Firefox 3 Beta 4 and Prism 0.9 Work Very Well

As promised, here is a follow up on my previous post about running the latest version of Prism as an extension. Good news is: Prism on Ubuntu actually works now.

It would seem that installing Firefox 3 beta 4 from the Mozilla site solved a lot of the problems I was having. So far I haven't had any problems creating Webapp shortcuts for the Google Apps I use and as an added bonus it is easy to select an alternative icon (the favicon is a bit too small for some uses).

The most noticeable improvement is really not Prism related but due to the improvements in the Gecko Platform (see beta 4 release notes). Webapps start significantly faster now.

Another nice feature is that Prism instances run in a separate process now. It used be that all Webapps shared the same process. A poorly written Webapp should not be able to take down all Prism instances (in theory). Additionally, since cookies are isolated to each instance of Prism the chance of one Webapp running in Prism making an XSRF is greatly reduced since it won't have access to session cookies from other Webapps.

Happy Webapping

Prism: Now an Extension for Firefox 3

Mozilla has announced that Prism version 0.9 is now available as an extension for Firefox 3. See the official Mozilla Labs announcement or Marke Finkle's Blog for more information.

Installing the extension is simple but does require Firefox 3 since it relies on Firefox 3's ability to allow other applications to use its XULRunner platform. As an Ubuntu user, the simplest way to install Firefox 3 is to enable the Unsupported Updates Repository and use Synaptic. Update: Save yourself some headaches with the Prism extension and follow the instructions at Tombuntu (still very simple and applies to Firefox beta 4 too). Once installed, start Firefox 3 and install Prism.

My first (and only) attempt at converting a website to an application failed. The problem was that the wizard wouldn't actually save the Web Application icon to the desktop. And without this I saw no way to launch Prism. I hope this is a Linux specific bug that will be ironed out soon. I'll post again once I get to play with Prism more.

As an aside, using Firefox 3 was nice. Compared to Firefox 2, it felt a lot snappier and faster at rendering pages. Hopefully some lagging extensions will support Firefox 3 soon.

Resources for Web Developers on Ubuntu

Below are some links to software and web sites that I use on a regular basis. I post these as a resource for myself (when I inevitably have to rebuild a box) and in the hopes that it is useful to others.

Applications

Firefox: the majority of readers will already be users, or at least aware of this excellent browser, but I mention it to give context to the add-ons below (and because it is so good).

Add-ons (a.k.a. Extensions)

• Firebug: The ability to debug and step through JavaScript code is amazing. I have never used Microsoft’s products for web development (which I understand also provide this ability) so this is practically revolutionary for me.
• Web Developer: A collection of very handy tools for Web Developers. You have the option to use it as a toolbar, or keep it out of sight, and access its tools through the context menu.
• Live HTTP Headers: A simple tool that allows you to see the request and response HTTP headers. Although, the Firebug add-on contains header information as well, I keep coming back to Live HTTP Headers as it is simpler to use.
• Google Browser Sync: I never found bookmarks useful until I found this add-on. With this tool you can synchronize bookmarks between multiple Firefox installations. As an added bonus, it serves as a backup when you need to unexpectedly scrub your box.

Eclipse: As an Ubuntu user, that needs a full featured Java IDE, Eclipse is a pretty solid choice. Installation is a snap (apt-get, done) and the plugins can make it very powerful.

Plugins

• Aptana: IDEs or Eclipse Plugins to assist in AJAX development are few at this point. Aptana seems to be a pretty good choice so far and works with many of the major JavaScript libraries out-of-the-box. It has excellent documentation and is open source to boot.
• Subversive: I just started using this plugin. Until recently I was using Subclipse but found it a bit buggy and awkward to use. So far, Subversive has been a pretty solid replacement. I’ll need more time to fully vet it though.
• Veloeclipse: A plugin that will aid in developing velocity templates. It provides some much needed syntax highlighting and other features. What is Velocity? Velocity is an awesome Apache replacement for JSP.
• QuickREx: An indispensable tool for writing/testing your regular expressions. Includes a very handy method of converting your RegEx into Java syntax (you know, extra escape characters to make the RegEx less readable)

Useful Sites

• Regular-Expressions.info: A very handy reference site for looking up some of the more obscure aspects of Regular Expressions or trying to write a Regex in a new language.