XUL runner as GUI framework for my application,what am i missing here?

Question

Hello all recently i was introduce to the mozilla XUL runner as framework for front line GUI this seems to be idial framework to me ( none GUI person ) based on xul and js for events and gives me the possibility to use c++ as back end ( xpcom ) . its seams to good to be perfect . my question is for the guys that have expireance in this frame work and can give me some points on the limitations of this frame work. and also can i base commercial software on XULrunner binary ? some one knows about this license matter?

Answer 1

I think the hard part is that you have compile binaries for every platform you want to support. That's pretty nasty limitation right there. And yes the Mozilla license is pretty liberal, it's just fine for commercial purposes, here's the license and here's an annotated guide. Here I like this overview.

Answer 2

XUL is great.

One downside is that it is not promoted as a desktop application development framework. So tools support is worse than Microsoft's, not everything is documented, it doesn't have components to do everything.

If you're going to do serious development with XUL, be prepared to have to learn the framework, including its implementation details. Basically, if you're using components that Firefox doesn't actively use, you will have issues you'll need to figure out on your own.

The framework being open-source and liberally licensed allows you to patch it and use a patched runtime in your application.

Answer 3

XUL is just part of a larger "Mozilla Application Framework". There's a lot of conceptual stuff to learn to get the most out this superb x-paltform development environment. Like the previous poster said, good documentation is hard to comb by.

I suggest you read McFarlane's book, there's an online version here ...

http://mb.eschew.org/

It gives a very thorough treatment -- so you can code feeling like you understand the platform rather than like you're accumulating hacks from the net. Another thing you can do is download well-written open-source Mozilla-based applications like Komodo Edit and Songbird, then browse around their chrome directories. You'll save yourself a lot of time by checking out XUL experts at work.

That being said, one major limitation I've come across concering comercial development is that the design of XUL requires you to write alot of your client code in JavaScript. This means that your customers (and competitors) will end up with a lot of your source-code. The obvious way around this is to code the "core" propriatory stuff code using another language and bind it to JS through XPCOM. The other method I've heard of (which I'm yet to try) is to ompile the JS into byte-code using mozilla's JSXDRAPI. Firefox itself does this internally to cache XUL/JS files. I'm yet to come across somebody who has gotten xulrunner to recognise compiled .JSC files though.

Edmond Begumisa.