Mozilla: Prism becomes "Chromeless"
Mozilla has announced the final curtain for its Prism application. The latest version, Prism 1.0 b3, was released a year ago and is compatible with Firefox 3.0 to 3.6, but not with Firefox 4. The project offered the first site-specific browser that let users split web apps out of their browser to run on their desktop, hiding the user interface to focus on content – which is particularly relevant for online apps and use on intranets. Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 now offer similar functionality.
However, Mozilla hasn't waved good-bye to site-specific browsers but relaunched the project with a different technology and under a new name. Started last October and currently available as version 0.1, Chromeless is to become a form of browser toolkit. Like Prism (and Firefox itself), it is based on the XULRunner run-time environment; Chromeless is said to be generally more ambitious and allows programmers to develop desktop applications using web technologies, that interact directly with the web – this is apparently similar to Opera's integrated widget engine.
See also:
- Mozilla issues Firefox 4 beta 10, a report from The H.
(crve)