Prism
I’m really liking Mozilla Labs new project called Prism. “Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.” So basically, it opens up its own little window and runs any website you tell it to. Most people get confused when it comes to applications like Prism and are sometimes under the assumption that Prism actually lets you download web sites like Gmail or Google Calendar on to your computer.
It doesn’t. Prism just lets you view Gmail on the gmail website in its own little window. Prism runs on your computer, but the data is still being retrieved from Gmail (for now anyway). Prism is perfect for developers who want to provide their clients with an application that makes users stay within the website and not roam off to other sites (like MySpace, Facebook…. you get the idea). I am currently building a program for a client, which uses a lot of tables and a lot of Javascript. The program also needs to print reports. One thing we found out fairly quickly is that IE and Firefox handles all three of those very differently and it can be a pain to test a program of this magnitude using multiple browsers. For example, the printed reports never seemed to look the same when they were printed on different browsers. So the easy solution? Use Prism. Since its based on the same engine that Firefox uses, all we have to do is concentrate on testing the program on Firefox and we are good to go.
The best/coolest part is that it’s really easy to use. Similar programs usually make you hand-code the configuration files and then have the main application run/execute them and even sometimes compile them using their own compiler. But with Prism, once you download and install, all you have to is launch the application, and Prism prompts you for the URL of the web site/application you want to run from your computer and also asks if you want to add icons on your Desktop, Start Menu, or the Quick Launch Bar. Easy peesy, lemon squeezy.
