Hi, > after giving a cursory look at XUL here are some > of the things AIR does that XUL doesn't: > > * Built in support for Flex/Flash (Layout/Logic + Fancy Animation/Video)
Of course you can use any Firefox Plugin - including the flash Player, Quicktime, Adobe Reader, etc. IIRC there is even going to be an OpenOffice Plugin. > * Many chrome options, XUL uses CSS for the chromes with mozilla extensions. What exactly is missing for you? > in window animation, You can mix XUL, HTML and SVG and even MathML as you like. You can have a canvas tag and of course you have JavaScript. Which types of Animations are missing for you? Ah yes, of course you can use the Flash Plugin as well. > incredibly fast rendering speed for windows, I have not had any XUL applications up to now where that would have been an issue. Can you tell me a use case, wher XUL is too slow, but AIR does the thing? > support for native OS features, What native OS features are you missing from the Mozilla Platform? > simple packaging scheme http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpinstall/ is a good start for help with packaging XUL applications. I have not user it up to now, but AFAIK that is what Firefox and Thunderbird use. > * Hundreds of desktop application hooks available for your Javascript XPConnect gives you access to all XPCom components of the Mozilla Platform. Of course that is not available for online XUL applications, but for Desktop Applications you can of course access everything using JavaScript. > * Application signing for publishers At this point I have to admitt, that I have never needed to think about that up to now. At least I know that Firefox Extensions are signed so I guess that the Mozilla Platform does support it. > * Industry backing: Adobe, AOL, eBay, Salesforce.com, Akamai, > O'Reilly, Movable Type Are you shure, that the industry backing for the Mozilla platform is bad? From reading the news I don't get that impression. > * Documentation: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript > Developers Pocket Guide The Mozilla Project is one of the best documented pieces of complex Software available. What exactly are you missing? > * IDEs: Flex Builder, Aptana, Eclipse AIR Plugin Have a look at http://wiki.mozilla.org/XUL:IDE Christof
