Prism is a standalone application and Firefox add-on that lets users split Web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.
We have updated Prism to provide full compatibility with Firefox 3.6, address a number of reported issues, and to continue its evolution toward providing a rich integrated desktop experience for Web applications.
Many thanks to everyone who has helped to test Prism and report issues so far. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we’ve made great progress. Prism is already used by a number of commercial projects including Zimbra Desktop, Jolicloud and the Worksmart.net Desktop.
Bug Fixes in this Update
- 494133 Set As Desktop Background not available when Prism extension is installed
- 506886 Check override.ini for environment variables if not found in application.ini
- 508575 Click handler is not attached when login manager is disabled
- 509021 Make notification API more flexible by allowing optional arguments and an onclick handler
- 509294 Prism fails when web app URI does not have a base domain
- 517892 Provide platform glue with access to the associated window object
- 527260 Patch to add restore minimized window functionality to JS-API
- 527827 Build fails because prism/Makefile is missing in makefiles.sh
- 528903 Stub reports missing Microsoft CRT DLL
- 535194 Crash on Mac when registering unknown protocol handler
- 535197 Enable maximize on first run
What’s Next
We’re working on plans to refactor Prism to run as a customized version of Firefox, rather than as a XULRunner application. This will have the advantage of making Firefox extensions work on Prism without modification. For example, Weave running on Prism will allow for profile synchronization, e.g. your saved passwords for a particular site’s Web applications will be propagated across both your browser and Prisms. It will also give developers and users of Prism-based Web applications a number of new features “for free”, including type-ahead find, tabbed browsing and full preferences.
How to Get Involved
You can download and install this latest update to both the standalone Prism application and the Firefox extension from the Prism website. The extension can also be found on the add-ons Web site.
You can discuss Prism on our discussion forums. Special thanks to Jason Miller, who has been a great help in answering questions there.
Developers can find information about customizing Prism on the developer Web site. Documentation is still under development, and if you’re interested in contributing to this part of the project please join us in the discussion forums.
– Matthew Gertner, on behalf of the Prism development team
