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2.0 Alpha 5 Release Notes

READ THIS Before You Build and Install

We only have a binary release now, and it is only known to work on win32.

Webclient 2.0 Alpha 5 depends on xulrunner 1.8.0.9. If you build webclient from source, you must first build xulrunner. For instructions on building xulrunner please visit http://www.mozilla.org/build/.

Installing the 2.0 Release

Win32

This section explains how to install and run webclient using the win32 binary distribution.

  1. Un-install any existing webclient installations.

  2. Install JDK 1.5 or later from http://java.sun.com/. Older JDKs may work but you're on your own for support.

  3. The binary distribution has a NetBeans 5.5 project file to ease building and running the automated and manual tests. It also has a non-ide build.xml file that allows building and running without an IDE. You can download NetBeans 5.5 from http://www.netbeans.org/. If you want to use the non-ide build file, you need Apache Ant, which can be downloaded from http://ant.apache.org/.

  4. Download the 20061206 nightly of xulrunner from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/nightly/2006-12-06-08-mozilla1.8.0/xulrunner-1.8.0.9.en-US.win32.zip. This is the build of xulrunner that most closely matches the code in Firefox 1.5.0.9, which is very stable for embedding. Unpack this zip in a fresh empty directory, called WEBCLIENT_DIST for the purposes of discussion here instructions. It is strongly recommended that the path to WEBCLIENT_DIST contain no spaces.

  5. Download the binary at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/blackwood/webclient/bin/win32/webclient_2_0_a5_win32.zip and unpack it into WEBCLIENT_DIST.

    At this point, you should have the following directories in WEBCLIENT_DIST:

    bin
javadocs
lib
netbeans
non-ide
test
xulrunner

    The contents of these directories are as follows.

    bin
    Native binaries for this OS
    javadocs
    JavaDocs for the public API
    lib
    Jar files for the public API and implementation
    netbeans
    A Netbeans 5.5 project directory that allows easily building and running the automated tests and sample app.
    non-ide
    A build.xml file for building and running the webclient tests and example browser without an IDE.
    test
    The source files for the automated tests and sample app.
    xulrunner
    The root directory of the xulrunner binary dist.

  6. IMPORTANT Before launching NetBeans or running ant, make sure WEBCLIENT_DIST/xulrunner is in your PATH.

    Once you have added WEBCLIENT_DIST/xulrunner to your PATH, verify that it works by opening up a command prompt, cding to the root directory of your machine, and typeing the command xulrunner. If you see a dialog titled "XULRunner" with "Mozilla XULRunner 1.8.0.9" as the first line, you are ok to proceed. Otherwise, don't continue with these instructions until you see this dialog. Click OK to exit the dialog.

  7. If you are using NetBeans

    1. Using the same command shell where you successfully ran the xulrunner command, start NetBeans 5.5 and use the File->Open Project... dialog to open the "netbeans" directory in the WEBCLIENT_DIST directory.

    2. Go to the "Files" tab, open the "webclient" node and edit the "webclient.properties" file.

      Adjust the browser.bin.dir property to point to the absolute path to the WEBCLIENT_DIST/xulrunner directory. This is the directory that contains the xulrunner.exe file. IMPORTANT: make sure this property does not contain any spaces and any backslashes in the path are escaped. On win32, you may have to use the funky "~" syntax. For example, Program Files may become PROGRA~1 and Documents and Settings may become DOCUME~1. To see what the "~" syntax is in your case do a dir /x in the parent directory.

      For example, on my machine, browser.bin.dir is C:\\DOCUME~1\\edburns\\MYDOCU~1\\tmp\\webclient-alpha-5\\xulrunner.

    3. Save the modified webclient.properties file.

    4. Back in the Project tab, Right-click on the "webclient" entry in the tree view and choose "Build Project".

    5. Once the project builds successfully, you may "run" or "test" it using the netbeans commands.

  8. If you are using the non-ide build with ant

    1. Using the same command shell in which you executed the xulrunner command, cd to the non-ide directory and copy build.properties.sample to build.properties. Edit the file according to the environment of your system. The same constraints about spaces and backslash characters apply here, as in the above steps for NetBeans.

    2. Run ant -projecthelp to see what targets are available.

Building the 2.0 Alpha 5 Release

Build Instructions -- Cross Platform

Build instructions pending. Obviously, it can be built, but documenting how to do so takes some time.

Uninstalling the 2.0 Alpha 5 Build

Uninstalling

  1. Stop any running mozilla or webclient instances

  2. Run the "clean" ant target.

Available and Unavailable Features

New Features for This Release

New Features from Previous Releases

The following methods are known to work. 


BrowserControlFactory.setAppData()

BrowserControlFactory.newBrowserControl()

BrowserControlFactory.deleteBrowserControl()

BrowserControlFactory.appTerminate()

BrowserControl.queryInterface() for the following interfaces

  BrowserControl.HISTORY_NAME
  BrowserControl.BROWSER_CONTROL_CANVAS_NAME
  BrowserControl.EVENT_REGISTRATION_NAME
  BrowserControl.NAVIGATION_NAME
  BrowserControl.CURRENT_PAGE_NAME

CurrentPage.getSelection()
CurrentPage.copyCurrentSelectionToSystemClipboard()
CurrentPage.copyCurrentSelectionHtmlToSystemClipboard()
CurrentPage.getCurrentURL()
CurrentPage.find()
CurrentPage.findNext()
CurrentPage.getDOM() (including getElementById())
CurrentPage.highlightSelection()
CurrentPage.selectAll()
CurrentPage.clearAllSelections()
CurrentPage.printPreview()
CurrentPage.getSource()


EventRegistration.addDocumentLoadListener() (including PageInfoListener)
EventRegistration.removeDocumentLoadListener()

History.canBack()
History.canForward()
History.back()
History.forward()

Full support for Java AWT KeyListener and MouseListener.

Navigation.loadURL()
Navigation.loadFromStream()
Navigation.refresh()
Navigation.stop()
Navigation.post()

Support for new windows popped up by the browser with chrome supplied
from Java.

Known Issues

Browser and General Issues

  • Webclient hasn't yet been stress tested, so there are probably lots of issues that will come up with a little use.

Printing

Printing is not yet implemented.

Plugins

You can run plugins inside webclient, but on win32, the Java plugin will not work. You must remove the java plugin. Please see the section on installing the win32 binary in this file.

Bookmarks and History

Bookmarks is not supported with XULRunner. Both the Bookmarks and History interfaces are incompletely implemented.

Profiles

If webclient is acting funny, it may be due to conflicting mozilla registry file. Follow the steps in the mozilla 1.7 release notes to remove the registry, then re-run mozilla 1.7 to generate a new registry.

Known Bugs