XULRunner Guide

Project Name

XUL Runner Guide

Project Description

The XULRunner project provides an "application runner" for building apps -- like Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird -- atop the Mozilla toolkit framework. It needs a guide outlined, high-priority parts written, and examples created to help people get started.

Related tech and skills: XUL, documentation, cross-platform testing

Reference:

• XULRunner Workshop
• XULRunner project
• XULRunner 1.8.0.4 Release Note
• Debugging a XULRunner Application
• Getting startd with XULRunner

Project Leader(s)

Michael Lau (mylau)

Colin Guy (Guiness)

Project Contributor(s)

• Vanessa
• Paul St-Denis
• Erin Davey

Project Details

• Project Details

XULRunner Guide Outline

  Introduction 
 About this guide
   - New features in this release
   - XULRunner Versions
     - Changes made
     - Bug Fixes for each version
   - Document conventions
 XULRunner Overview
   - What is XULRunner
   - Updating XULRunner
 Installation Process
   - Linux
       - System Requirements
       - Installation Instructions
  - Microsoft Windows 
       -  System Requirements 
       -  Installation Instructions
 Tutorial on XULRunner
   - File/Folder Structure
   - application.ini File
   - chrome.manifest File
   - prefs.js File
   - How to run the application
 How Tos    
   - How to do a Hello World application using XULRunner
   - How to deploy XULRunner
   - How to run an extension as an application using XULRunner
   - How to debug a XULRunner application

Project News

October 23, 2006 by mylau

Changed one of the headings in the table of contents "How to an application using XULRunner" to "How to do a Hello World application using XULRunner". Also finished writing a tutorial on the "Hello World" application.

October 22, 2006 by mylau

Worked on how to create a XULRunner application tutorial.

October 16, 2006 by cbguy1

I have finished entering the XUL Runner install instructions for a Win32 operating system. Currently I am looking into the XUL Runner 64bit installation instructions. I am looking for any similarities and differences.

October 09, 2006 by mylau

I've looked through bsmedberg emails on XULRunner (XR) for this week. For a starting point, I wanted to start with the simplist task first, creating a "Hello World" application for XR. I've searched through quite a few websites, mainly from the MDC. For the first half of the day, I couldn't find any websites which actually guided me step by step on how to create a simple XR application. The closes website I found was from Ryan's Blog. The blog had a tutorial on how to set up a XR application but it missed one important aspect, how to run the application.

After this, I realized I've been putting too much time finding tutorial on how to create an intutive XR application. Perhaps no one has posted any on the web yet. So I tried to reverse engineer an existing XR application, XULMine. Unfortunately I wasn't very successful. The code for this application seem too complex for myself to understand.

As a result, I started my search all over again. Fortunately, I missed a link which was on MDC XULRunner, Getting started with XR. Thankfully, I was able to create my first "Hello World" application on XR. I wasn't able to finish writing documentation on this but hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be able to manage some time and have this completed.

October 02, 2006 by mylau

We sent an email to bsmerdberg about what we've currently have worked on so far for this project. Dave Humphrey helped us send another email dria, bsmedberg, and sheppy about our project. We're currently waiting for their response. Hopefully they will tell us what they want in the XULRunner guide.

Colin and I have started testing the stable version of XULRunner which is 1.8.0.4. I'm mainly responsible for the Linux side of XULRunnre while as Colin is responsible for Windows. We've installed XULRunner and tried installing a few XULRunner application. We also put the information in the XULRunner Guide outline.

September 25, 2006 by mylau

Moved the outline to have its own heading. This way when changes are needed to be made, its done on the outline rather than keep updating the project news section.

September 21, 2006 by mylau

The following is outline for XULRunner Guide. This outline may change. It needs to be reviewed by BSmedberg and Sheppy.

 About this guide
   - New features in this release
   - XULRunner versions
   - Document conventions
 XULRunner Overview
   - What is XULRunner?
 How Tos 
   - Installation process
   - How to do an application using XULRunner
   - How to deploy XULRunner
   - How to run an extension as an application using XULRunner
   - How to update XULRunner
 

September 17, 2006 by mylau

I've spoke to Dave about this project and currently the following people to talk to are:

• dria (owns MDC)
• bsmedberg (XUL Runner guy)
• sheppy (dev/docs)

I will speak to these following people along with dave as soon as I get up-to-speed on what XUL Runner actually is.

Useful Links

XULRunner Examples By: Benjamin Smedberg