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29 Comments
- FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Firefox's interface was written in GTK, an open source library for making graphical applications. I would assume this was done mainly to keep it portable, so people can run it on Linux/Windows/Mac OS X/BSD/etc because the GTK/GLIB libraries are available on all of the main platforms.
The Window, Buttons, Dialogs, Text, etc. are all drawn by the GTK libraries.
The Native/Cocoa widgets that they are talking about [ I assume. ] are the Cocoa libraries that Mac OS X uses to draw all of its stuff to the screen.
Support for Cocoa in Firefox would be nice, because while it's not a big deal, Firefox can look a little bit out of place in Mac OS due to it drawing GTK buttons on a screen filled mainly with Cocoa widgets. :)
[ think small grey windows95y button right next to a pretty mac os x button ]
I hope this helps. :) - Brutal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You morons. He's talking about form widgets - you know: buttons and textfields! Firefox on OSX uses it's own form widgets, which look totally crap. Like this:
http://www.momathome.com/viewfromhome/images/beforewidgets.gif
While the native OSX form widgets look like this:
http://www.beatnikpad.com/images/aquaFormwidgets.png - strcmp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That is not the meaning of "widget" to which the article refers. Widgets, generally provided by a widget toolkit such as Cocoa's Application Kit, are elements of a graphical user interface. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_%28computing%29#Various_widgets for some examples.
- aspro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9There is so much cluelessness in these comments, don't go blathering ***** if you have no idea what you are talking about please!
- zootm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@ durandal2005: close, but still not quite ;)
The XUL system still uses normal toolkits to draw its widgets, to some degree. On Linux it uses GTK+, and on Windows it uses something which is at least semi-native. The problem is that the OSX version does not currently use Cocoa, making it look clunky and weird (just like an OSX app would look weird on Windows or Linux, or like Java Swing apps look weird *everywhere*). - synthrabbit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I hope this includes the native spell checking that Safari (but not Camino) has.
- ketsugi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@clerix: C'mon, get a clue. This article has NOTHING to do with Dashboard widgets. See the post above for a correct description of what "Cocoa widgets" refers to. Windows has its own set of native (and themeable, in Windows XP or with Windowblinds) widgets, and Gnome/KDE for *nix (or whatever you're using). Buttons, text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc. Not dashboard/konfabulator/whatever.
- durandal2005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@FluffyArmada: close, but not quite.
Firefox (and Mozilla) draws it's widgets using a custom, cross-platform toolkit called XUL. XUL is actually a really cool setup, because it uses XML to describe the user interface, and Gecko (the rendering engine that powers Firefox) renders XUL like it was any other web page. In fact, most of the UI in Firefox is controlled via Javascript, much like any vanilla DHTML page. - tablatronix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4second image link is dead.
- JamesShiell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4sythrabbit - The spell checker is provided by the widget so yes, this should be a nice side-effect. I believe Camino lacks the spell checking as it's using Carbon for native widgets, not Cocoa. So it will also benefit from this work.
carlnewton - native widgets are the buttons, text fields and so-on that are used by the operating system. At present the Mac version of Firefox uses Windows style buttons and what-have-you which stand out like a sore thumb. Cocoa is a software framework for Mac OS X which also the use of Mac native components with good things like spell checking provided by Mac OS for free. To sum up, it will make it more 'Mac-like', definitely a good thing. - jinexile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Widgets are UI controls, they have been called Widgets long before Mac's dashboard and whatnot.
- diggahole, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4[ think small grey windows95y button right next to a pretty mac os x button ]
digg :) - FluffyArmada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2hey.. some people *need* text-to-speech. As in... they can't just read the screen.
- n8han, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Firefox's widgets aren't the same on every platform. Firefox on Windows matches the Windows components pretty well, it's just Mac and Linux that get those retarded looking boxes that are supposed to be buttons, etc. This helps a little:
http://www.amake.us/software/firefoxy/
But just use Camino + CamiTools instead. Beats everything else on any platform. - devoinregress, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2all I want is the text to speech to work in firefox
- mabino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its not so much the widgets I'm interested in, but the Keychain integration that is never going to happen that necessitates Camino.
- Brutal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ok, here's another example
http://justinfrench.com/images/1.gif - maxim303, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been using firefox compiled with native widgets for months. not all widgets are supported (text-fields), but it's an improvement, and it's available today.
check it out here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=363099 - eevyl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Using Carbon has nothing to do with inability to get Spellchecker, you can but you just need just a little extra effort to put it. Nothing near nuclear science though.
- Xopl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If I want native widgets I'll use Camino or Safari. I *like* the fact that Firefox has the same widgets on every platform.
- smuirhead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I would rather they spent their efforts making Firefox snappier on OSX. Getting the spinning pizza drives me nuts.
- sdfisher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Meanwhile, Safari is moving away from native widgets. It's just being done by a team with more resources (one presumes) and more attention to detail. By the time they're done, users likely won't notice except CSS-themed elements will work.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6And how about some pics?
- Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0if firefox gets widgets thats gonna rock
- roostersheep, on 01/16/2009, -6/+6I'm not sure about anyone else but I have no clue what a cocoa widget or native widget is. Anyone care to explain?
- innate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought this was going to be about widgets, but it's actually about user interface controls. I would love to see Firefox support the native UI controls. I currently use Camino for that reason but Camino doesn't support the wide range of plugins that Firefox has.
- pablofabregat, on 10/12/2007, -15/+0i don't get it, why should i want widgets in a browser ? , c'mon, it's a browser! not a desktop .
and that without counting the real issue that clerix has exposed ... - clerix, on 10/12/2007, -18/+1You wanted some pictures, here is one: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1700/mydashboard0008yt.png
- clerix, on 10/12/2007, -21/+0a Widget is something found on OS X. They're called Dashboard Widgets and you can find more information about them here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/&e=9797 There are literally thousands of widgets available such as a calculator, stickies (post-it note like things), a tool for Blogger.com, Airport Widget (wireless network scanner) and many more like temperature and world clocks (for different time zone viewing) etc etc.
They're very handy if you're on OS X and bringing them to FireFox is the geeky cool thing to do but I think it'll just bring more bloat to an already bloated browser. I'm more of an Opera fan considering it has everything and the kitchen sink built in (email, newsgroup, irc client etc) and under 13MB where as Firefox is more than twice that by itself w/o any extras. Then again these are what my readings are being on OS X 10.4.6.
YMMV
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