Personal computing is currently in a state of transition. While traditionally users have interacted mostly with desktop applications, more and more of them are using web applications. But the latter often fit awkwardly into the document-centric interface of web browsers. And they are surrounded with controls–like back and forward buttons and a location bar–that have nothing to do with interacting with the application itself.
Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur.
Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.
The first of these experiments is based on Webrunner, which we’ve moved into the Mozilla Labs code repository and renamed to Prism.
Prism
Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.
Prism lets users add their favorite web apps to their desktop environment:
When invoked, these applications run in their own window:
They are accessible with Control-Tab, Command-Tab, and Exposé, just like desktop apps. And users can still access these same applications from any web browser when they are away from their own computers.
The Best of Both Worlds
Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don’t have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we’re also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.
The User Experience
We’re also thinking about how to better integrate Prism with Firefox, enabling one-click “make this a desktop app” functionality that preserves a user’s preferences, saved passwords, cookies, add-ons, and customizations. Ideally you shouldn’t even have to download Prism, it should just be built into your browser.
We’re working on an extension for Firefox that provides some of this functionality. For more information about the user experience we hope to achieve in Prism, see Alex Faaborg’s blog post. For some of the technical details and new features found in Prism, see Mark Finkle’s blog post.
Getting Started with Prism
We have an early prototype for this working today on Windows, with work continuing on Mac and Linux (for which we should have builds available soon).
To try out the prototype, download and install it: Download Prism for Windows.
Then start Prism. It will display an Install Web Application dialog.
Enter the URL of the application you want to use in Prism (e.g. mail.google.com), a name for the application (e.g. Gmail), and pick where you’d like to create shortcuts to the application.
Then press the OK button. Prism will create shortcuts to the application in the locations you specified and then start the application.
How to Get Involved
Prism is just the first of many experiments we hope to conduct around improving the usability of web applications. It’s open source, like everything we do, and we’re interested in hearing from and working with anyone interested in further developing this concept.
- Discuss, debate and add to the design in the forum. Report bugs in Bugzilla.
- Get the source code, extend it, fix bugs and/or submit patches.
The project lead for Prism is Mark Finkle and contributors include Cesar Oliveira, Wladimir Palant, Sylvain Pasche, Alex Faaborg, and Myk Melez.
Tags: prism
It would be nice to tell the community about the eventual death of this great project…
Is it dead or not?
if “web platforms integrated into the desktop or proprietary platforms like adobe air ” had been invented before browser, people would have been more happy than now when they heard about browsers.
so…Is it dead or not? is great app.
I am a little disappointed because i can not act on the pop up blocker on the pandora site and i was not able to use gear and better gmail better flickr plug in on prism application i suggest that users should be able to select for each application some plug in from the existing firefox installed plug in
I tried to add plug in but prism was not able to connect to mozilla server
já desisti do Prism ,agora uso o Chrome que além de navegador,funciona como webapp
pt-br
I download and tried Prism and must admit that it works great. However I find it inconvenient that I have to enter all kind of default information that’s normally stored in the corresponding cookies. For example using google translation with the default languages.
Do I overlook something or am I using Prism for the wrong webapps?
I have a similar question for my application based on xulrunner like Prism.
I use the xulrunner construct a tiny browser to check my page is ok,and there is a question. When the url is wrong , the xulrunner will popup an alertwindow “The url is not valid and cannot loaded”. I don’t wanna this situation happen，because the application is running in wrokstation having the request running 7×24.
Is there have solutions to forbid the popup window?
thx
Hi. Will Prism keep up with other Moz developments, such as the much faster JIT compiler based Javascript in TraceMonkey? Perhaps an about that says something like “based on the same JS engine shipped in Minefiled 3.6a1pre” for example?
Hi, thanks for Prism. It’s a great app.
Here are two things i like to see in Prism. But i’m no developper, so i post them here :
(i hope my english will be understandable)
- Password manager like in Firefox, with the ability to link a id+password to a Prism shortcut.
So i could have un Prism for my work gmail and a different one for my personnal gmail. Each with their right login data.
- I would like to load some Firefox extensions with some Prism shortcuts (listed in the shortcut’s proprieties).
So i could have a Prism shortcut for MyPreferefWebsite.com, automaticaly loading MyPreferedWebsiteExtension.xpi. No use to load it in Firefox anymore.
Is Prism a RIA?
Ii doesn’t run on a browzer? It can be consider a RIA??
Hi,
I tried to use prism (as on ubuntu 9.04) with my private webmail. It wouldn’t work because the https certificate is self-signed. That is unfortunate, as I cannot afford a recognized signature for my private server. Why am I not able to add an exception? I don’t care so much about man-in-the-middle. The encryption is the important part to me.
Regards,
Felix
Downloaded the Prism extension for Firefox & found it very cool.
But am wondering why you can’t use your other plug-ins or extensions with it.
A Google Reader created Prism app with the Interclue extension would be brilliant.
Tried it, looks and feels stable enough, but I’m having a bit of difficulty adjusting to a one-web-form only interface, having been more at ease in launching the link of the same web page via new tab (i.e. twitter- I’ll use the middle mouse on the followers link to see my new followers without leaving the main page and not having to click on the previous page button which would result in reloading the page). For me it’s a bit limiting to to view a site one page at a time, and oh yeah, clicking on a link not related to the main page opens up the foreign link in another browser.
Hello, i had install prism and i think is a very good idea, but only one question, there is any way to go back to the previous web page?
I have a question on Prism’s internal “engine”.
Is using Prism is like using a part of Firefox code ? means that a web site will have the same behaviour in Prism as in FF ?, if yes, can we install Prism without having FF, on a PC which has only IE ? It should be a way to run some internet apps that have some display problems with IE but not with FF…
I had to come back and post here. I posted in February 2008 complaining that Prism was nothing special and I couldn’t see the advantage.
That opinion has changed.
I now run prism apps daily for Gmail, GoogleReader, RTM, Vodafone, and occasionally blogger and google maps. This way I can keep gmail in a separate window / instance of the browser. I’m particularly excited by the changes in Prism 1.0 allowing tray icon menus and dock menus, although I can’t find a way to implement them yet.
While I still like the idea I mentioned of compiling down all the javascript and bundling the app together in one file, I guess the JIT compiler that firefox 3 now has renders this a bit moot anyway. Also that would mean any changes to the app would require a local recompile. So Nevermind!
Thanks for extending the web experience yet again!
PS: Extension support is a bit of a sore point at the moment, its a pain editing install.rdf files to make them work in Prism, and it only works some of the time (I can’t get RemoveItPermanently to work at all)
Bug:
When I have Prism enabled, if I briefly switch my default browser to Opera, Firefox gives me NO way to switch it back. The normal mechanisms don’t work, and I can’t even use the Windows Control Panel or manual methods from the Firefox support page. If I disable Prism I’m able to make Firefox my default again, and I can then re-enable Prism. The development team needs to either fix this or make it known in the documentation.
–
jdunham
You re just making the given url to load in a desktop app, that contain a webbrowser control in it.
and u r creating shortcuts here and there.
whats big in this ?
So,… Prism is essentially a web browser without any of the usual browser GUI controls ?
Is that it ?
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Saguenay-IT, IT Outsourcing (PHP, ASP, SOA, Flex, AIR, ActionScript, JavaScript…)
What a TOTAL complete waste of time and space.
Just goes to show, all you need is a snappy name and a cute logo! Prism – The Evolution of Software
Vaporware ->Shareware->Freeware->OpenSourceWare->RenameWare,lol
What about prism for linux?!
This seems oddly familar to the Google Chrome Applications. If you are using google chrome and you have a web app that you like. Lets for instance say Gmail. You would go to Gmail.com (or mail.google.com) and you would click on the page button and click "Create Application Shortcut" you would then choose where you would like the app shortcut. Then you can open gmail in a regular window. You can contact me herehttp://goo.gl/bFcx on facebook.
suggestion— "mailto:" links clicked in firefox should always open in my prism window. this way, I can make a gmail prism window my main email client.