Packaging WebRunner Applications

Probably the most frequent question I’ve been getting about WebRunner is how to package up web apps for distribution to end users. Many creators of Prism apps have been distributing them by creating an installer that places the Prism runtime (basically the entire Prism directory) and web app configuration files on the end user’s machine. [...]

Prism is now WebRunner

Update: WebRunner has been discontinued and is no longer available for download. Although we no longer support the public product, Salsita can still produce a packaged web app for distribution by your company. Contact us for more details. Mozilla Labs has not been working actively on Prism since early 2008. However, the Prism name has [...]

The Web Browser is Dead. Or Pregnant. Or Something.

In August, Wired published an article entitled “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet“, along with a companion piece “The Web Is Dead? A Debate“. (The latter benefits from the participation of Tim O’Reilly, whose vision of the internet’s future is as insightful as any I’ve seen.) The provocative title, predictably, engendered a lively [...]

Prism and the Open Web Store

Responding to Google’s announcement last week of a Chrome Web Store, Jay Sullivan asks on the Mozilla Blog for ideas about an alternative Open Web App Store. This is something that I’ve been thinking about and discussing with Mark Finkle for a couple of years now in the context of Mozilla Prism. In fact, I [...]

Prism 1.0b4, Fixes Rare Windows Registry Issue

A while back I blogged about a rare issue that occurred if a user clicked on the regprot.exe file included in Prism to handle protocol handler registration. I thought the issue had been fixed ages ago, but a couple of recent reports have led me to believe that it can still occur in some cases, [...]

Prism for Firefox 3.6 on OS X, an Update

Yesterday I posted about an issue using the new Prism for Firefox extension on OS X. Based on a suggestion from Chris Beard, I’ve implemented a workaround that fixes the problem. It’s not the world’s cleanest solution, but it is only needed until the next release of Firefox comes out (assuming that bug 542004 gets [...]

Prism, Firefox 3.6, OS X and dependentlibs.list

As we prepare to go live with Prism 1.ob3, I should mention that there is an issue with using the Prism extension in Firefox 3.6 on OS X. Prism uses the Firefox runtime (meaning the XUL, XPCOM and other libraries) for apps it creates. There is a small bug in Firefox 3.6 that prevents the [...]

Ubuntu Build of Prism 1.0b3pre

Succumbing to overwhelming pressure from the Linux community, I’ve built Prism 1.0b3pre on Ubuntu. Download the standalone version or Firefox extension. I’m very pleased to say that (for whatever reason) I was able to reproduce the infamous Ubuntu crash experienced by some users of Prism 1.0b2. Some research led me to a bug in Bugzilla [...]

New Prism 1.0b3pre Build, Now With Mozilla 1.9.2

Based on feedback from my last post, I fixed the extension version numbers (including the Firefox maxVersion) in Prism 1.0b3pre. I also decided to build on top of Mozilla 1.9.2 instead of 1.9.1. My policy has been to use the version of Mozilla that underlies the most recent official Firefox release, but in this case [...]

Prism 1.0b3pre Available for Testing

Quite a few bugs have been fixed since Prism 1.0b2, so I’ve made new builds for Mac and Windows. Please take a look and let me know if you have any problems. Once they’ve been tested a bit, I’ll put them up on the Prism website as 1.0b3. Download Prism Standalone Version for Mac or [...]