Prism

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Revision as of 03:36, 9 October 2007 by Jeff-themovie (talk | contribs) (→‎Installs: note about user agent in ymail webapp)
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WebRunner is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface. WebRunner is based on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB). An SSB is an application with an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single web application. It doesn’t have the menus, toolbars and accoutrement's of a normal web browser. Some people have called it a "distraction free browser" because none of the typical browser chrome is used. An SSB also has a tighter integration with the OS and desktop than a typical web application running through a web browser.

WebRunner / SSB Objectives

Looking at what has already been done and discussed about desktop/webapp integration, the following is a suggested roadmap for SSB experimentation:

  • 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.

Current Features

  • Window title tracking
  • Context menu for basic clipboard and selection operations
  • Simple Print support via context menu
  • About support via context menu which is useful for checking the XULRunner runtime version
  • Launch Webrunner with commandline parameters to host specific webapps
  • Web application profile support - parameters for a web app can be saved to an INI-style *.webapp file
  • Support for webapp owned popup windows - some email webapps can use a popup to compose email
  • Show float-over link destinations in the statusbar so users can see where the link will take them
  • Support download manager

Wishlist

  • Add Taskbar icon representation option for the web applications.
  • Add one instance behavior in order for the shortcuts to bring the web app to view rather than open a second window.
  • Add menus for page setup, open profile and work offline
  • Add support for inline spellcheck and suggestions on context menu
  • Add support for form field autocompletion, like Firefox
  • Enable extension support so WebRunner can be tweaked or enhanced. Also, webapps themselves can be tweaked by extensions
  • Create an tool to create new webapp profiles so new webapps can be installed from WebRunner
  • Create an extension to allow Firefox to create webapp profiles since most of this process starts in the browser
  • Create some form of adjusting preferences (about:config?). For instance, I had to add the code below in webruner-prefs.js to adjust proxy
  pref("network.proxy.autoconfig_url", "http://autoproxy.url.pac");
  pref("network.proxy.type", 2)
using a parameter in the .webapp file would be the best solution :
  proxy=http://myname:mypassword@myproxy:3128/
  • Add url/domain/subdomain restriction (external links won't work) give more detail on the discussion page
  • Add ability to open external links with other browsers (Firefox/Konqueror/IE/etc.) this should be working now - give more detail on the discussion page
  • Add ability to have entire software and webapp run from a USB memory device for roaming use.
  • Possibility of full screen mode
  • Find box
  • Navigation with Alt + mouse scroll wheel is working, even if navigation is disabled in webapp.ini. Maybe it should be like in firefox Shift + mouse scroll wheel when navigation is enabled.
  • More robust command line handling. It would be nice be able to simply type one of these:
webrunner gmail.webapp
webrunner https://mail.google.com/mail

Security

Webapp bundles, as defined today, can and usually do include a JS (webapp.js) which runs with system privileges. This should be removed, so that starting a webapp bundle does not imply handing over your machine and all the data on it to whoever created or modified the bundle. Ideally, webapp bundles should not be able to do more than a normal webapp can, just run in a slightly different UI (no menu etc.) and in their own process.

Web Application Bundles

A web application bundle is a zip archive that holds a configuration file, icons and an optional webapp JS script. The profile can be used to launch and install the webapp in WebRunner:

webrunner -webapp [webapp-bundle]

Whenever a web application has been launched / installed using the above command line and the webapp configuration has an ID parameter, the web application is unpacked into the WebRunner profile folder and can be launched directly using:

webrunner -webapp [webapp-id]

Here is a simple how-to for building a basic web application bundle.

See: WebRunner:Bundle

Web Application Configuration

A webapp bundle should contain a webapp.ini configuration file. The configuration file is a simple, INI-style text file that specifies some parameters about a web application.

See: WebRunner:Config

Web Application Script

Some WebRunner-based web applications may want to tweak the behavior or add desktop-ish features to the webapp. WebRunner supports a simple scripting system that can be used to add custom JS script to the WebRunner chrome host, but not the webcontent itself.

See: WebRunner:Scripting

WebRunner Host Window

WebRunner provides a simple, scaled down browser window for running web applications. Using configuration files and webapp scripting, the host window can be modified.

See: WebRunner:HostWindow

Installer

The installer should configure the OS to associate *.webapp files with WebRunner. This means that when you double-click or launch a *.webapp file, WebRunner is launched and automatically opens the web application.

Current Windows and Mac installs automatically associate *.webapp with WebRunner.

One interesting side efect is that after this change, you can select a link to a .webapp file in a Web Page and you get it run by webrunner - in IE this runs anywhere, but this won't work in Firefox unless the webapp is being issued with an appropriate MIME type on the server: application/x-webrunner works (see here for an example).

Installs

Latest version:

Profiles:

Contributing

Blog Posts

Site Specific Browsers
WebRunner
Using WebRunner
WebRunner + Gears = Offline Desktop Reader
WebRunner 0.5
WebRunner 0.5 - Mac Support
WebRunner 0.5 - Linux Install
WebRunner, Google Reader, and Google Notebook
Distraction Free GTD - 32+ web app files for online todo lists

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