp.ini in C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Prism\Profiles\[weird-chars].default\webapps\example.com@prism.app
3. Needs some desktop features to make it more useful than a new tab in Firefox: minimize to tray, true full screen, always stay-on-top option, borderless/no-titlebar mode, transparency option. These options are pretty easy to do in Windows (like my old app Glass2k: http://chime.tv/products/glass2k.shtml from way back when).
4. Would be great if you could right-click on the shortcut of the webapp, click Properties and edit its settings in a new tab next to General and Shortcut.
5. Needs keyboard shortcut keys. If they are present, I can’t find them. Keyboard for full screen, minimize to tray, stay on top etc. would be great.
6. It does remember windows position like a good Windows app. However, if it’s maximized on monitor 2 and closed, it reopens in monitor 1 maximized.
Since my site is all Flash, I haven’t tested any DOM/HTML operations. I’m guessing since it’s Gecko engine, it would work well. The installation was smooth and I’d much rather use a Gecko engine than AIR/Apollo for desktop webapps.
I haven’t even started to make my site accessible on AIR because it just seems like such a huge process. I was always to build a webapp within 30s of installing Prism so you guys definitely have the right foundation to start on.
I understand making neat local-storage features would be great but as a regular user, I’d much rather see more OS/desktop integration features instead initially. Eventually 2d/3d hardware acceleration would encourage games and more CAD-stuff but till then, at least give users/devs a good reason to install Prism.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:50 pm>I haven’t even started to make my site accessible on AIR because it just seems like such a huge process.
To get existing Flash content to run within AIR all you have to do is create an XML file.
If you had any issue, please feel free to ping me directly, and Ill try and help you out.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
October 25th, 2007 at 9:55 pmYou might wanna fix the images in your blog post, they look a bit mashed cos you set the height & width wrong.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm@Sai Kothapalle :
You need to modify the all.js file in the greprefs file. For example I use a automatic proxy and hence my values were something like.
// My Profile settings
October 25th, 2007 at 10:30 pmpref(”network.proxy.type”, 2);
pref(”network.proxy.autoconfig_url”, “http://host/something.pac”);
How is this any different (or more useful) than a hyperlink? For example I could put a hyperlink to G-mail on my desktop and have it pull up a FireFox window.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:37 pmThis sounds kinda cool.
Something to have fun with in the comming weekend.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:43 pmThis would work great with Google Gears for the local storage/offline usage parts. The great thing is, it is open and already implemented so all you have to do is ship with it.
As for 3d graphics, it seems to me that you biting off more than you can chew. To go from something that really only launches the browser without the buttons to full bindings for Direct3D and OpenGL?
October 25th, 2007 at 11:27 pmI see AIR also as environment to build quick and simple desktop applications (with access to the file system), is Prism going to target it or is going to be “just” a webapp standalone that might run offline?
October 26th, 2007 at 12:16 amI agree with Bill. I didn’t find it that interesting or rather useful.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:18 amYour “best of both worlds” table is a little out on the Desktop site, IMHO.
Installation slow? Hmmm….maybe. I’ll let this one slide.
Update process verbose? “apt-get update && apt-get upgrade” How is that verbose? OK, it’s not *quite* as clean as not having to do *anything*, but it’s close. In face, if you consider that you ought to keep your Desktop OS up-to-date anyway, then updating your apps can be completely free.
Data not in the cloud? Hmmm…..strange. Most of the apps I use, being based on KDE, can access files via http, ftp, scp, ssh and a whole lot more with exactly the same ease that they can access local files. I’m pretty sure there are KIO slaves done or under development that can use gmail for storage too.
Just because the desktop system you use might be stuck in the ’90s, that doesn’t mean there aren’t more modern things out there that already do a lot of the things you’re looking for.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:03 ami cannot use i’m beind a autenticated proxy…… i hope that you fix it soon, i run webrunner at home and this is very usefull
October 26th, 2007 at 2:03 amHi there,
October 26th, 2007 at 2:06 amI really like the idea, I’ve tried with the google services and facebook etc and it all seems sound. However, Prism seems to “forget” the shortcut, after a while when I start one of the web apps up it’ll just prompt me with the Prism dialog.
Also, I think that mouse gesture integration would really make this product shine.
I’ve given Prism a shot and I’ll be happy to see further development of it.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:20 amNice work.
When is it going to be possible to have offline storage and auto- synching for gmail?
Without this feature, Prism is useless to me.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:30 amLooks great! Thanks a lot for this. Installing it now.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:51 amI like it!
Please add more options:
October 26th, 2007 at 2:59 am- show back/forward/reload button (lots of applications don’t have their own)
- which domains to open in its own window
- include firefox extensions
Just install it and will test it today. Hope to find good things inside, as usual for Mozilla stuff.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:03 amVery good idea! Prism is just what we needed for our web-based information system. No more users irritated by unneeded toolbar and stuff.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:24 am>How is this any different (or more useful) than a hyperlink? For example I could put a hyperlink to G-mail on my desktop and have it pull up a FireFox window.
Well Im guessing this will be very useful for below average computer user and to gain Mozilla some more users. Not everyone knows how to put hyperlinks on their desktops.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:44 amIts also useful for people who like the chrome gone. Popups offer this yes but rarely any sites do. I would also suggest all the ideas Chirag offered. Boot up time is my main concern though. IE has always beat Mozillas boot up time. I dont think your normal addons should be present automatically either. You should have the option to enable them but give a warning that it may slow down boot time. But as I said before get it quick and people will use it. Also you guys really need to fix how much RAM firefox takes up after long use. Im not gonna be running Gmail or anything under this and have to restart it because I get up to 100mgs in RAM.
I don’t understand how this is any different from Adobe AIR. Some explanation would be nice, instead of mindless jabs at large corporations without having your facts straight.
I have been working with AIR since the beginning, and they need better marketing for it to get rid of confusion. The problem has been that their Flex/Flash team has been more on the ball when it comes to AIR than their HTML/JavaScript/CSS team. AIR is, and always has been, about bringing web applications to the desktop, not replacing the web. There is nothing proprietary about it, other than it is being created by Adobe. The majority of the development environments are open-source, including Flex, with only Flash not open source. But Flex builds Flash-type applications, so that doesn’t matter.
And for those that think it will be a huge hassle to convert to AIR, all you need is an xml file, and the AIR framework.
Of course, a nice feature of Prism, as described, is the ability to convert apps to Prism apps at the touch of a button, without the creator doing anything to leverage the desktop. Though, an added feature of AIR, which places it well out of competition with Prism (as described here) is that AIR has full access to both Web-based storage, and desktop based storage. The developer can develop an AIR app to leverage the desktop specifically, but can also simply port their web-app over to the desktop.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:57 amWell said Mike.
Adobe AIR and M$ Silverlight are not even comparable. You may compare Silverlight with Adobe Flash.AIR wont “replace” the web. It allows web developers to leverage on their existing skills in HTML,Javascript etc., and create applications targeted specifically for desktop.AIR enhances the web experience and takes it out of the browser.
As far as i understand, all Prism does is to render webpages (or webapps) without Firefox’s native buttons and menus.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:08 amIs that the case or do you have anything more than that?
Mike@adobe.com seems to be really scared of this… I wonder why.
I was not interested in offline applications because the market was mainly controlled by two large corporations. Now it is definitely on my radar.
Thanks Mozilla.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:10 amWill the linux version be ready soon? When can we expect it?
October 26th, 2007 at 4:12 amI don’t get this project.
If it aims to create a shortcut to a website, and place it in a non-navicable window; what does the user gain but non-navigability?
Also, to use applications online, support Google Gears (open source and cross platform). Don’t open up ANOTHER standard..
The only interesting part about this is a possible competitor to Silverlight or Flash, an OPEN one.. That is cool! Nix the parts about shortcuts and google gears, and focus on a flash competitor.
If you pre-install it in firefox (or at least bundle it), you will have INSTANT market share, so you have an advantage!
October 26th, 2007 at 4:25 amSVG in Prism apps, nice …
October 26th, 2007 at 4:26 amPrism is already the name of a software deployment tool created by New Boundary Technologies (www.newboundary.com).
October 26th, 2007 at 4:53 amI certainly applaud Mozilla Labs for coming up with this Prism application! It certainly complements well with the latest news release. Unfortunately, I won’t go further to test it until it is stable, but I am very interested to see how far it goes.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:07 amThis is (from what I can tell) already available with MS Explorer. The SDK allows you to build (provide) a web browser with no conrol bars; in effect a window. You could easily build an application that would allow you to enter an address (as you have done here) and bind it to this (control free) window instance.
This has been available for a long time and no bug testing required at this point.
Not sure how this offering is unique?
October 26th, 2007 at 5:08 amThis is pointless you might aswell just create shortcuts to web pages and put them in the start menu or whatever then just goto view>toolbars and hide the address bar or whatever.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:14 amI fail to see the usefulness of this. All I would get is a browser window without ANY menu bar, which on its own looks odd. This might start to get useful when websites start implementing proper menu bars, like Microsoft Dynamics does. Till then its just an odd looking web browser window for me. And I would prefer all the subsequent windows that I open from a web page to group together in the app, instead of cluttering my taskbar.
I feel that this takes a shot at the tabbed browsing feature of the browsers. And for people like me who would be working on multiple apps simultaneously, a cluttered taskbar is a major headache.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:16 am‘Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight’
Yes, Prism is completely unlike either, it is a web browser without the navigation and restricted to one URL.
On one hand I can certainly see a use for this for some web apps, but on the other I can’t help feeling that taking account of ‘back/forward’ is PART of developing for the web as much as working with the request/response model and if your app breaks when they are used, there’s likely much bigger problems in the code.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:17 amI think the idea is fine, but why separate it from Firefox? I’d rather just have an option in Firefoxe to open a link into a “prism” just like I can open to a new tab. You could set things up such that desktop shortcuts launch directly into such a window as well, so it would just be another type of window for firefox.
With the way things are in prism, it’s almost 100% overlap with firefox, but it’s another app to maintain, keep track of version setting, security settings, etc, etc.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:19 amFunny to see, just a few years back we invented tabbed browsing, and now we’re overthrowing this UI paradigm.
October 27th, 2007 at 5:38 amBug report:
1. Desktop short cuts cannot contain spaces, otherwise when the application launch next time, it will stop showing the previous saved website.
2. The cursor does not show when I’m writing a gmail, it does work when writing most blog articles as well.
October 27th, 2007 at 6:23 amI tried Prism with netvibes.com, and there seems to be bugs.
While it should open a RSS feed in a box, it opens the link in firefox.
Like others, I don’t find it very usefull.
October 27th, 2007 at 7:01 amSuggestions,
October 27th, 2007 at 7:53 amNeed a username password entry/storage feature. Also the window prevents roboform from functioning so I have no use for it in it’s current state, but I’m cheering you on. I like the concept, lots of possibilitys.
Isn’t this almost the same as what you’ve been able to do with HTA (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536496.aspx) files for ages? I run two “web apps” at work both web sites but inside their own window with their own icon and shortcut on the desktop and no browser interface.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:28 amI think there is something wrong with the server hosting the file or the installer itself is corrupt. I keep getting a corrupt file error after downloading it and trying to run the installer. I believe other people have said the same in the comments.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:18 amI applaud the efforts of Prism, but it seems that you are confused about what AIR is and what Silverlight is.
Some other posters have already pointed out the AIR issues. Silverlight is merely Microsoft version of Flash: a technology to spice up existing web applications.
And to make things more interesting, Silverlight has two implementations: one created by Microsoft which is proprietary and one created by the Mono team which is open source.
Am not sure that the debate over a “proprietary platform” has much value in this context either.
If the guidelines is having an open source stack, then Silverlight has an open source implementation and as such its open.
If the guideline is that it must have a stamp-of-approval of some standards orgranization for its specification, then XUL is as proprietary as Silverlight is (no standard organization has declared it a standard).
It seems that the only possible scenario where Silverlight might be more closed is because the upcoming version will allow binary blobs for compiled code (not the one available today). But the binary blobs for compiled code happen to be an ISO and ECMA standards.
So I guess “View Source” is the only thing that you could complain Silverlight lacks. I think this can be solved by adding a contextual menu to Moonlight that can show you the XAML file (this is plain text) or invoke Reflector on the downloaded assembly to see its source code.
No magic there.
Miguel.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:27 amI don’t see why you guys don’t give credit to those who had all this out and working way before Mozilla: http://www.3d3r.com/bubbles/
Thanks :-)
October 27th, 2007 at 10:30 amI wrote up a different spin on this story over at my blog, from a more “anti Browser” perspective…
http://www.kyle-brady.com/2007/10/26/the-continued-mozilla-syndrome/
–Kyle
October 27th, 2007 at 2:47 pmyou can only use 1 word names
October 27th, 2007 at 5:07 pmMaybe a lazy question: This can solve the lock alert when a cdrom autostart an html page using flash?
Thanks in advance.
October 27th, 2007 at 6:29 pmWhy is everyone trying to mimic Java Web Start and no one is adopting it?
October 27th, 2007 at 7:37 pmSame as fish. there is some issues with the cursor not showing up…. that can be really annoying in particular for gmail.
Otherwise prism is a really interesting app as it allow to lighten firefox by sparing it from running common webpages like gmail or calendar. It seems that this way the OS (windows) can better deal with the memory sharing.
October 27th, 2007 at 9:51 pm那几个三菱镜很好看哦,喜欢~!
October 28th, 2007 at 5:29 am不懂英语,看不明,就只留个言.
I think this is a good idea for more and more people need both dekstop and web apps that is seamlessy work in the same time. Awesome!
October 28th, 2007 at 6:38 amA few comments, for Prism, in general, and re:AIR.
I think that if Prism can address the following it would be useful:
1) FF JS memory issues. (REALLY IMPORTANT)
2) startup time (also REALLY IMPORTANT)
3) before it becomes a problem, PLEASE let’s standardize the offline web technology (AIR, Gears, FF3, Silverlight1.1, what else?)
4) Make this part of FF3.
It feels like in round 1 (Web 1.0), IE killed NS. In round 2 (Web 2.0), FF pushed IE into a draw. And the offline/desktop web will probably be round 3 / Web 3.0, altho no media journalist seems to see it coming (they talk about the semantic web, which is probably round 5/6).
Imo, AIR does seem to be the same thing except that it’s proprietary, further along in development than Prism, and relies on a Opera/Webkit browser rather than a FF/Gecko browser, and requires slightly more effort than a Prism app (yeah, it’s ‘just one XML file’, but that’s been said about so many other technologies). The documentation is more obscure for a non-Adobe-tool-user than it really ought to be. (Where’s your “app in 5 minutes” Youtube link on the main site?, instead of being 3-4 links away?)
October 28th, 2007 at 7:09 amYou’re missing the point, most of you. (But Kyle Brady got it: http://www.kyle-brady.com/2007/10/26/the-continued-mozilla-syndrome/ ).
It’s not about removing the toolbars or creating an icon. It’s about running it in a separate process. The toolbar and icon are window dressing (no pun intended). If you tried it and didn’t find it any faster than a browser tab, then either (1) you didn’t try it long enough, or (2) you don’t use the browser heavily enough. Try to use GMail, Google Docs and Google Reader in three browser tabs vs. three Prism windows and you’ll see what we mean.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:21 am@mike chambers,
Push AIR for Linux and maybe so many geeks wouldn’t be so excited about an alternative. The cycle doesn’t end. We don’t have AIR because Flash was late in coming.
By the way this news hasn’t changed for months. Anything new you can tell us about AIR for Linux?
———————————–
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:developerfaq
———————
1.11 Does Adobe AIR support Linux?
Adobe AIR 1.0 will not be available on Linux. We plan to release Linux support shortly after the 1.0. release.
While we had originally planned to support Linux in the 1.0 timeframe, we have had to wait on the core Flash Player’s support for Linux to be finalized.
October 28th, 2007 at 4:07 pmTo all those complaining about how is this different from xxxx based on Internet Explorer - and whats the difference from just having a new tab open in FF.
1) CROSS PLATFORM - article states Mac + Linux builds available soon. I can see some huge benefits for Prism on both of these OS’s.
2) Why better than a FF tab? Because you can kill your regular browser without having to reopen your regular applications. FF has more memory leaks than a sieve - try not closing the FF browser for a week and then see how much memory it’s using.
3) Is it better than AIR? Who cares. It might be, it might not be. But it’s a very nice addition to the open source development stack!
4) Why the excitement? If you’ve ever tried to customize Mozilla with XUL you’ll already understand how Prism could be a much better option! Developing an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single web application….
and don’t even get me started on using Prism to deliver Kiosk based services - something traditionally in the domain of IE, there are a *LOT* of possibilities here.
I used to do a lot of cross platform thin client web based development and kiosk development, Prism would have saved me hours and hours of headaches and problems if it was around three years ago! Instead I spent two months toiling around with Mozilla XUL and eventually giving up the R+D and just licensing a competitively priced piece of Windows kiosk software.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:16 pmhmm…….a web page still looks and feels like a web page when opened in prism. besides, doesn’t the name sound like “prison”?
October 28th, 2007 at 8:12 pmwill mozilla ever create something like Nvu or netscape composer? if there allready is something, please notify me as I am very interested. thanks, and keep up the good work.
Mark
October 28th, 2007 at 9:57 pmso far it’s an useless stuff
October 28th, 2007 at 11:33 pma shortcut for gmail - so what?
i just launch firefox and as a homepage i’ve got gmail
so what’s the difference!
As far as I can see, this amazing application that’s generating so much buzz is basically glorified wrapper of javascript:window.open(…) !!
With the options to hide the toolbars and nav buttons.
Puhleez!! this really isn’t worth my time.
I could have whipped out my Delphi or VC# IDE and written this app in the time it’s taken me to read this hyperbolic article and the sycophantic comments following it.
Un-friggin-believable.
Clearly, Mozilla has lots of bored developers. The smart thing to do would have been to add this functionality to Firefox, which I love to bits BTW, and create a simple API for developers to use to securely deploy their web apps onto users’ desktops/browsers for easy launching and an un-cluttered runtime environment. Dayamn! What that could do for Firefox… Hell, I’d be pushing Firefox into our corporate clients that use our web apps!
But to deploy a fat client application, just to run thin-client web apps, is just, well, redundant. And to generate this kind of hype over something so patently retarded is just, well, irresponsible.
October 29th, 2007 at 3:08 amI don’t know if it’s an interesting idea.
Sascha talks about development on Prism and I wonder if there’s some development tool, or it’s planned.
It would be interesting to count with some example application showing what Prism could offer besides GMail
Good Work.
October 29th, 2007 at 3:14 amWhere does it save downloaded files? After a download, the file doesn’t appear in the downloads window, and it’s not on the desktop or in Firefox’s standard downloads folder. I could search my whole harddisk now, but is there a short answer?
October 29th, 2007 at 3:22 amVery interesting project. I have a weird problem though. Prism created shortcuts on my desktop for GMail and Calendar and they work great. When I try to do the same with Google Maps the webapp link gets created, but double-clicking on it just opens Prism configuration dialog box. Any ideas why?
Andrzej
October 29th, 2007 at 4:44 amFor me, this would be really useful if I could effectively bundle up Firefox as a single .exe/.app package and distribute it to user which would launch the “application” and be taken directly to our web application start page straight away. No messy installs, no “Administrator rights required to run this”, etc. etc. tom
October 29th, 2007 at 6:53 amThis is a really good effort. However, I find that AIR starts faster than Prism. May be the stable release would be fast.
The argument that Prism is no different from IE window without toolbar is baseless. If that is the case I can say AIR is no different from a projector .exe file.
There is no official release of AIR and Silverlight for Linux right now. On 29 October, 2007, I see a linux version of prism too.
Someone argue that CANVAS may not be made available by MS. The same argument applies to flash and silverlight formats. They use non-standard file formats.
This Mike Chambers from Adobe is here only to promote AIR before Prism gains ground.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:56 amuhh…i think I missed the point. I can drop a TWebBrowser on a form in C++ Builder/Delphi and get this exact “platform”.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:14 amIt already works with Opera!
http://my.opera.com/zomg/blog/2007/10/29/mozilla-prism-a-fancy-name-for-a-technology-as-old-as-the-browser
October 29th, 2007 at 12:44 pmI think the manner of opening new windows is not friendly.
when clicking the external link, the prism try to open the link in one exist defaul browser window.
but the exist defaul browser window is working for other things….all form data will lose..
so I think the external link windows should open one real NEW window, like the manner “shift+click” in IE.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:15 pmc super on comprend rien a ce ke vous dite!!
parle pas francais…
October 30th, 2007 at 7:41 amHi all!
I downloaded this application thinking I will be impressed by Prism.
Unfortunately, I am a little bit disappointed by the finality of this application… I mean, what is the difference between
1 - An “application” created with Prism
2 - A drag and drop from an URL in my Firefox to my desktop
???
Cheers,
October 30th, 2007 at 8:11 amBen
I installed and tried to access Gmail but the application reported error and crashed. It seems like it has a long way to go. And by the way I am not sure I understand what are the advantages of using Prism over using a browser to open any web application other than opening and typing in the URL and accessing the application.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:23 pm@mike chambers:
Well, if Adobe Air runs and starts as fast as your typical Adobe product, say for example, Adobe Reader, I don’t think there is going to be anyone using it. Stop developing more bloatware and invest your money in Mozilla. Let soemone who can develope, develop your ideas for you.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:02 amGreat! However its totally useless for me untill it supports plugins. And renders things exactly the same as FireFox. Why does it interact differently with things like FILE Upload ?
For the worker bees this is their new Zimbra program ;)
October 31st, 2007 at 1:30 amHmmm… Looks quite… worthless.
What a difference between this “webapp” and just a shortcut placed on desktop?
No ad-blocker and any other plug-ins, no “navigation” (Back). Only Alt+Left/Alt+Right works to navigate between pages.
What is this actually?
October 31st, 2007 at 4:22 am@149.Robert MacEwan: So… what you’re saying is that the real point is that you can open gmail and docs and calendar each in a separate *window* instead of opening them in new tabs?! Wow!
Why is this different from placing an “Internet Shortcut” on my desktop or start menu and assigning an icon to it?
I’m sorry but I really don’t see the point.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:33 amAnother Bug in gMail message box:
Quotation format not working
As others have noticed, the cursor is not visible in the message box. However, it is visible when working in the to: box or the subject box.
October 31st, 2007 at 5:56 amI think you’re missing the point about AIR if you think Adobe is trying to develop a “proprietary” app that will “replace the web”. AIR has full support for JavaScript/AJAX and HTML, and it takes nothing more than a simple XML file to move an application from the browser into AIR. AIR has been developed to meet the growing need that Mozilla obviously acknowledges by creating Prism.
AIR also has first class presence on the desktop and embeds the SQLite database.
Those corrections aside, I think Prism sounds really cool, it addresses a need, and I like the idea of being able to run any site or web app in its own application window based on my preferences (not the developer’s configuration of an XML file), but right now it’s little more than a chromeless browser window, and I don’t think it really has any edge over AIR yet either.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:48 amWell this is awesome cause I have been using this app for a while… http://www.3d3r.com/bubbles/
But, Yahoo mail does not let Prism run. What browser id is it sending?
“Sorry, the all-new Yahoo! Mail does not support your browser.
October 31st, 2007 at 9:41 amYou can either download a compatible browser or proceed to Yahoo! Mail Classic.”
What you Mozzers need to do is release an IDE (Eclipse-based?) to ease web development difficulties, or C# guys are going to run with Visual Studio and Silverlight.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:01 amWebdevelopers rejoice !
October 31st, 2007 at 11:06 amNo back buttons !
… “It’s about running it in a separate process” …
that seems to be what i’m reading from the proponents. however, when i run multiple “Prism” apps on my windows box at the office, and i execute “Process Explorer” (from SysInternals), i see only *one* “xulrunner.exe” in the Task List.
and if i kill that single xulrunner process, guess what? it killed all three of my “individual” Prism apps - same behavior as if i launched multiple browser windows.
granted, the memory footprint is small, but i can achieve that with Opera or K-Meleon.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:54 am… “It’s about running it in a separate process” …
that seems to be what i’m reading from the proponents. however, when i run multiple “Prism” apps on my windows box at the office, and i execute “Process Explorer” (from SysInternals), i see only *one* “xulrunner” in the Task List.
and if i kill that single xulrunner process, guess what? it killed all three of my “individual” Prism apps - same behavior as if i launched multiple browser windows.
granted, the memory footprint is small, but i can achieve that with Opera or K-Meleon.
October 31st, 2007 at 12:09 pmI think if you try to integrate flash into this prism it would open up to more web applications
October 31st, 2007 at 2:02 pm… “which allows web applications to run independently” …
… “It’s about running it in a separate process” …
that seems to be what i’m reading from the proponents. however, when i run multiple Prism apps on my windows box at the office, and i execute Process Explorer (from SysInternals), i see only *one* -xulrunner- in the Task List.
and if i kill that single xulrunner process, guess what? it killed all three of my -individual- Prism apps … same behavior as if i launched multiple browser windows.
granted, the memory footprint is small, but i can achieve that with Opera or K-Meleon.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:56 amPrism looks good for a start …
November 1st, 2007 at 6:11 amBut i think ideally, you should not have to install anything on a desktop other than a browser, and which should be OS neutral.
After all a webapp should be as portable and fluid as the web itself.
You should combine efforts with Plain Old Webserver ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3002 ). It already has a stable and popular API and extensive documentation ( http://davidkellogg.com/wiki/Main_Page ).
November 1st, 2007 at 8:59 amWe have a full blown web-application that sits atop Google-Maps - TrackHawk [ http://www.trackhawk.com ]. The Google component is minimal with a static map that could be cached. How will prism handle the requirements imposed by Google to run this application off-line?
Very much looking forward to the potential opportunities that Prism will unleash.
Thanks, BA.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:39 pmDefinitely better as a plug-in/add-on. I felt naked without my mouse gestures. And I missed tabs too. A few times I hit CTRL-T before I realized I wasn’t in Firefox.
It just felt weird. I think I wasn’t browsing the right websites using it.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:11 pmAwesome work. The days of web browser enablers are over.
I’m sure in next update most of the bugs will be weeded out.
Is there anyway I can access netvibes in this app ?
November 1st, 2007 at 11:04 pmThat’s great! (Obviously! But let me be a little passionate!)
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pmThere are many things - Flex, JavaFX and Silverlight - that has dirty technology bindings! There are always hidden fees and dirty ways t achieve it - OK! Silverlight is available on any platform; but if you want to develop in it, you need Visual studio and windows and so on.
“IF” there be a right approach in designing and distributing this thing, it would help and may affect web-developing things.
Best Regards
Prism is just the GUI container I have been looking for. I felt that HTA was too restrictive and a IE only solution. If your migrating old DOS applications to GUI, this is a great client as it allows your application to control the flow and not let the user get too creative like they do in a normal browser.
How is the ’sidebar’ navigation frame suppose to work? I have search till my fingers are bloody and nothing about this feature. I assume there is some config file that defines this feature.
There are binary files in the ZIP based application bundles and I wonder how they are created. (by Prism ?)
John
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 amHi all,
please excuse a long post: I work as a PHP/JS programmer building apps on FF2 (and IE - see later). From my POV there are 3 different topics involved in the answers before, which need to be clearly seperated. I’ll try so:
1.) Prism vs. Silverlight vs. AIR vs WtH:
To be honest, I dimply do not give a d. about that.
The power of web-apps is to run on close to any device, OS etc. There is extensive know-how about that, most of the gaps between web-apps and classical desktop apps are already closed.
I still do not believe, that Prism, AIR and Silverlight are compareable enough to make this discussion a constructive one.
2.) “Whats the buzz”:
While Prism is not a revolution on the technical side of things, from the POV of a programmer, it’s of a giant value: We are now able to create a desktop icon for our STUPID users, that will call our webapp correctly, even if they messed up their “normal” browser settings: An URL link on the desktop will launch in IE, if the user opened IE only once and just clicked yes.
Please keep in mind, that readers of this article tend to be technically more experienced than typical users, so a “so what” for many of us, might be a “Wow” (Pun indended) for others.
3.) Gecko/Firefox/XUL bugs/limitations, that naturally appear in Prims as well:
For us, this is the most serious:
a) There is a heavy bug in [Gecko|FF|XUL]{I_do_no_know_which} that makes the cursor disappear from input fields, if another input field was made invisible while having the focus (which is bound to happen with any cute UI). Sometimes you can see the cursor blinking at the position the now invisible input field occupied (if object.style.visibility=’hidden’ + some zIndex stuff was used and not object.style.display=’none’ to hide it) the only workaround is to keep track of the visibility of EVERY single input field (as opposed to div containing many input fields) and if one becomes invisible set the focus to something, that does not change visibility before doing the actual switching (which must async, as doing the focus change and the visibility switching inside the same event won’t solve the problem).
I already posted a bug about this, but - as I can easily understand - there was not yet any action on it.
Prism seems to trigger this for GMail, which is a good thing for us, as it might help assigning this annoying bug a higher priority - yes, I am an egoist, no I do not have the C skills to fix it myself, else I would already have done so.
If this helps, I can also provide sample JS code to show the problem.
b) Startup time/Memory consumption/etc.
Yes, these issues exist. While this might be annoying, (at the time of writing, FF uses 210.864K, Thunderbird 66.724), I do not consider it that much of a problem.
To add a bit of fuel to the flame war of 1.): Let’s see, what a silverlight (or better: 11 parallell of them) app doing the same thing as running in my FF windows and tabs right now will consume - and if they will allow my machine to stay mine, not some russian spammer’s droid ;-)
Best regards, Eugen
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:27 amMike Chambers is only comming here to evangelize AIR, and that sucks a lot. Mike, we know you good so is Adobe, but here is not an AIR forum, only one post and your freakout (that post on your blog) would be ok…but all this crap…. get lost;
BTW, Cheers for the PRISM and hope to have it with all features that Chirag explained, also, as a FF extension.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:43 pmCant wait to have it like this on my hands. Thanks thanks thanks, firefox is really the future of the web!
Looking neat. Might use it.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:48 amHi Im having a bug, unable to see the typing cursor inside gmails compose emails site, can see it in the subject and to: section but not in the main body of the email, anyone has any clues ty.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:11 amProxy settings example
// sspitzer: change this back to “news” when we get to beta.
// for now, set this to news.mozilla.org because you can only
// post to the server specified by this pref.
pref(”network.hosts.nntp_server”, “news.mozilla.org”);
pref(”permissions.default.image”, 1); // 1-Accept, 2-Deny, 3-dontAcceptForeign
November 5th, 2007 at 6:59 ampref(”network.proxy.type”, 1);
pref(”network.proxy.ftp”, “10.2.2.2″);
pref(”network.proxy.ftp_port”, 80);
pref(”network.proxy.gopher”, “”);
pref(”network.proxy.gopher_port”, 0);
pref(”network.proxy.http”, “10.2.2.2″);
pref(”network.proxy.http_port”, 80);
pref(”network.proxy.ssl”, “10.2.2.2″);
pref(”network.proxy.ssl_port”, 80);
pref(”network.proxy.socks”, “10.2.2.2″);
pref(”network.proxy.socks_port”, 80);
pref(”network.proxy.socks_version”, 5);
pref(”network.proxy.socks_remote_dns”, false);
A very nice and handy thing - even if you just wants to open heise or google without starting a 30 ton fat browser ;)
Things which are like Opera Desktop things or Yahoo konfabulator would be great :)
(stay always on top remove bars etc)
You want a own desktop Clock ? just add some lines javascript and a backgrund picture and you are done !
Thanks for the nice work
November 5th, 2007 at 1:15 pmThomas
pretty nice one, i was just waiting for that linux-version! thank you guys
November 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pmI think this is a perfect solution for those who do not know alot about computers. Such as myself.
November 5th, 2007 at 2:33 pmI use as many portable applications as I can. I use FF portable AND Thunderbird portable exclusively.
Still, both of these aps must be run twice for the host pc to display and use the ext’s and addons that I personally prefer. This gives rise to files left behind on host pc’s making them portable but crippled until host saves your preferences.
Would prism change this or not. If not, then I rather see no future to this other than saying one can. Even a thinstall version of an application must leave a folder behind on local pc. I suppose if when an ap was opened it created necessary folders, and then when closed it deleted them it would be TRULY portable. There are none that I know of worth mentioning here
?
I suppose I will wait and see what comes of this but rather doubt the outcome.
I was looking for an application like Prism, for a long time!
Thanx
November 5th, 2007 at 3:25 pmNot that cool yet. I think you in fact do need to have the developers target this thing. Most of the web is just document delivery. There are very few ‘web apps’ out there (in comparison). You should allow the developer (if they want) to be able to target specific features in Prism, like perhaps a File Menu? That way if they take the time they get added goodies. They are developers after all, if they developed their app properly, all the information is just sitting in the cloud and can be pulled down and displayed in any way they want. So I don’t see a big issue with tailoring to Prism, AIR, or Silverlight. As long as your getting a very good usability ratio. In your case that’s making the app look more like a desktop app and not just a browser with limited navigation.
The File Menu could be as easy as loading in an XML file describing all the menus and options with attributes pointing to new pages, javascript, or whatever else. That’s just a lame example I think with some real thought you could do something amazing.
Anyways, I do realize it’s v 0.8 but I hope to see something more than just navigation-less browser windows.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:07 amI don’t understand they hype. I read about this on my mobile and thought wow, that’s what we need. but after arriving in the office, i was deeply disappointed. so the innovation here is… a browser without any controls? you mean like that one found on every hello world programming example? check out how to embed mozilla in gtk, ie in visual basic, etc etc. this is done in few lines of code. so please do tell me, where is the innovation? every kid in 1998 was able to do prism by himself in visual basic.
I would have expected easy to use api for offline apps with acces to a local db, distributable on a stick, cd, download, etc… but not this.
i suggest when you have these things you rename the application to something else than prism so it can catch my and many other disappointed peoples interest again.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:59 amto some, this may not be much better than a shortcut on the desktop (i’ve seen comments to that effect).
however, for me i neatly solves a problem i’ve been trying to fix. since prism strips away all the trappings of the web browser, people don’t think of themselves as being on the web. it is simply an application. also, removing all the bars and such focusses the user on what they are doing and will reduce distraction.
also, you don’t need firefox loaded on your computer for it to work.
i did find that if there is a problem with the security certificate on your website, it can’t continue.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:23 amWow! What a great future. I think this is what we all miss: Taking the web to our desktop.
November 6th, 2007 at 11:20 am>so please do tell me, where is the innovation?
To answer your question:
1) Prism is about enabling end users to integrate web applications into their desktop environment, the types of users who obviously are not going to start programing their own custom apps (embed mozilla in gtk, ie in visual basic, etc etc).
2) Open source projects need to be announced before they are finished to attract contributers to the project. While I personally think prism in it’s current form is an important step toward the online desktop, there are a lot of different directions the project will take in the future. I have a post up here if you are curious: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/10/29/prism-brainstorming/
November 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pmI just wrote an app, while ready this page, that runs on Windows, OS X and Linux that does the same thing but uses 25% of the memory Firefox uses.
I may actually use it (mine) instead of a browser to run all my web-based apps I created at work. Thanks for the idea!
November 6th, 2007 at 2:02 pmPrism is great, however it doesn’t let me write messages in the new version of Gmail.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:27 pmA problem is that Prism doesn’t remember the codes of GMAIL…
November 7th, 2007 at 7:02 amDoes anybody know if i can change an icon?
FYI - shortcuts on windows don’t work. Try as I might it won’t create them, just opens vbs code in notepad. Webrunner was easier to understand out of the box, but i’ll go learn on the forums.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:48 amThis seems like a ton of work, to create chromeless windows, but it will allow IT depts. to preinstall links, and reduce support incidents.
As far as distributing apps, Java Web Start, works very well. For anyone who knows Java, which is now the world’s most popular programming language, it only takes a few minutes to learn how to write a .jnlp and link to it.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:42 pmDoes Prism work on Windows Vista? Whenever I attempt to start it, nothing happens.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:10 pmPrism by Mozilla Seems to be excellent!!!!!!!
November 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pmWeb Sites run much better in Prism.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:50 pmI think this is a good idea for more and more people need both dekstop and web apps that is seamlessy work in the same time. Awesome!
November 8th, 2007 at 3:18 amThank you
November 8th, 2007 at 3:19 amerste Version ist bei den Mozilla Labs
November 8th, 2007 at 3:20 amDoes PRISM depend on a working installation of firefox / mozilla? Or are all dependencies included?
November 8th, 2007 at 9:03 amRegards,
Jacob
It looks very nice, I’m going to try it now.
November 8th, 2007 at 1:34 pmThe only one thing needed for this software is a system tray option.
November 8th, 2007 at 1:52 pmThis would be an ideal platform for running a couple of (self-made) web-based applications - were it not for the lack of Administrator rights at work that prevents me from installing it…
Please, make this a portable app! Thanks.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:51 amThis is Fantastic, I have been wanting a way to access my most frequently used google apps without having to actually open a browser. Nice work guys!!!!
November 9th, 2007 at 3:01 amIf you can’t find any reason to use Prism, try searcjing for Xcerion on Google.
Prism + Xcerion = Eehm… Happyness? Where’s that lexicon?
November 10th, 2007 at 10:29 amSuggestions
- Option to let the user type a password to close the window.
- Option to block winkey, alt-tab, alt+F4 etc. to prevent leaving the app
- True fullscreen as mentioned above.
In short, a kiosk browser mode.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:04 pmAnother suggestion:
- Download the favicon is it exists, and use it as the shortcut icon.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:25 pmThis surely is a revolution!! Kaustubh
November 11th, 2007 at 3:46 amI think it would also be good if Mozilla developed an InstallBuilder which would enable site owners to develop custom installers which integrate into Prism.
Just like we have installers for the Windows OS, Linux, etc., I believe it would be good to have them for Prism.
Doing this will make it easier to distribute web apps as desktop apps, eliminating the need for the user to specifically enter the urls and other info.
So the user goes to the site and downloads the prism installer for that particular web site or installs it straight from the web site without file downloads.
Let’s make this as easy as bookmarking.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:33 amIts looks promising…but i still could finds bugs in there!
November 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pmthe windows version is still not working. I’m using Windows xp sp2 and when I try to install it gives lot files as missing and most of them are dll files and it comes up only if I select XUL runner runtime.
Please look into it…thank you!
November 12th, 2007 at 4:22 pmI am surprised at the number of “so-what” comments referring to opening their email with PRISM. Obviously they have never had to develop or deploy a web app. I can tell you this is exactly what is needed. I spent some time trying to mimic a kiosk mode in a less than full screen mode and have found all the newer versions of browsers cripple this for security reasons so PRISM is spot on.
We can’t get it soon enough and it could well convince some of our clients who currently use IE to swap for the user experience.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:42 pmThis is great. I had to run a small set of computers accessing a library catalogue. I used to use Netscape 4 in superkiosk mode, and now use Firefox with R-kiosk, but restricting access to all the unwanted functions was hard work. Its far more sensible to have a program that doesn’t include them all. Prism seems to do 90% of what I want straight out of the box.
One request, can you put a superkiosk mode in? A frameless full screen window, no title bar, just the app you want. If you are only running one program on a machine, you don’t need to advertise that its running Windows with a start bar, and if you don’t want users to close the program, don’t give them an X to click!
Look forward to seeing version 1.0
November 13th, 2007 at 2:29 amI downloaded and installed the latest version of Prism either on my Windows XP laptop and on another computer with Windows Vista Home and I am having the same problem.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:13 amSoon after I add a “web application” I get this message:
Windows cannot open this file: shortcut.vbs
Windows needs to know what program… etc etc…
I like use FireFox+F11 more then Prism….
November 14th, 2007 at 6:10 amThere should be some kind of support for most usefull firefox addons like Adblock Plus
November 14th, 2007 at 11:33 amYour kidding …. this is a non event.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pmI confirm what naproxen said: the installer is corrupt. Setup cannot even start. Please verify the installer published for download.
November 18th, 2007 at 6:49 amgute arbeit leute, bin sehr zufrieden über prism. das zeigt mal wieder, wie gut programme der marke open source sind. komerzielle anwendungen hab da keine chance. meiner meinung wird es bald auch keine komerziellen programme mehr geben
November 18th, 2007 at 7:17 amI think a lot of people are missing the point here about Prism. Prism will allow you to do more than just ‘run a webpage in it’s own window, and have a link from the desktop’ - this is not really anything new. The beauty in Prism is that it will let me code an entire program (offline, online, or both) using XUL (Mozilla’s standards based interface language) and Javascript, and I won’t need the browser open in order to see it.
The difference between Prism and AIR is that whilst AIR requires flash, and a fair bit of nifty coding to make it talk to pre-existing databases etc, all of the interface design is done in an XML based language, so it is inherently more open than using Flash. Not only this, but I assume that Prism will also allow you to also use XPCOM objects, which will let you use system-specific functions (eg. zip/unzip a file, connect to a mail server etc) from your applications.
I think the real people who will see uses for Prism are people running database-driven businesses: a single interface can be built using standard UI components in XUL, which talks to their database using XML, which will run on any platform Prism is available (I’m sure some way of using it on your mobile phone will be available soon). This clearly has huge benefits for system administrators - not least because there is absolutely no legwork in upgrading everybody in the company simultaneously to the latest version of the database interface, update it in one location and whatever platform people are using it on, it will just work.
Another benefit over flex is that XUL already has many components built with handling large amounts of data quickly in mind, whereas the AIR/Flex components, while better than they once were, are still a long way off in the speed stakes.
Anybody who has already written an extension for firefox/thunderbird will be able to (with very little/no effort) be able to use it in Prism as a standalone application, one example is FireFTP - it would be hard to imagine this working under AIR, as to my knowledge it has no built in FTP support.
Although Prism is only in the early stages of development, I’m already very excited about the possibilities, and have wasted no time in brushing up my XUL programming!
Rufus
November 18th, 2007 at 10:39 amI’m already enjoying it. Great idea way to go Mozilla!
November 18th, 2007 at 9:33 pmNow if only Prism could handle FF add-ons, both on a per-application and a general basis. I’ll elaborate.
I like my phpMyAdmin with ‘Resizable Form Fields’ and my Gmail with ‘Better Gmail’. Now ‘Better Gmail’ is useless with phpMyAdmin, but ‘Resizable Form Fields’ can be handy with my Gmail app. Still with me? ;)
I think it’s not hard to cook up a dozen more scenarios where this would come in handy.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:12 amI’ve just tried adding the .manifest file of an XUL program I’m building to the Prism chrome directory, and everything so far is working exactly as expected. Prism is more than just a way of adding a shortcut to the deskop for a web site you want to run in its own window, even as it stands at the moment, it’s a way for developers to quickly build entire programs that work either online or offline using technologies such as XML, XUL and Javascript, without having the browser controls present.
Rufus
November 19th, 2007 at 10:05 amI’m working on an application using Dojo, and we’re having some browser problems, so we’d like to use something like Prism. In fact, Prism looks perfect, but it has no full screen mode (required for our application). Do you know if someone’s working on it?
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 amThank you very much. Great plugin!
Hi there,
I have a Question: Prism does not know of MIME-Type “application/x-jinit-applet;version=1.3.1.22″, which is a Java-Runtime implemented for Oracle Internet Application Server, while Firefox does. Even if I re-install the Runtime, Prism won’t be aware of. Is it a fault within Prism or must the Java Runtime register itself with all available “Browsers”? I have also installed the Java Runtime from Sun and these Applets are loaded correctly into Prism.. I run Windows XP w/ SP2
Greets,
JW
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:57 ami want a Zh-CN vision…
November 25th, 2007 at 7:47 amChirag’s response 17 was right on, for right now.
Some more thoughts:
“1. Seriously long load time.”
It’s way early; be patient.
“2. Once you’ve created a “webapp”, there seems to be no way to edit the settings other than editing the webapp.ini”
Ditto.
“5. Needs keyboard shortcut keys. If they are present, I can’t find them. Keyboard for full screen, minimize to tray, stay on top etc. would be great.”
How about Backspace/back (still possible on many “web apps”), Crtl-X/Cut, Ctrl-C/copy, Ctrl-V/paste?
6. Preferences absolutely must allow selection of a non-default browser.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:17 pmAt work, my default browser must be IE6 (long story, many reasons, don’t get me started).
Which means Prism opens links in IE6. Which is just … icky.
Very useful tool. But I think it should use independent cookies for separate applications. First of all because I found this tool useful for to use different services under different google’s accounts(and not only google’s) and every time I need do log out and relogin.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:24 amI finally found a good use for Prism. I use it to listen to Jango Internet Radio, now i can surf without having the tap open all the time. That’s cool!
December 1st, 2007 at 6:29 amAwesome application, it has been very helpful
keep on coding =)
Genial Aplicación, ha sido de mucha ayuda =)
December 1st, 2007 at 3:42 pmSigan desarrollando
[…] web apps on the desktop Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly […]
December 1st, 2007 at 9:34 pm=> I simply think wed apps on the desktop Prims are links of a wed sites with their own icons that can directly run on desktop as desktop applications (based on firefox browser module).
I have a question: why don’t you develope firefox browser or have an add-on application (if it satisfies) that users can be easy to create a connection to their favourite wed sites as an icon of desktop application and run directly on desktop? (I think it’s the same as Prism.)
Dows this support proxy settings. First I thought it will be exactly like firefox with an additional button!
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 pmAm I the only one who can’t run it ?
It seems that it isn’t able to resolve hosts, this could be linked to the fact i’m running it on a x64 Debian, but I have a little number of 32b apps that run fine.
Since it seems I might be an isolated case, I won’t whine :-)
Cheers !
JB
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:50 am./.
In my case, I need to have multiple web applications open at one time. I need a CRM system, a word processor, an online database, and an email app, all open at the same time.
Prism would be a great way to run each of these apps, but Prism forces me to close one app before I can open another. Why can’t there be multiple instances of Prism open at the same time?
December 4th, 2007 at 5:58 amThis is really great. Is it the end all and be all of web stuff? Probably not. But I’m a huge fan of apps that make my life easier. Till now, I didn’t bother using Google Calendar because at work I regularly check two different gmail accounts. Logging out of one and into another meant I was also logging out of my calendar. The thought of using IE to segregate the logins is distasteful at best. With Prism, my calendar stays logged in regardless of which email I’m using.
So simple, but so useful.
Great work.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:57 amPrism is too slow, its faster for me to launch firefox and open my apps there, sorry.
December 11th, 2007 at 7:23 amWhile it is good that browser chrome is excluded, as that is the whole point, there should be some way to navigate back and forwards. Why are the mouse navigation buttons, the navigation buttons on my Thinkpad keybaord and even the ALT + cursor key combo (that works in normal browsers) not work in this beta??
December 11th, 2007 at 9:39 amDoes any one came across similar application for Mac OS X…
Fluid: Give your favorite webapps a home on your Mac OS X Desktop.
“Fluid is highly inspired by the excellent Prism (formerly WebRunner) project by Mozilla Labs.”
http://fluidapp.com/
December 12th, 2007 at 8:16 am384 comments on one page? Fail.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:50 amOh my bad it’s worse. 551 text blurbs.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:52 amMinimization to system tray is a very very desired feature.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:01 amMozilla Prism is perfect! thanks..