Project Aims to Combine Mozilla and JavaThursday July 24th, 2003Brad GNUberg writes: "The goal is simple. Build a Mozilla application so that a Java backend can be used to interact with a Mozilla/XUL front-end. It makes sense. Combine the power of Java's server libraries with the interactivity and user interface capability of Mozilla. Kevin Burton and Brad GNUberg are proud to announce java.mozdev.org, a central repository for open-source projects making this vision true. We have already posted two projects furthering this goal. First is a new build of BlackConnect for Mozilla 1.4 and JDK 1.3.1. BlackConnect is a pretty aggressive project... a full port of XPCOM to Java. This will allow developers to write components in JavaScript, C++, or Java and seamlessly integrate components used in other languages within the Mozilla platform. The second major project on java.mozdev.org are XPI builds of the Java Runtime, making installation of Java within Mozilla seamless for your Java-based Mozilla plugins. We need developers and testers!" Brad did most of the work on the BlackConnect port. He really worked his ass off and every Mozilla/Java person deserves to give him a round of applause :) Seriously... He worked for three months to get this off the ground. BlackConnect was so far from being complete. The last build was on Mozilla M4! Can you believe that! We need 10 more GNUbergs!!! Most Mozilla people can't even bother to report bugs :) Kevin Thanks Kev. I told you Mozilla M4, but I just checked and I think it last ran on Mozilla 0.9.1 in June 2001. Note that the work I did also depends a great deal on some patches posted by Marcus Fellinger in bug 124606 and bug 123651 in order to get Mozilla's build system and xpidl compilers more up to date in relation to the Java-XPCOM bridge. Thanks Marcus, especially for your Java/XPCOM xpidl work. as it stabilises... i will definately contribute end applciations demonstrating this. J I'm not familiar with this project. But a minimal local http server is pretty simple to implement in Java. That way you can combine your own Java code with a XUL frontend or whatever. I even have written such a server (not fully http 1.1 compliant). If there's any interest, I'd be willing to provide the code. Jeti, both Kevin and I have done this approach in our own Mozilla/Java projects. While it seems simple, it begins to create ugly and unmaintainable code as your project size increases and makes it difficult to deeply integrate into Mozilla. I even created an XML-RPC bridge to link my Java code to my Mozilla JavaScript code, using the XML-RPC code in Mozilla. It became a big unmaintainable mess. How about a port of Java to Mozilla/XUL? That way the Java runtime would be cross platform as well...ok that would be too much work. > How about a port of Java to Mozilla/XUL? You might wonna check out the XUL Alliance site @ http://xul.sourceforge that lists dozen of XUL engines/browsers/runtimes in Java that let you build UIs using XML. While most projects use their own XUL (XML UI) dialects/flavors usually they are pretty close to the Mozilla XUL "gold standard". Great initiative. Keep it up. I've written up a story titled "java.mozdev.org: Initiative To Add Java to Mozilla Goes Live" for the XUL News Wire online @ http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.xul.announce/66 Great news, http://www.mozilla.org/projects/blackwood/connect/ and maybe http://www.mozilla.org/projects/blackwood/ should be updated. "Concisely summarize and contrast Rhino, Jazilla, BlackConnect, and Luxor" -- I think I'd get a 'B minus' :) |