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Embedding Gecko Basics


Getting the Code


At the moment, the best way to get the files you will need to embed Gecko is to download and build the entire Mozilla source tree. This is actually a fairly simple process. Full instructions and appropriate links are available at mozilla.org/source.html. A second, component by component, method is under development, but is still at a beta stage. Information on this project can be found at www.mozilla.org/projects/embedding/bootstrap.html. In addition, work is also being done on developing a Gecko Runtime Environment, or GRE, which would support multiple applications built on Mozilla components using a single set of core libraries. This project lives at www.mozilla.org/projects/embedding/GRE.html. (If you intend to work component by component you must be particularly aware of issues of versioning and binary compatibility. For help in this area, look at mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/glue/Component_Reuse.html.)

First you must acquire some tools (basically a supported compiler, a Perl distribution, and some general purpose utilities). Then you must set up your computer environment. Next you must download the source. Assuming you are going to download the entire tree, there are two ways to do this: you can FTP a tarball of the entire tree (this is the simplest way, and it's guaranteed to compile, but it may not include the most recent additions to the code) or you can use CVS to get the absolutely most recent code or to do incremental updates. Once you have the tree and the tools and your environment is properly set up, all you have to do is run the appropriate provided makefile. There are detailed instructions for each of the supported platforms.

When the build is done, navigate to the mozilla/embedding/config directory. There you will find sample manifest files (all the names begin with "basebrowser") for embedding on each of the different platforms. These are samples only and they may not fit your needs completely, but they are a good place to start. There are also sample embedding projects for each platform that you can use as models. See mozilla.org/projects/embedding/examples/index.html


Written by: Ellen Evans | Comments, questions, complaints? Bug 141350
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