Programming Firefox: Building Rich Internet Applications with XUL

This is your guide to building Internet applications and user interfaces with the Mozilla component framework, which is best known for the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client. Programming Firefox demonstrates how to use the XML User Interface Language (XUL) with open source tools in the framework's Cross-Platform Component (XPCOM) library to develop a variety of projects, such as commercial web applications and Firefox extensions.

This book serves as both a programmer's reference and an in-depth tutorial, so not only do you get a comprehensive look at XUL's capabilities--from simple interface design to complex, multitier applications with real-time operations--but you also learn how to build a complete working application with XUL. If you're coming from a Java or .NET environment, you'll be amazed at how quickly large-scale applications can be constructed with XPCOM and XUL.

Topics in Programming Firefox include:

• An overview of Firefox technology
• An introduction to the graphical elements that compose a XUL application
• Firefox development tools and the process used to design and build applications
• Managing an application with multiple content areas
• Introduction to Resource Description Files, and how the Firefox interface renders RDF
• Manipulating XHTML with JavaScript
• Displaying documents using the Scalable Vector Graphics standard and HTML Canvas
• The XML Binding Language and interface overlays to extend Firefox
• Implementing the next-generation forms interface through XForms

Programming Firefox is ideal for the designer or developer charged with delivering innovative standards-based Internet applications, whether they're web server applications or Internet-enabled desktop applications. It's not just a how-to book, but a what-if exploration that encourages you to push the envelope of the Internet experience.

Ken Feldt is a systems engineer and software developer with background in bit-slice raster image processor design, real-time process control, USB development, digital video workflow, and consumer-grade video authoring techniques. He holds undergraduate degrees in electronics engineering technology and an MBA in marketing from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY.

On the technical side, Ken work with various XML applications for science and engineering, currently building a business utilizing XUL and SVG to facilitate technical communications. His broader focus includes exploitation of various XML vocabularies to move the IT world more closely to the disciplines of science and the arts.

He enjoys public speaking (once competing in a humorous speech contest for Toastmasters International and actually winning a few rounds), and takes particular pleasure in the 'old world' skills of oratory, rhetoric, and creative writing.

Ken's writing objectives focus on topics that help experienced engineers and software developers ramp up on new technologies, always trying to look at things from the perspective of the subject matter novice.

Ken also takes an interest in following the trail of how new technologies affect the social and industrial fabric of communities, and he is fully engaged in studying how innovation and entrepreneurship are both required in order to drive successful new business models.