

 Mozilla Brings Webapps to the Desktop, Challenges AIR, Silverlight - troystribling
http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Mozilla_Brings_Webapps_to_the_Desktop__Challenges_AIR__Silverlight

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ellyagg
Awesome. Another challenger in a market that doesn't exist.

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snewe
You can do this on a Mac with

<http://fluidapp.com/>

which I believe runs on Safari/Webkit. It allows for Applescript and plugins.

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grinich
But with +90% of the world still using Windows, this is huge. Especially for
people making desktop-style apps on the web. (e.g. 280north)

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snewe
I suppose I pointed it out because the demo video was done on a Mac.

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theschwa
One of the things I don't like about prism over AIR is that it doesn't allow
you to use free form shapes for your widget. It's basically just another
window. That may seem like a silly complaint, but I really enjoy the
aesthetics that it allows.

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pieter
That's one of the reasons I don't use AIR. It's the stuff as 20 years ago,
with windows with all forms and sizes, and weird black buttons.

I know it's hard to build cross-platform stuff, and stuff that tries to look
native (Java/Swing, Qt) also fails horribly, but stuff like AIR makes me
cringe when I can't use command-a, or control-a/e. I think browsers are
relatively good in that regard; at least in Safari I can use all my common
shortcuts, even if the web page is created on windows/linux. That sounds
logical, but is a huge difference with things like Java, QT, Gtk+, AIR or
Silverlight.

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johns
I would really like to see each Prism instance maintain it's own profile.
Right now they share the browser profile so you can't have two Prism windows
open with different Gmail accounts for instance.

EDIT: It's on the wishlist, nice! <https://wiki.mozilla.org/prism#Wishlist>

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qeorge
I used Prism for a bit, but I have dropped it. For apps like Gmail or Google
Apps, I've found its easier to use Chrome instead, as the main goal is keeping
Firefox's inevitable crashes from interrupting their function.

For Songza and Pandora, for which I was also using Prism, I've found
Xenocode's Virtual Apps to be much better:

<http://www.xenocode.com/Music/>

I use their Pandora app on a daily basis.

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jreposa
Anyone have any ideas on redistribution? Fluid doesn't allow redistribution,
but I love how you can create a "MenuExtra" that puts it into the Mac menu
bar.

@ellyagg I can understand that not everyone thinks that this technology is a
great idea, but for my audience this could be a huge win for me!

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sker
Silverlight doesn't have desktop apps as far as I know, so it doesn't compete
in this realm.

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johns
Silverlight "Out of Browser" (or SLOOB) is in the v3 beta. It has some pretty
severe limitations though before it will compete with AIR (can't run
chromeless, no tray icon support, subject to crossdomain issues as it runs in
a browser sandbox, no webcam/microphone support, and more.

I think they're making a big mistake releasing a competitor for the world's
best Twitter application platform by not supporting what would be needed to
build a Twitter client with it.

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neovive
Sounds interesting. But how does it add much more value than a website
shortcut link on your desktop? Also, doesn't Windows XP have a "Links" toolbar
option to access favorites from the toolbar?

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ahoyhere
I wish they'd put more effort into fixing the performance and font rendering
issues with Firefox (esp. Mac version) instead. Sigh.

