Hello,
Welcome back to episode II of the XUL Titan
Interview with KaXul/Uxul mastermind George Staikos.
Q: What's the state of scripting? Can you build mini
KaXul/Uxul applications today using lets say
JavaScript and some XML? Any plans of supporting
alternative scripting languages such as Python?
George Staikos: You can, definitely. The JavaScript
engine is complete since it uses KJS which is
regularily used as the script engine in KHTML and
Safari. The KJS embedding engine in KDE has been used
to write impressively sophisticated JS+Qt applications
already, and there's no reason why this can't be done
with XUL too. Honestly I don't think I've pushed the
envelope from the application side yet. As for other
scripting languages, I have no intentions of ever
doing that since I use KJSEmbed rather exclusively. My
goal with that project was twofold: proof-of-concept,
and interoperability. The "higher" goal of a real
XML+scripting platform needs to go through standards
and design first, in my opinion.
Q: Can you tell us how popular KaXul/Uxul is? (e.g.
Are there any applications/projects using KaXul/Uxul
already? What's the interest in the KDE community?
etc.)
George Staikos: It's really just a proof-of-concept.
The only user of it so far, that I know of, is a
KDevelop plugin.
Q: Who else is behind KaXul/Uxul? Do you work on your
own? How much time do you spend on KaXul/Uxul
development? How can someone get involved in
KaXul/Uxul?
George Staikos: I did KaXul design entirely on my own,
but I received help from:
* Rich Moore - KJS Embedding
* Zack Rusin - The KPart
* Maksim Orlovich - implementation of one of the
tricky widgets
* Laurent Montel - various fixes and enhancements
(I hope I didn't forget anyone)
I haven't worked on KaXul in about 8-9 months now.
I've been consumed with other projects and I haven't
generated enough interest in it to justify continuing
it yet. If anyone is interested in working on it, I
would love some help.
Q: What do you think about Mozilla XUL? How does it
differ from KaXul/Uxul? Do you envison KaXul/Uxul to
run Mozilla XUL apps or just share some XML tags?
George Staikos: The whole purpose of KaXul is to run
Mozilla XUL apps as they are. I dream of more, but I
have no intention of ever putting it into KaXul. The
one big difference, which is a big bonus but also a
bit of a problem, is that KaXul uses native widgets
while Mozilla's XUL is effectively a renderer. With
KaXul, your app looks and feels just like other apps
on your desktop, and it's very fast and responsive.
This is one of the things I don't like about Mozilla's
XUL. It's always been slow. I can even launch Internet
Explorer via Wine faster than I can launch Mozilla on
the same machine and the menus respond much quicker,
which is an indication that there are real problems
lurking. Perhaps they're not all due to XUL, but I
suspect it has much to do with it.
Q: What do you think of SuperKaramba that lets you
build eye candy for the KDE desktop using just XML and
Python?
George Staikos: I haven't tried it, but I've only
heard good things about it.
Q: Do you know or can you highlight any other projects
in the KDE world that let you build UIs using XML?
Have you looked into libglade? Is there an alternative
in the KDE world? How does the KaXul/Uxul approach
differ from libglade?
George Staikos: Most KDE UIs are built using XML! Qt
Designer is the most common form of UI building for
KDE and Qt apps, and it outputs the same XML files
that KaXul converts XUL files to. I don't think it's
much different than libglade at all, though I haven't
really used libglade.
The key to KaXul is that it can convert to Qt Designer
files without worrying about the script bindings. Qt
has an object model that allows for runtime
introspection in C++. By creating some "XUL to Qt"
function call/property translation tables, the
scripting engine can automatically lookup and call the
functions it needs at runtime. This is an extremely
powerful feature for a compiled application, and it's
what made KaXul so easy to implement.
Q: What's next for KaXul/Uxul? Any plans for a visual
designer?
George Staikos: No, I don't have intentions of doing
that. My understanding is that there are some good
ones out there already, and I don't see a reason to
create another.
Thanks George Staikos.
Full interview and links @
http://xul.sourceforge.net/post/2004/06/xul_titan_interview_george_staikos_of_xul_for_qtkde_fame_part_ii.html
- Gerald
-------------------
Gerald Bauer
Mozilla XUL Developers Group |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mozilla-xul
PHP XUL Developers Group |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/php-xul
Perl XUL Developers Group |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/perl-xul
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