XULRunner

XULRunner
Developer(s) Mozilla Foundation and community
Initial release February 2006
Stable release

37.0.2 (April 20, 2015[1]) [±]

ESR 31.6.0 (March 31, 2015[2]) [±]
Preview release
Beta

38.0 Beta 9 (April 30, 2015[3][4]) [±]

Developer Edition

39.0a2 (April 3, 2015[5]) [±] daily release

Nightly
40.0a1 (March 30, 2015[6]) [±] daily release
Written in C++, XUL, XBL, JavaScript
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Runtime environment
License MPL
Website developer.mozilla.org/en/XULRunner

XULRunner is a run-time engine for XUL. It replaced the Gecko Runtime Environment, a stalled project with a similar purpose.[7]

The first stable developer preview of XULRunner was released in February 2006, based on the Mozilla 1.8 code base. It is developed by the Mozilla Foundation to provide a common back-end for XUL-based applications.

XULRunner is a "technology experiment", not a shipped product,[8] meaning there are no "official" XULRunner releases, only stable builds based on the same code as a corresponding Firefox release.

Software architecture

XULRunner is a runtime that can be used to bootstrap multiple XUL + XPCOM applications that are as rich as Firefox and Thunderbird.

XULRunner stores a variety of configuration data (bookmarks, cookies, contacts etc.) in internally managed SQLite databases, and even offer an add-on to manage SQLite databases.

Uses

All XUL-based applications like Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Nightingale, Songbird, Flickr Uploadr, SeaMonkey, Conkeror, Sunbird, Miro, Joost, and TomTom Home 2.0 run on XULRunner. Starting with version 3.0, Mozilla Firefox uses a "private" XULRunner,[9] meaning the framework is installed locally in the application directory.

The fourth version of the video game series Simon the Sorcerer, Simon the Sorcerer 4: Chaos Happens, uses XULRunner.

The eMusic website has a download application called eMusic Remote that uses XULRunner.

The Google AdWords Editor uses XULRunner,[10] as does the Evergreen ILS, a free and open-source library automation system.

In addition, the XULRunner package provides access to ActiveX Control functionality previously found in a (now defunct) third-party ActiveX Control built off the Mozilla source code. Applications using this application programming interface (API) may function with XULRunner installed and registered.

Starting with Lotus Notes version 8.5.1, IBM deployed XULRunner to provide Notes client support for XPages applications.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Firefox — Notes (37.0.2) — Mozilla". mozilla.org. 2015-04-20. Retrieved 2015-04-20.
  2. ↑ "Firefox — Notes (31.6.0) — Mozilla". mozilla.org. 2015-03-31. Retrieved 2015-03-31.
  3. ↑ "Firefox — Beta Notes (38.0beta) — Mozilla". 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2015-04-03.
  4. ↑ "Mozilla Firefox Web Browser — Download Firefox Beta in your language — Mozilla". Retrieved 2015-04-29.
  5. ↑ "Firefox — Aurora Notes (39.0a2) — Mozilla". 2015-04-03. Retrieved 2015-04-05.
  6. ↑ "RapidRelease/Calendar - MozillaWiki". Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  7. ↑ "GRE — Mozilla Developer Center". Developer.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  8. ↑ Benjamin Smedberg. "Re: lifecycle policy for XULRunner apps?". Newsgroup: mozilla.dev.planning. Usenet: mailman.909.1309204932.4544.dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org.
  9. ↑ "XULRunner:Roadmap - MozillaWiki". Wiki.mozilla.org. 2009-12-01. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  10. ↑ "xulrunner-adwords-editor — Project Hosting on Google Code". Code.google.com. Retrieved 2011-02-28.

External links