June 2002 Archives

Peter Bojanic composed the hymn "The Joy of XUL" praising XUL's key benefits including:

• Powerful widget markup (XML, Babe)
• Builts on proven standards (Reuse, Reuse, Reuse)
• Platform portability (Runs Anywhere)
• Splits presentation and application logic (Beyond Hairballs and Spaghetti Code)
• Easy customization, localization, or branding (Your Way or the Highway)

Selected lyrics:

XUL lets you build rich cross platform apps that can run connected or disconnected from the Internet. You can easily customize your apps with alternative text, graphics and layout to brand or localize your apps for different markets.

Dynamic application logic benefits from a UI presentation layer that is standards-based, scriptable, extensible, and distributable over the Internet.

XUL blurs the distinction between desktop apps and Internet browser apps because it combines the best of both worlds.

Full hymn at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/joy-of-xul.html

Besides "The Big Three" dozens of Xul motors blossom or fade away.

• Peter Köker's GUI Builder builds Swing apps from a Xul dialect dubbed "GUI Design Language" (GDL) and supports scripting in Pnuts (http://javacenter.sun.co.jp/pnuts/). GUI Builder also includes a JavaDoc-like tool dubbed GuiDoc that automatically creates HTML documentation from Xul files (source available under the GNU Lesser Public License) - (Note: German site ahead) - http://www.guibuilder.de.
• Jim Wissner's Xybrix builds Swing apps dressed up in Kunststoff L&F from a Xul dialect that includes XForms support (source available under an MIT License) - http://www.jbrix.org/kits/xybrix/overview.html, http://sourceforge.net/projects/xybrix.
• Thinlets - a Xul motor packed into a 24 k jar runs Java 1.1 applet oldies - http://www.thinlet.com
• Pierre Morel's Proto, a Xul forerunner, builds Swing apps from XML descriptions and supports scripting in Javascript or Tcl (frozen since 1999) - http://www.pierlou.com/prototype/.

No army can stop an idea whose time has come. -- Victor Hugo

You can consult a Javadoc-style framed Xul tag reference sporting cherry-picked real-world examples from around the globe at http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/xulref/.

If you prefer an all-in-one Xul tag reference instead of a heap of loose ends for printing on a papyrus roll, swing over to http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/luxorref.html.

Take away. I will bundle the framed Xul tag reference with the upcoming Luxor Beta 5. Check back in a week to get your offline copy.