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Rapid Application Development with Mozilla, part of the Bruce Perens Open Source Series, is a concise guide for any programmer who wants to learn the versatility and compatibility of Mozilla, an open source toolset with over a thousand objects and components. An additional feature of Rapid Application Development with Mozilla is the NoteTaker Web browser add-on-a sample Mozilla application that is developed throughout the book. Written by Web and XML expert Nigel McFarlane, this book is the perfect addition to the library of any user-interface software engineer, cross-platform developer, or any programmer looking to discover the benefits of rapid application development.
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As an aid to readers of Rapid Application Development with Mozilla, we are providing for download in compressed archives XPIDL interface defintions, class-interface reports, and code for the NoteTaker example project.
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An Introductory Tour of Mozilla's XUL
Mozilla Overlays: A New Way to Combine XML Documents
Searching for Substance: Hot Air Costs More Than Hardware
Searching for Substance: Web Browser Olympic Scorecard
Smoke, Mirrors and Silence: The Browser Wars Reignite
To facilitate your work with Rapid Application Development with Mozilla , below please find links to Web-based resources on technologies and standards mentioned in the book.
ActiveState ActiveState produces integrated development environment (IDE) tools for software developers. Their Komodo product is based on the Mozilla platform.
ebXML ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet.
Ecma International Ecma International facilitates the timely creation of a wide range of global Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Consumer Electronics (CE) standards. From ECMA, you can download the ECMA-262 ECMAScript standard (this is the JavaScript standard).
Fontconfig Fontconfig is a library for configuring and customizing font access. You will find here an explanation of the basics of the Xft font-serving system. Fontconfig is part of freedesktop.org , a free software project to work on interoperability and shared technology for desktop environments for the X Window System.
mozdev.org Mozdev.org is a software development community dedicated to making quality applications and extensions freely available to all computer users. Areas on the site referenced in the text include:
Netscape DevEdge Extensive forum for developers that focusses on the use of web standards for accessibility, maintainability, and user interaction.
Nigel McFarlane - Technology in Your Terms Author Nigel McFarlane's Web site. On the site you will find his support page for Rapid Application Development with Mozilla , including the latest updates and errata.
OEone OEone produces products intended to make personal computers easily useable by novices. Their OEone HomeBase product is a custom combination of Linux and an enhanced version of the Mozilla platform called Penzilla. It provides a complete system for interacting with a computer.
PURL A PURL (Persistent Uniform Resource Locator) is functionally a URL. PURLs persist indefinitely, and as long as they do, all instances of such PURLs (for example, links in a Web document or a bibliographic record) remain valid. PURL is a project of OCLC Research , one of the world's leading centers devoted exclusively to the challenges facing libraries in a rapidly changing information technology environment.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. From W3C, download all of these standards: CSS2 , CSS2.1 , XML 1.0 , XHTML 1.0 , DOM 1 all parts, DOM 2 all parts, DOM 3 all parts, and RDF . These standards are nearly all available in high-quality PDF files and can be viewed electronically with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader .
X.Org X.Org is the worldwide consortium empowered with the stewardship and collaborative development of the X Window System technology and standards.
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1. Fundamental Concepts.
Understanding Mozilla Product Names. The XML Environment. Platform Concepts. The RAD Environment. Effective RAD Projects with Mozilla. Hands On: Cranking Up the Platform. Debug Corner: Debugging from Outside. Summary.
XUL Means Boxes. Principles of XUL Layout. Box Layout Tags. A Box Improvement: <groupbox> and <caption>. General-Purpose XUL Attributes. Good Coding Practices for XUL. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Boilerplate. Debug Corner: Detecting Bad XUL. Summary.
XUL and HTML Compared. XUL Content Tags. Understanding Font Systems. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Boilerplate. Debug Corner: The DOM Inspector. Summary.
What Makes a Button a Button? The Origins of XUL Widgets. XUL Buttons. Themes and Skins. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Buttons and Themes. Debug Corner: Diagnosing Buttons and Skins. Summary.
JavaScriptÕs Role as a Language. Standards, Browsers, and <script>. ECMAScript Edition 3. Language Enhancements. MozillaÕs Scriptable Interfaces. Hands On: NoteTaker Dynamic Content. Debug Corner: Script Diagnosis. Summary.
How Mozilla Handles Events. How Keystrokes Work. How Mouse Gestures Work. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker User Input. Debug Corner: Detecting Events. Summary.
XUL and HTML Forms Compared. Where to Find Information on Menus. Forms. Menus. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Events and Forms. Debug Corner: Diagnosing Events and Forms. Summary.
Navigation Systems. Navigation Widgets. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Toolbars and Tabs. Debug Corner: Navigation Problems. Summary.
Commands and Mozilla. Command Concepts. How Commands Are Started. Using Commands Via XUL. Using Commands Via the AOM. Commands and XPCOM Components. Existing Commands. Style Options. Hands On: Command Design. Debug Corner: Catching Unexpected Commands. Summary.
Ordinary <window> Windows. Popup Content. Dialog Boxes. JavaScript Window Creation. Embedding Documents in Panes. Mixing Documents. Managing Existing Windows. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Dialogs. Debug Corner: Diagnostic Windows. Summary.
Mozilla Uses of RDF. Learning Strategies for RDF. A Tutorial on Facts. RDF Syntax. RDF Examples. Hands On: NoteTaker: Data Models. Debug Corner: Dumping RDF. Summary.
Overlays. The Chrome Registry. Persisting Window State. Related AOM and XPCOM Objects. Hands On: The NoteTaker Toolbar. Debug Corner: Overlay Tips. Summary.
Text Grids. Listboxes. Trees. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker: The Keywords Panel. Debug Corner: Making <listbox> and <tree> Work. Summary.
An Example Template: Hello, World. Template Concepts. Template Construction. Common Query Patterns. Template Lifecycle. Scripting. Style Options. Hands On: NoteTaker Data Made Live. Debug Corner: Template Survival Guide. Summary.
Binding Concepts. Constructing One XBL Binding. Combining Multiple Bindings. How Bindings Are Processed. Scripting. Style Options. Hands On: The <noteplacer> Tag. Debug Corner: XBL Diagnosis. Summary.
Concepts and Terms. General-Purpose Scripting. Data Transfer. Web Scripting. Platform Configuration. Hands On: Saving and Loading NoteTaker Notes. Debug Corner: Working with Data Sources. Summary.
Overview of Install Strategies. Steps Toward Remote Deployment. Install Technologies. Hands On: Bundling Up NoteTaker. Debug Corner: Logging and Testing. Summary.
Welcome to Software Development the Mozilla Way
The Mozilla Platform is a large software development tool that is a modern blend of XML document processing, scripting languages, and software objects. It is used to create interactive, user-focused applications. This book is a conceptual overview, reference, and tutorial on the use of the platform for building such applications.
The Mozilla Platform encourages a particular style of software development: rapid application development (RAD). RAD occurs when programmers base their applications-to-be on a powerful development tool that contains much pre-existing functionality. With such a tool, a great deal can be done very quickly. The Mozilla Platform is such a tool.
One strategy for doing RAD is to make sophisticated HTML pages and display them in a Web browser. This book does not explain HTML, nor does it show how to create such pages. It has very little to do with HTML. Instead, it shows how to create applications that require no browser, and that might appear to be nothing like a Web browser. Such applications might be Web-enabled, benefiting from the advantages that Web browsers have, or they might have nothing to do with the Web at all.
Because Mozilla is closely linked to the Web in people's minds, this last point cannot be emphasized enough. The Mozilla Platform is far more than a browser. Here are some statistics:
This extensive and tested set of features is a huge creative opportunity for any developer interested in building applications. These features also offer an opportunity for traditional Web developers to broaden their existing skills in a natural way.
This book covers the Mozilla Platform up to version 1.4. Changes between minor versions (e.g., 1.3 and 1.4) are small enough that most of this book will be correct for some time.
Some experience is required when reading this book. Some familiarity with Web standards is assumed. This list of skills is more than enough preparation:
All the standards for these technologies, except SQL and JavaScript, are available at <www.w3.org>.
To read this book with very little effort, add these skills: a little Dynamic HTML; a little Prolog; more experience with an object-brokering system like COM or CORBA; additional experience with another RAD tool like a 4GL or a GUI Designer; and more SQL experience.
It is common for advanced Mozilla programmers to have a full copy of the Mozilla Platform source code (40 MB, approximately). This book sticks strictly to the application services provided by the platform. There is no need to get involved in the source code, unless that is your particular interest.
Chapter 1, Fundamental Concepts, is an overview of Mozilla. The remaining chapters mimic the structure of the Mozilla Platform. The early chapters are about the front part of Mozilla, comprising XML markup, which displays the elements of a graphical user interface. As the chapters proceed, the subject matter works its way to the back of Mozilla. The back consists of objects that silently connect to other computing infrastructure, like file systems, networks, and servers. To summarize:
Within this flow from front to back, each chapter follows a set structure:
Some of these structural elements are discussed in the following topics.
The core of the Mozilla Platform is implemented in the C and C++ programming languages, using many object classes. To understand how it all works, one could draw a huge diagram that shows all the object-oriented relationships explicit in those classes. Such a diagram would be quite detailed, and any high-level features of the platform might not be obvious. Although the diagram might be accurate, it would be a challenge to understand.
The NPA diagram is a simplified view of Mozilla's insides. NPA stands for not perfectly accurate. It is a learning aid. No one is arguing that Mozilla is built exactly as the diagram shows; the diagram is just a handy thinking tool. There is no attempt to illustrate everything that Mozilla does.
The NPA diagram appears prior to each chapter of this book. The subject matter of a given chapter is usually tied to a specific part or parts of the diagram.
Mozilla makes extensive use of cascading stylesheet styles. In addition to features described in the CSS2 standard, Mozilla has many specialist style extensions. An example of a Mozilla-specific style is
vbox { -moz-box-orient: vertical; }Most chapters contain a short section that describes Mozilla-style extensions relevant to that chapter.
NoteTaker is a small programming project that is a running example throughout this book. There isn't room for developing a full application, so the compromise is a small tool that is an add-on. NoteTaker is a Web browser enhancement that provides a way to attach reminder notes (Web notes) to displayed Web pages. The browser user can attach notes to the pages of a Web site, and when that Web site is visited at a later date, the note reappears. This is done without modifying the remote Web site at all. Notes can be created, edited, updated, and deleted.
The browser window shown has a new toolbar, which is the NoteTaker toolbar. That toolbar includes a drop-down menu, among other things. The displayed HTML page includes a small pale rectangle--that is the Web note for the page's URL. That rectangle does not appear anywhere in the displayed test.html file. Also shown is the Edit dialog window, which is used to specify the content and arrangement of the current note.
As an idea, it doesn't matter whether NoteTaker is pure genius or horribly clumsy. Its purpose is to be a working technology demonstrator. Each chapter enhances NoteTaker in a small way so that, by the end of this book, all Mozilla's technologies can be seen at work together.
There is no generally agreed upon technical term for describing NoteTaker. The relationship between the tool and a browser is a little like the relationship between a Java applet and a Java application. It is an add-on that is more than a mere configuration option but less than a plugin.
This example project is attached to a Web browser. Generally speaking, Mozilla applications should run in their own windows with no Web browser in sight. There is no implication that all Mozilla applications should be designed like NoteTaker--it is just that NoteTaker is too small as described here to stand by itself.
Even this short introduction attempts to follow the chapter structure described earlier. To begin development with Mozilla, you need a computer, software, and documentation.
Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX/Linux are all acceptable development systems, although MacOS 9 support is slowly being dropped and perhaps should be avoided. The computer does not need to be Internet-enabled or even LAN-enabled after the platform is installed. The Mozilla Web site, www.mozilla.org, is the place to find software. Chapter 1, Fundamental Concepts, discusses software installation in "Hands On."
The sole warning in this introduction relates to documentation. This book alone is simply not enough information for all development needs. It would need to be a 10-volume encyclopedia to achieve that end. Just as UNIX has man(1) pages and applications have help systems, Mozilla has its own electronic reference information. That information complements the material in this book.
Unfortunately, that help information is widely scattered about and must be collected together by hand. Here are the documents you should collect while you are downloading a copy of the platform:
If you are very detail oriented and have copious free time, then you might consider adding a full copy of the Mozilla Platform source code (40 MB approximately). That is not strictly required.
It is common for advanced application programmers to retain a full copy of the Mozilla Platform source code (40 MB, approximately). This book sticks strictly to the application services provided by the platform, so there is no need to get involved in the source code, unless that is your particular interest.
Make sure that any documentation you download has the right format for your platform. The UNIX tools unix2dos and dos2unix can help; also UNIX files can be read on Microsoft Windows with any decent text editor (e.g., gvim at <www.vim.org>).
The font system on Linux is sometimes less than adequate and can make PDF text hard to read. To fix this, follow the suggestions in the Mozilla release notes. For other font problems, see the discussion on fonts in Chapter 3, Static Content.
Some standards are written in HTML. If you save these files to local disk and disconnect from the Internet, sometimes they display in a browser very slowly. This is because the browser is trying to retrieve stylesheets from a Web server. To fix this, choose "Work Offline" from the File menu, and reload the document.
Mozilla is a massively featured development environment with origins in XML, objects, and the Web, and application developers can easily exploit it. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I wish you many constructive and creative hours exploring the technology, should you choose to take it up. With that said, here we go…
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Page 35, Section 1.6.5, NoteTaker Preparation:
In dot point 3, for "chrome" put instead: "content".
Page 93, Table 3.1, Row 2:
The properties -moz-border-radius-topright and -moz-border-radius-bottomleft (in columns 2 and 3) should be inserted in the first column underneath the property -moz-border-radius-topleft.
Similarly, in row 4, -moz-border-top-colors and -moz-border-left-colors should be inserted in column 1 underneath -moz-border-bottom-colors.
Page 249-250, Listings 7.2 and 7.3:
The third argument to open(), which controls the synchronous or asyncronous behaviour of the method is stated in reverse. The default is true, meaning asynchronous behaviour.
In Listing 7.2 req.open() should have an explicit false argument; in Listing 7.3, req.open() should have no third argument (or it should explicitly be set to true). The comment in Listing 7.3 is also incorrectly reversed.
As an aid to readers of Rapid Application Development with Mozilla, we are providing for download in compressed archives XPIDL interface defintions, class-interface reports, and code for the NoteTaker example project.
Download the files for the platform of your choice: