Mozilla's Prism project has been around for quite a while now, and many companies have been using and testing it throughtout the life of its development thus far; it may have taken a rather long time, but Mozilla have finally pushed Prism into its 1.0 beta stages, as they have reported on their blog. Firstly, what is Prism? If you already know and don't care for the details, follow the link at the bottom of the article to download the latest version. Prism is a desktop application developed by Mozilla, the very same company that is famous for the Firefox web browser, that allows you to take certain websites and turn them into desktop applications themselves (called single-site browsers or site-specific browsers; SSB for short), for Windows, Mac or Linux.
According to Mozilla, here are some of the main features:
* New API functionality for allowing Prism-enabled web sites more desktop like power.
* Ability to set fonts, proxy settings and other application-specific settings.
* The ability to clear private data on demand.
* Applications are automatically updated when new Prism versions are available.
* Tray icon support, as well as submenus for dock and system tray menus.
* Full OS X 10.4 support, and further OS X specific enhancement.
* Support for SSL exceptions.
So, why bother with this? What's the point in turning webpages into separate applications when your trusty browser handles it just fine? Well, there's a couple reasons. According to Mozilla, Prism is designed to make running web applications much better; many websites like Facebook and Gmail are web applications that are run through the browser (which was first designed for reading documents), and that is not an ideal environment to run other forms of content. Mozilla also reasons that it can be a hassle having to scrounge through masses of tabs and windows just to find your email provider, or similar. If a web application is unstable or poorly written, it can affect the entire browser, potentially losing anything you are currently working on. If you run that same site through Prism, it can't affect anything else you might have going on, so you'll be worry free. Prism is based on the same browser engine as Firefox, so that ensures compatibility with most, if not all, current websites on the internet.
If you're interested in Prism and curious to try it out, please head over to the official Prism website and download the latest version. Additionally, be sure to report back here on how it goes!
I suppose this is an attempt to achieve a similar goal as the web sites transformed into web applications when saved from Google Chrome. Especially as Google Chrome also supports offline storage API's and Google Gears, AFAIK.
But always interesting with competition, and as a developer myself, these new initiatives are kind of neat.
Anyone want to guess if Firefox 4 will have Prism built-in as a similar "Save site as application" feature?
I suppose this is an attempt to achieve a similar goal as the web sites transformed into web applications when saved from Google Chrome. Especially as Google Chrome also supports offline storage API's and Google Gears, AFAIK.
But always interesting with competition, and as a developer myself, these new initiatives are kind of neat.
Anyone want to guess if Firefox 4 will have Prism built-in as a similar "Save site as application" feature?
I remember hearing something about a future version of Firefox having Prism features. Can anybody else elaborate on that?
I suppose this is an attempt to achieve a similar goal as the web sites transformed into web applications when saved from Google Chrome. Especially as Google Chrome also supports offline storage API's and Google Gears, AFAIK.
But always interesting with competition, and as a developer myself, these new initiatives are kind of neat.
Anyone want to guess if Firefox 4 will have Prism built-in as a similar "Save site as application" feature?
I remember hearing something about a future version of Firefox having Prism features. Can anybody else elaborate on that?
it looks like they already integrated it into firefox as a extension that can be accessed from tools, you can download it from the prism site too
-Tray icons with notifications
-Associate action/filetype with Prism 'app'/shortcut
-Customized icon that wont be grouped with other FF instances
Same as opening a site in IE, and then opening another site in a seperate instance of IE then?
I'm a firm fan of FF, and have been for years but I see this as a step backwards. I'm going to end up with a Prism shortcut to Yahoo!, another to Neowin etc... Why not work on the engine, to ensure faulty pages only blow out the tab they're loaded in rather than the whole instance of FF?
Same as opening a site in IE, and then opening another site in a seperate instance of IE then?
I'm a firm fan of FF, and have been for years but I see this as a step backwards. I'm going to end up with a Prism shortcut to Yahoo!, another to Neowin etc... Why not work on the engine, to ensure faulty pages only blow out the tab they're loaded in rather than the whole instance of FF?
To be honest, I don't know either :p I can't see myself using Prism. I'll give it a shot though.
Where on earth did you get that idea?
You think companies shouldn't have R&D departments?
A way you might use Prism: webmail. I'd rather simply run Gmail on it's own, than have it as one of my many Firefox tabs/windows.
You think companies shouldn't have R&D departments?
A way you might use Prism: webmail. I'd rather simply run Gmail on it's own, than have it as one of my many Firefox tabs/windows.
I'm pretty sure you can create a shortcut on your desktop/taskbar/startmenu that will launch a URL in a new browser window. I think this is why people are confused about the usefulness. It seems far more simple to use -??? commands in a shortcut to load the new window without bars. If creating custom shortcuts is too much of a hassle, for a couple decades now we've had this amazing thing called a batch file...
We also have the freedom to access Gmail from any offline email client of our choice, giving us a wide variety of interfaces beyond the web's blandness.
They might be better off doing more work on Thunderbird rather than Prism? How about giving Thunderbird better integration with all the email services out there?
Remember that, back in the good ol' days? Back when people used to use a program dedicated solely to email? These kids today and their webmails and spacebooks...
We also have the freedom to access Gmail from any offline email client of our choice, giving us a wide variety of interfaces beyond the web's blandness.
I'm sure you an create shortcuts. However, nobody is suggesting you have to, apart from spiky richie.
Web Gmail isn't exactly bland. It has themes, for example.
We also have the freedom to access Gmail from any offline email client of our choice, giving us a wide variety of interfaces beyond the web's blandness.
If you use Gmail features as they're introduced your offline client will always be missing certain functionality. For example, I'm not aware of any desktop client that can sync my task list.
Would i be right in thinking its like Active Desktop for firefox... but implemented better.
Would i be right in thinking its like Active Desktop for firefox... but implemented better.
It actually just runs a site in a seperate window with a seperate process and a lot of settings you can change for that window. That's all.
Well yes but one that I can set in advance to go to a special URL when opened and hide the URL bar like Prism does..
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Prism/Bundle
It's always good to plan ahead! It's also always good to make sure a browser has no major bugs before it is released, that's why they haven't released version 3.5 yet.
It's not that they can't it's that they're making sure it's stable enough to be released as a final product first...
So, er, are you suggesting this launch didn't exist, or are you just griping?
Prism's been around for a while, anyway.
I've been using Prism since longer than Chrome has been out.
That's what I was thinking
It can't be that hard. Chrome already does that.
IE does that now as well.
So far, I find Mozilla Prism simply doesn't work, full stop. All I get is this . . .
I'd have expected something a lot more stable than this from Mozilla.
So what you're actually saying is you didn't read it then?
Really ?
I won't ask you your age but ....
are you sure you didn't saw how childish that comment was. ?
I like very much the full power of the browsers i use and third party extensions i use heavily that this cuts out of the picture entirely, we already have so many excellent browsers and extensions, this is just one more thing web developers have to turn their attention to? it is not necessary imho
It does have valid uses and allows for things a browser doesn't, such as notifications in the OS X dock bar for new emails or new Facebook notifications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism ... amazingly, it has other uses as a name.
Oh yes. The times I curse at the burden of having to open or look through
a few, sorry, 'masses of' tabs. It's almost as labour intensive as having to breathe in and out for myself.Reading the comments above, it seems I'm not alone is not sharing the dream on this one...
a few, sorry, 'masses of' tabs. It's almost as labour intensive as having to breathe in and out for myself.Not everyone uses a browser the same way you do. Especially not people who spend most of their time working online.
But hey, dismiss it because it's not perfect for you. Great.
But hey, dismiss it because it's not perfect for you. Great.
Well that told me didn't it!? Boy do I feel stupid now. Let's see, who spends most of their time working online. Now let me think... Oh yes, I do! All day long in fact!
But hey, dismiss it because you didn't realise it. Great.
Seriously, if closing tabs is an overwhelming burden to you that needs this solution, you really don't have the time (let alone the stamina) to be typing nonsense to me.
a few, sorry, 'masses of' tabs. It's almost as labour intensive as having to breathe in and out for myself.Reading the comments above, it seems I'm not alone is not sharing the dream on this one...
It's not that sorting through tabs is a burden. It's just that we want things logically layed out. The uses of web browsers have stretched to the point where the tab bar is starting to function as a secondary taskbar. I don't want my Email app (gmail), music player (Grooveshark) and Document Editor (Google Docs) to be sitting in my browsers tab-bar. I want them in the superbar with their own icons in their own group just like I do with any other app.
Again, I don't care if it's not perfect for you. You are not most people.
I know several people who have tens to hundreds of tabs open at a time, because of how they work.
I know several people who have tens to hundreds of tabs open at a time, because of how they work.
Really. Hundreds of tabs. As in, two hundred or more. I have trouble even being sarcastic at the thought. I seriously cannot fathom any profession that demands such an amount of multitasking. Enlighten me.
Since a Prism-based application is just a regular HTML/JS application, how would just removing the browser chrome run it any better? In fact, after trying out Chrome application shortcuts, it seems like using hyperlink based navigation without the back/forward button is actually counter-intuitive.
And how are these functionally different from .hta HTML Applications except that these still enforce the browser security model?
How is it that moving the list from the top of the screen (tab bar) to the bottom (taskbar) help in this regard in a way that opening the site in a new browser window won't do?
Icons and task grouping. If I open a new Firefox window for Gmail It's just going to group itself with the old firefox icon. I like the fact that my Gmail window is treated like it's own app and inherits all the window management features (ie. distinct taskbar icon, shows up in alt-tab, etc.) that any other app would have.
Last edited by skynetXrules on 11 May 2009 - 12:13
I must have missed the options where kiosk mode creates a custom icon, can be associated with filetypes and can be minimized to the tray with a custom right click menu.
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