Wrapping up on XUL
Having done some thinking about XUL during my time off I am still undecided about it. While I love the idea and enjoy playing with it I just can't see it being of much use in the real world. Of course it would be useful if it were practical to implement it and maybe, one day, it will; when there's a company with Firefox on all PCs (surely there is by now?). For this company XUL would be amazing tool.
We live in a Microsoft world though and it would be hard to sell a solution that relies on what some managers might see as "unsupported" freeware. Maybe then XAML is the future for building web applications? Maybe one day there will be a standard for it? Either way I hope to see a future for us that allows us to build applications in this way and distribute them via the web.
For now I am going to leave it alone. The spare time I have might be better spent learning some other tool. If I get desparate for content I might write an article on XUL this year though. For now I leave you with the chance to download the applications that I've been sent by others.
- Peter Leugner's XUL Journal App
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Peter's taken the Notes Journal template and started turning it in to a XUL app. It's not finished but it's still a good example of what can be done. Peter has reproduced the Notes Outline object using XSL. In the demo you can see all the folders in the navigator pane. Add a new one in the client and it appears in the browser.
It's a little rough around the edges but it shows how we could potentially remove the need for the Notes Client in some scenarios. Imagine being able to create new Folders in the XUL app and drag/drop documents between them. All feasible actions.
- Dan Sickle's XUL View App
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Dan has also used Domino's standard ?ReadViewEntries XML and transformed it to XUL using XSL, on the fly, as they say.
Again it's a little rough round the edges but has code to borrow if you're interested. The thing to remember about the apps. is that they are merely experiments and not intending for general use.
Hope you enjoy playing with XUL. For now I've got other stuff to do but hope to return for another play one day soon. If you've got any questions you think I might be able to answer, please ask away.
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Jake,
I really like the examples and maybe I should consider myself lucky because one of my clients is a Firefox shop. I was thinking of re-writing a Notes app of theirs and turning it into a web app. Maybe this is the way to go?
As far as the examples are concerned, guys great work. Domino never has to look ugly and it can be very functional.
E
If they're Firefox-only then you could definitely win some Brownie points by converting their apps to XUL. I'd love the chance to get paid to do it. If you want to sub the work to me I'd be happy to.
Jake,
One clarification. My example does't use XSLT. The view columns are built using E4X/DOM and the rows are built with E4X and the treeview interface which calls getCellText for each row/col.
Remote XUL is of limited use. Local XUL is much more compelling.
Thanks for hosting the example!
-Dan
Thanks for posting, Jake. Some more features: Doubleclick on a view or folder opens it in the right pane (try the All Documents view). View columns are resizable, doubleclick on a document in the view opens it in the preview pane, rightclick menu on documents.
The buttons and menus don't do anything, neither does search.
Pete
I didn't notice the right click menu on documents in the view Peter. Very nice! I just wish I had more time to play with all this.