Mozilla Prism (formerly WebRunner) is a discontinued project which integrated
web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
s with the
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
, allowing web applications to be launched from the desktop and configured independently of the default web browser. As of November 2010, Prism is listed as an inactive project at the Mozilla labs website.
Prism is based on a concept called a
site-specific browser (SSB). An SSB is designed to work exclusively with one
web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
. It doesn't have the menus, toolbars and other accoutrements of a traditional
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used ...
.
The software is built upon
XULRunner
XULRunner is a discontinued, packaged version of the Mozilla platform to enable standalone desktop application development using XUL, developed by Mozilla. It replaced the ''Gecko Runtime Environment'', a stalled project with a similar purpose. ...
, so it is possible to get some
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
extensions to work in it.
The preview announcement of Prism was made in October 2007.
On February 1, 2011,
Mozilla Labs announced it would no longer maintain Prism, its ideas having been subsumed into a newer project called Chromeless. However, the Mozilla Labs mailing list revealed that Chromeless is not in fact a replacement for Prism, and there is currently no Mozilla replacement for the out-of-the-box site-specific browser functionality of Prism, Chromeless instead being a platform for developers rather than users. For a while Prism continued to be maintained under the original name of WebRunner, which then also was discontinued in September 2011.
See also
*
Chromium Embedded Framework
The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open-source software framework for embedding a Chromium web browser within another application. This enables developers to add web browsing functionality to their application, as well as the ability to ...
*
Site-specific browser
*
Rich Internet application
A rich web application (originally called a rich Internet application, or RIA or installable Internet application) is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a sin ...
*
Fluid (web browser)
References
External links
*
Prism Project at Mozilla Development CenterPrism extension for Firefox 3.0Prism - MozillaWikiprism.mozillalabs.com/
via Internet Archive
Free application software
Cross-platform free software
Free software programmed in C++
Prism
Site-specific browsing
2007 software
Discontinued software
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