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Making Standalone Web Apps with the Firefox Prism Extension

Feb 11, 2009  By Shawn Powers
 in
FAIL (the browser should render some flash content, not this).

How to make web content into its own standalone application with Prism.

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Sindhu S's picture
Submitted by Sindhu S (not verified) on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 07:04.

Where can I find the "stylesheets" for editing font preferences of Prism applications in Linux? (Am using Ubuntu 9.10)

xulrunner

John Cassidy's picture
Submitted by John Cassidy (not verified) on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 16:46.

Hi There:

Thank you for this excellent tip. I used this to allow launching from WBAR in a KDE environment. This is to emulate the glaunch app in GOS, this puts the final touch on my home brewed distro based on PClinux0s 2009.

Thanks Again...

John

Video

Awais Yousaf's picture
Submitted by Awais Yousaf (not verified) on Sun, 02/15/2009 - 22:08.

Can i download your videos? if there is any possibility then plzzzz reply me back.

It's Coming

Shawn Powers's picture
Submitted by Shawn Powers on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 12:42.

We're working on the best way to roll them out. Every video also exists as an OGG file, we just don't have them linked yet.

Stay tuned!

Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter

Prism Rocks My Socks

Andrew Brookins's picture
Submitted by Andrew Brookins (not verified) on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 22:14.

When I first read about Prism, I thought it was kind of silly. Then I "refracted" a couple of Google apps through it and realized how useful the concept of standalone / single session web apps was.

Before using Prism, I would load six or seven Google pages in separate tabs ... not ideal. Now I have Prism shortcuts for Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Safari Books (awesome), and Trimet -- for tracking whether or not the bus is on time. :) Prism is especially useful when I need to log into multiple Google accounts throughout the day.

The downside? You can run into issues with plug-ins, which are kinda difficult to get running. And depending on the version of Prism you use, adjusting the font size can involve manually editing some stylesheets.

It what sense is the

David Easley's picture
Submitted by David Easley (not verified) on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 14:05.

It what sense is the resulting application 'standalone'? If I understand correctly, it still has the same dependencies as before, namely the remote web server and the Firefox web browser. Unless I'm missing something, all it's doing is launching Firefox and hiding some of the chrome.

Thought of another. :)

Shawn Powers's picture
Submitted by Shawn Powers on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 15:55.

I also have a prism app for mibbit, loading the #linuxjournal channel on Freenode. :)

Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter

I use...

Shawn Powers's picture
Submitted by Shawn Powers on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 14:37.

I use it to run Gmail as a separate application instead of a tab or window. With the addition of google gears, it makes for a fairly nice alternative to a standalone application.

Also, you can use to log into the same web application as different users. For example, if you use twitter for personal use, but also use it for business -- you can have 2 separate accounts with their own "application."

It's not Earth shattering, but in some instances it's really nice.

Oh, Pandora is another one I use Prism for. I think right now that's about it though.

Shawn Powers is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal. You might find him chatting on the IRC channel, or Twitter

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