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Creating Gecko Centric Web Applications |
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Company Overview |
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About CustomBrowser |
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Products |
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Building a Customized Web Application with Gecko |
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Gecko: Best Practices |
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Summary |
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Custom Browser, Inc. offers a suite of products
that allow home users and corporate users alike to customize and brand
their Internet browser to better server their needs. |
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Custom Browser is currently marketing itself as
a technology provider to Internet service providers, both local and
national. Several large Internet service providers could benefit from the
branding of their own product through the use of Custom Browser. |
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Custom Browser is also marketing itself to
existing Internet content providers that could leverage the Custom Browser
application to link into their large content reserves. This would create a
true Internet based client-server application suited to the exact needs of
the end user while locking them into a particular Internet content provider
at the same time. |
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CustomBrowser develops custom browser solutions
for home and corporate users. These
applications use an html layout component, which displays the web page, and
any UI built around the layout component.
Currently these applications use both Internet Explorer’s layout
component and “Gecko’s” layout component (in the form of an ActiveX
Control). |
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Company Overview |
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Building a Customized Web Application with Gecko |
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Using Gecko: Key Success Factors |
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Adding Features and Functionality to Gecko |
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Integrating and Deploying the Final Application |
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Gecko: Best Practices |
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Summary |
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The key to developing successful web
applications is utilizing Gecko technology such that a context is applied
to the resulting browser based application. |
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The user interface and underlying functionality
of the web application must allow the browser to differentiate itself from
standard off the shelf products. |
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The end result is that the user’s experience is
vastly facilitated by the browser. The browser should be able to conform to
the user’s tasks and help structure the content being delivered to the end
user whether it is standard HTML from the Internet or XML formatted data. |
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Graphical User Interface Components |
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Extending the DOM |
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API 1 (Theater Mode) |
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API 2 (Printing) |
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Using a layout component allows us to build
custom GUIs around it. Allowing us
to add common Windows features, to a browser using Gecko. Features such as Toolbars, Chevron List
Bars, Combo Box Integration, and MDI Implementations. |
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CustomBrowser can extend the DOM, by adding a
Custom Object Model implementation.
This is achieved by using variables and Object Models within the
application. |
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CustomBrowsers can add functionality to the
layout component, such as a Theater Mode, using the Windows API. |
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Custom Browsers can also take advantage of
printing functionality. |
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The advantages of using Gecko as opposed to
Internet Explore are most noted in final file sizes. Instead of a 40+MB
download (including IE), a browser made with Gecko could be a comfortable
4-5MB download. |
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Application Executable must be located in a bin
directory along with any Gecko DLLs. |
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Company Overview |
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Building a Customized Web Application with Gecko |
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Gecko: Best Practices |
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Using the Registry to Maintain State with Gecko |
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Using ADO |
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Utilizing XML |
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Versionless Software |
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Summary |
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Store Gecko related property values in the
registry |
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Default home pages. |
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Links |
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Passwords |
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Settings |
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User Profiles |
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Advantages |
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Adds strong Database support to Gecko based web
applications. |
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Use databases to store encrypted passwords,
store and index data coming from the Internet and also data entered by the
user on the client side. |
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Disadvantages |
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Increases final deployment size. |
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Compatibility Issues and additional
requirements. |
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Microsoft Centric Data Access Technologies |
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CGI scripts allow structured XML data to be sent
to the client, which can then be parsed with an HTTP based XML parser. |
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Client side data can be stored in XML rather
than the unstructured *.ini format. |
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Integration with ADO 2.1 can make even more
powerful applications. |
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<favorites>
<favorite>
<name>Mozilla.org</name>
<description>Open Source!</description>
<url>http://www.mozilla.org/</url>
</favorite>
<favorite>
<name>Custom Browser</name>
<description>Browsers</description>
<url>http://www.custombrowser.com/</url>
</favorite>
</favorites> |
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Create Functions in the Applications that can
receive parameters from HTML pages and then be executed by the application. |
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This is accomplished through the extended DOM. |
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Everything except layout component and extended
DOM is based on dynamically created XML from the server, allowing the
application to do virtually anything. |
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CustomBrowser is developing custom solutions
based on Gecko technology. |
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What’s coming… |
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Messaging System |
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Based on Gecko XML parsing, Gecko Layout engine
and Editor, and Jabber.org. |
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Fully Customizable Browser |
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Accomplished with Gecko, CDOM, and XML |
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