Prism 1.0 Brings Dock/System Tray Integration To Your Webapps

This seems like a good model for increasing productivity by creating Prism apps with all your routine sites then CLOSING them when you've done what you're supposed to do. Leaves the browser free for just browsing the peripheral sites which you need to look at. I hope extensions/bookmarklets work within the apps.

I've been using Fluid (www.fluidapp.com) on the mac for a while now. I did try Prism before I installed fluid but don't remember why I didn't like it then. I'll give it another try, I guess.

SowndOfDeth

@eyeverve: It doesn't seem so, as pictured in the last screenshot thumb above.

@Chris Memering: Yes, you can, when you create the webapp, using any image file. It's still one of Prism's wonkiest aspects, but fix-able.

One of the downfalls to Prism was the inability to use add-ons or extensions. I don't see anything on the Prism site that talks about this. Does anyone know if they have added add-on support, or if you can at least use userscripts like Google Chrome?

Phillip Reblin

Those are some awfully pixelated icons/shortcuts....

Can you modify the image file?

Chris Memering

Does Windows 7 group all of these "Webapps" into the Firefox icon when open instead of their respective icons? I had a problem with that using Google Chrome's Application Shortcut feature. It was really annoying and defeated the purpose of having separate icons to just see them all grouped into the same icon.

@Phillip Reblin:
I was using the two-year old version of Prism and as long as the extension supported the ancient build of firefox it was built on, it worked fine. The icon for add-ons is just tricky to fine.

@flyingspatula: Agreed x 2. Really, the whole concept behind prism and similar apps has always confused me. I mean, it seems that the purpose of such apps is simply to change the appearance of a website without adding any functionality. It's the same web app, just rendered in a crippled browser window! I suppose this new version of prism might add some useful functionality, though, namely the ability to minimize to the tray, but my tray is definitely cluttered enough as is!

Had I not already gotten use to Google Chrome, I would be using the hell out of this add on. When will there be the "perfect browser"? Never, probably.

@flyingspatula: Agreed - Prism does seem to have fallen into the shadow of more recent projects from Mozilla like Ubiquity and Bespin.

Alan Ralph

@Fluffy654: Regarding the points you raise :

1) Yes, that is a pain at the moment - possibly Weave will be able to work with Prism at some point in the future to resolve this.
2) Stylish/Greasemonkey support within Prism would be problematic at best. For starters, how to install new scripts? You would have to break out of Prism into Firefox proper to get the new script, then somehow pass the script back to Prism for installation. Potential for confusion, plus multible Stylish/Greasemonkey databases all over the computer. Not good.
3) I'm not familiar with the Windows 7 UI, but I daresay the Mozilla folks will be working on this, seeing as they've already covered both current Windows and Mac OS X.

Alan Ralph

@Mister Cow Pnoy: The problem with using such extentions is that they can compromise the reliability, and in some cases the security, of the app. I've tried both Better GMail and Google Redesigned, as well as a few other GMail-related addons, and have had occasional issues with all of them.

Alan Ralph

@Phillip Reblin: As far as I can tell, no.

Alan Ralph

Like @ Fluffy654 said: Stylish/Greasemonkey styles and scripts need to continue working with apps...

...also my better gmail/better reader addons need to continue working. Its pretty useless at the moment. :(

markus9134

@Daniel_IT: No, Prism doesn't support the offline storage and sync abilities that Gears provide. You will need to be online to use your Prism app.

Alan Ralph

I've used Fluid on Mac and enjoyed it, too - although one thing that's troubled me is how it uses the same cookies as Safari, so I couldn't setup different Fluid instances for different accounts on the same sites. Does anyone know if Prism or another solution does this well?

After trying this app - i'm not sure what the perceived benefit is supposed to be. Mozilla has done a great job trying to diversify it's product lines, but I don't think prism is being explain or utilized properly.

I use Fluid for the Mac. Unlike Prism, Fluid shows the number of unread mails in GMail as an icon badge. I leave it hidden and cmd+tab to see what the count is. I do prefer the lack of menu items in Prism, but the unread mail badge is essential for the way I use stand alone web apps.

jamescoleuk

@Phillip Reblin: I just came to complain about that too. I logged into my gmail and immediately noticed Better Gmail wasn't doing it's thing. I sure hope they realize how major of a flaw this is.

There should be an option when making the app of what addons should be "installed" on the app. So if say you were to make a Gmail app, you'd add better gmail, Google Redesigned, Ubiquity and Gphotospace. but non of the others because they don't have any real effect for this single site.

is it similar to [gears.google.com] ?

Daniel_IT

@Kevin Purdy:
True enough but surely it isn't difficult to trawl the soon-to-be app for images and prompt the user to select one?

Offering up a favicon is not a solution and asking the user to have an image already is completely unreasonable given how easy it should be to find a suitable image for them.

Fluffy654

At the moment, a prism app seems less useful than the webpage. Here are a select list of just some of the changes that need to be made before a prism app becomes as useful as a webpage:
1) Whatever password manager you use in Firefox, say the new version of Weave, should automatically work with whatever app you create.
2) Stylish/Greasemonkey styles and scripts need to continue working with apps.
3) Apps need to integrate with the Win7 jump lists/taskbar

At the moment, the only benefit that Prism apps seem to offer Win7 users is a reduction in wasteful UI. Given the disadvantages, it doesn't seem worth it.

Fluffy654

@Kevin Purdy:
Not quite. All the screenshot shows is two different icons. However, if you click on the gmail icon, the Firefox icon will "steal" the window from the gmail icon. At least, that is what happens on my computer.

Fluffy654

@SquaredCircle: Thank you both for the helpful explanations. Maybe I'll look more into Prism...

i am a HUGE fan of SSB's. Probably their biggest proponent ever. I use fluidapp.com on the mac because its just awesome with growl and dock icons.
i'm betting the dock icons in prism are to be done with a userscript. I've tried prism a few times and its not as smooth as fluid but i'll give it another try.

myneid

http://flickrvision.com/maps/show_3d

EudoraArgeius

@[labs.mozilla.com] That's the link.

The page seems old, but the concept might be the same.

@Samu Wade: Ah! Beat me to it!

Oh well. I need to learn to type faster. ;-)

@SquaredCircle: A shortcut on your desktop will open your web browser, and load the URL. Whereas Prism, or any SSB (site-specific browser) creates/installs a separate "application" that works as a browser to launch just that one website.

For example, I can have Gmail in a separate app, so whenever I want to check my mail, I don't have to disturb my current web browser. Or, if my web browser isn't open, I don't have to wait for it to load or anything. Also the logic follows that your Prism app will load faster, because it is essentially a faster, stripped-down mini-browser (read as: without the bloat").

Hope this helps.

@SquaredCircle: The site opens in its own application, rather than in your default browser. It's hard to explain the benefit of this, but I find something like Facebook less distracting when it's in a completely separate app, rather than a browser tab. I think it's mostly a psychological thing; you could just as easily have Fb open in a separate window, but it doesn't have quite the same effect for me, somehow.

Cases in which it's more objectively useful; I have the mobile versions of a few sites set up as Fluid apps (same thing as Prism, basically); when they open, they automatically sit in the rightmost 28% of my screen which I use for Tweetie, chat windows and these "sidebar" apps. Also, I use one for Hulu, which is set to have no window chrome (titlebar and so on), so I can have a little frameless video window floating over everything else without taking up more space than it needs to.

Samu Wade

Quoted from Mozilla Labs:

"Badge the dock icon: Initial support for adding a badge to the desktop icon has been added. Currently, this can be done through a custom webapp.js file. We're working on creating and reusing web standards to expose this to content without requiring custom scripts."

So yeah, the rest of us need to wait for it.

@Fluffy654: Actually stylish works in prism for quite a while now..

kingoftaintedhearts

@Fluffy654: I wonder if there are legal issues involved in automatically using other companies' branding, other than favicons, which are given out with the site, as it were.

In any case, there are collections of icons out there designed for use with SSBs, e.g. [www.flickr.com]

Samu Wade

I'm obviously incredibly in the dark about this concept. Can someone explain to me how this is different than just creating a shortcut on your desktop to a website like YouTube?

I find running multiple instances of Firefox Portable to be much more useful (one for Google sites [and several of them for several Gmail IDs], one [or more] for "general" browsing, one for watching "TV", etc.): tabs are your friend (and no problems with add-ons or plug-ins).

GlennA

Would this work with StumbleUpon?

It's both a web app and an add-on. :/

Christian Velasquez

For Windows 7 users, standalone Prism is indispensable with the new taskbar because each app gets its own icon, unlike Google Chrome app shortcuts which all get stacked under the Chrome icon, making them virtually useless.

This is a wonderful application. I have a lot of add-ons so Firefox takes a few seconds longer than usual to load, which is okay but sometimes, I just need to check something really quickly such as my mail messages, so I use Prism.

I find this better than Google Chrome's Application shortcuts because you can choose to have the navigation bar, statusbar, etc... with Prism if you happen to want them.

@UmbertoKisser: Prism makes application shortcuts so that you can open the web page without the full browser features. This allows it to start up faster with a cleaner and more minimalistic interface.

@undefined: I love this concept, and could definitely see uses for it.

@GlennA: If I open multiple gmail ids the gmail logs me out?I just tried it with the portable per your suggestion.

Pro Tip: Install AutologinJ for Greasemonkey and your Prism'ed websites will login automatically.

Works great for Gmail!

AutologinJ only works for sites with a single user/pass stored.

For Gmail use the long URL, like:

[www.google.com]

musras

@SquaredCircle: I use Prism only for watching the Daily Show's "full episodes" page these days. It allows me to have a window just for the video, no toolbars or status bar, so I can browse in a regular Firefox window while I'm watching, and I have space underneath for Digsby conversations or whatever else I happen to be doing.

@MosesMonster: Have you tried the Application Shortcuts associated with Chrome?

I've used the previous version of Prism, and one of the annoyances was that the SSB configuration is stored in the user's profile (Windows). As far as I can tell, there's no easy way to share the SSB configurations you've created.

How can I let other users, either on the same computer or elsewhere, use the SSB's I've created?

If it had these feature, I could see Prism being very useful in a kiosk or computer lab type environment.

bobbo33

What's the point of this? Why not just use a good 'ol browser shortcut?

UmbertoKisser

Seems pretty cool, but in the pictures there's no toolbar(s). Is that an option you can turn on/off? That could be a small issue for some people. I wonder if the regular Mozilla firefox key-shortcuts still work. Back/forward buttons wouldn't hurt either.

@Snehith: Maybe this could help you out with your typing speed ;-)
[www.sense-lang.org]

LoneWolf008

Actually (at least on the Mac version), if you hit command and comma while it is opening it will open the preferences which has a manage add-ons buttom. From there you can drag and drop extensions (the xpi file itself or a link to it) in. If the extension is not compatible you can try modifying the install.rdf file as described here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Prism/Extensions

BlandonCabatan

@strungoutonfreeware: I have, let's say, 3 Gmail accounts. I install 3 separate instances of Firefox Portable--3 different folders, one for each Gmail account. I can run all 3 at the same time, each with its own account--been doin' it for several years. The "trick" of Firefox Portable is that you can run as many instances as you have memory to hold them (as long as you set AllowMultipleInstances to 'true' in the FirefoxPortable.ini file).

GlennA

It works great for something like hulu, I made a simple window that shows the video screen.

vitasimplex

How do you get it to the task tray?

Orisue

Nice! I'm currently using Prism to keep Tracks in a separate window so I don't accidentally close it when I close my browser. Will have to update Prism on Monday and see the new changes :)

saffyre9

@Alan Ralph: thank you for your reply.

Daniel_IT

@SowndOfDeth: That's what I use as well, though I've experienced that some websites just won't work properly within Fluid like youtube for example. It will ask you to login but after you type your info it opens a page in safari/firefox.

@GlennA: Ok now I got it cheers.

Seems like Fluid for Mac is a little more full featured, but I have only experimented with it. I will try Prism with my work pc and Pandora Radio.

I tried Prism, just for fun, just for Gmail. It worked but it was a bloat hog. Always slow to start up, slow to connect. Also, couldn't find a way to make it use white text on black background.

Is there no way for Mozilla to make an "SSB" that starts up faster than FF? I mean, it's supposedly dedicated to just one thing on the web, right? I get much better results from a plain old Gmail tab in Firefox.

I like the idea of a web app, but this thing needs work. I'd try something from Adobe AIR but I can't bring myself to care that much.

Back to Firefox, where sanity lives.

paintbox

You could install this app, OR you could just save a damn shortcut to your desktop.

Apeiron242

@Monamo: Yeah, I've done that before, but disk usage (and memory usage) is the least of my concerns, especially for something with such a small footprint as Firefox. One specific reason for using Firefox Portable has been to actually have the portability it affords ('cause I might be running the same instance from different machines). It's just way simpler to keep everything separate, almost like having virtualized environments; I have dozens of them. I have basic install "skeletons" setup for creating new instances of Firefox such that all I have to do is copy it to a new folder and I'm ready to go (for testing and specific "applications", or much like what Prism is for).

GlennA

@GlennA: Instead of having triple the installation size with this method, you can instead use the "-no-remote" switch in combination for multiple profiles.

Ex: To keep from feed load issues, I have a Firefox profile named "RSS Feeds" that has the Sage extension loaded. In order to view this profile while I already have my primary Firefox profile running, I changed the shortcut to:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -no-remote -P "RSS Feeds"

That way, the extra disk usage is minimized to the profiles folders and their respective extensions (which, on that note, is handy for testing extensions before committing to them on your primary profile).

Monamo

You can use the "parallel session" feature in Stainless (http://stainlessapp.com) to open separate tabs each logged in to the same service with different credentials. Then bookmark each tab for one-click access to each account (even in the same tab).

HeathZoso

For WindowsXP 7 users, standalone Prism is indispensable with the new taskbar because each app gets its own icon, unlike Google Chrome app shortcuts which all get stacked under the Chrome icon, making them virtually useless, ok

wajid_hussain3

@Bobbo33: Exactly! This would be a great feature.

LinetteKolkata

i would recommend another for you. 1) start firefox.exe with parameter -p to bring up the profile-manager 2) create a new blank profile called "gmail" 3) install only the few addons used for gmail 4) configure all toolbars to your needs (i.e. switch off menubar) 5) create a new shortcut on the desktop to "firefox.exe -p gmail" to load firefox with that new profile. give it a cool name and icon 6) hit that icon and see your favorite webapp launched in a second. 7)There are extension that will change the window title from " - Mozilla Firefox" to anything you like. Even the icon displayed in titlebar and taskbar can be replaced by changing a certain .gif or .bmp in the firefox folder. of course you can replace all occurencies of "gmail" with any other app you like ;-)

ShabariCaninus

Just realized after downloading Prism 1.0beta, that new links don't open in the default browser -- a huge hindrance for me. In Chrome you create an application shortcut and it opens external links in the browser. For now Chrome's App Shortcuts win over Prism.

achali

Prism's biggest feature b4 Chrome came out was having your most used web-apps in separate processes, crash independent. Now that Chrome has it baked in, Prism seems less useful.

What I'd really like to see in Prism is some design modifications for these desktop "widget" apps, like Adobe Air. If you're going to give us a desktop interface for our web sites, at least improve on the website's UI and make it "desktop friendly".

achali

@wajid_hussain3: Not sure about WindowsXP 7, but in Windows 7, even though Prism functions better when it comes to "pinning" on the new taskbar, it sucks because it opens links in a Prism window (that you cannot control the size of BTW) instead of your default browser.

Chrome is the better of the two evils for me right now. I've just turned off "grouping" in the Win7 task bar preferences until Chrome fixes the bug. They are working on it, as shown here: [[bit.ly]] so I'm hopeful. Once that problem is solved it will be a no-brainer to use Chrome app-shortcuts over Prism.

achali

I found these pretty sweet free icons for Google Apps. I am still looking for a Google Voice one. The PNGs work for Prism, the .icns are made for Fluid. LH, can you start collecting icons by a tag or something?
[csi.nfshost.com]

zebs

@flyingspatula: From a productivity standpoint, it's good for saying "I want to get my email, but JUST my email". I know if I open the full browser that bookmarks toolbar is really tempting.

I used prism for a while, but g.chrome has the same feature built in, and since I was only using it for google apps it moves a lot quicker.

DanLaush

Google Chrome has the ability to do this out of the box...

Schmeg Peg

I think there is a lot of applications that can make good use of this new method. It's not the technology behind it that is intriguing but more the "new" use of browsers in general. I used to use firefox commandline short cut for TeamSupport.net to start it up separately, now I can use it with Prism, not causing it to crash during my brainstorm sessions if my browser gets stuck!

ShaheenaKlim

@eyeverve: Yes, and I am very much in love with it. Have my Gmail and twitter shortcuts sitting on my start tray.