Technology

Firefox Prism: Website to Application

By ⋅ June 5, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Prism LogoFirefox launched a new add-on to convert any website into an application.

Separate process: When the webapp goes down or locks up, I don’t want anything else affected. Thankfully, Firefox does have session restore, but that is beside the point. When I open many tabs and have several webapps running in a browser, things get slow and unstable after a day or two.

Minimal UI: A generic browser UI is not needed for webapps. If any UI is present, make it specific to the webapp I am using.

Basic desktop integration: Create shortcuts to start the webapp, add ability to show specialized icons in the tray or dock and ability to display notifications.

Platform with extensions: I don’t want to download a full browser runtime for each webapp. I do want to be able to add some custom code/features that are not directly supported in the webapp. I should be able to install one runtime and then get packages or extensions for each webapp. Think Firefox extensions or Greasemonkey scripts. These extensions should be able to tweak the SSB UI as well.

Open external links in real browser: If I click a link in the webapp that opens a new site, don’t change my webapp browser window. Open all external links in my default/real browser.

The best use of prism could be at kiosks where one wants the customers to use the website only for browsing for a defined task – Buy Tickets, Shop Online etc. Once add-on is installed on firefox,go to Tools > Convert Website To Application…, check the options in new window and and click “OK”.

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Discussion

2 comments for “Firefox Prism: Website to Application”

  • girish_mac

    Is it possible to create a complete client side application using HTML 5 (it will embed chat clients, stock ticker) + javascript, and then bundle is with underlines Firefox 3.5 engine, so that user can install it as a desktop app on linux, and then it runs in own window using firefox 3.5 engine. The app will store everything in localstorage – like urls, usernames etc, and will interact with any local server. If we can create a client side app and then create the desktop app with prism, can we package it for installation on some other syste,

  • girish_mac

    Is it possible to create a complete client side application using HTML 5 (it will embed chat clients, stock ticker) + javascript, and then bundle is with underlines Firefox 3.5 engine, so that user can install it as a desktop app on linux, and then it runs in own window using firefox 3.5 engine. The app will store everything in localstorage – like urls, usernames etc, and will interact with any local server. If we can create a client side app and then create the desktop app with prism, can we package it for installation on some other syste,

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