This post is like a month overdue. Bear with me, because it’s still relevant.
I had started to hate Firefox 2 (on the Mac) a few months back. It was getting bloated and very unstable with multiple tabs open. While I still use it for web development (Web Developer, FireBug with YSlow, Aardvark, etc…), I made the switch to Camino after a friend gave me a tour of the shortcut keys it had.
Sidenote: Yes… Opera… I’ve probably used you every time a new version came out, but for some reason, I can never stay with you. Maybe it’s because you’re so perfect, so far from the competition… 
Camino is definitely a lot more fast, robust, and responsive, and so it has become my browser of choice. Who knows if Opera or Safari will ever take its place… Of course, very recently, I’ve started to use the Firefox 3 Beta 2 exclusively, with Safari and Camino running in the background (another post all on its own as to why I do this).
Enter Prism (formerly known as WebRunner)
To be honest, I have web apps that I have “running” constantly. In other words, I have webpages open in tabs, or access them frequently over the course of the day. I have these sites be the shortcuts on the bookmark bar in Safari. That way, I can quickly access them with command + number. Command + 1 = Gmail. Command + 2 = Google Reader. Command + 3 Facebook… so on and so forth.
I was very excited to hear about WebRunner, and went and tried it out. Now called Prism, it basically does these things:
Separate process: When the webapp goes down or locks up, I don’t want anything else affected. Thankfully, Firefox does have session restore, but that is beside the point. When I open many tabs and have several webapps running in a browser, things get slow and unstable after a day or two.
Minimal UI: A generic browser UI is not needed for webapps. If any UI is present, make it specific to the webapp I am using.
Basic desktop integration: Create shortcuts to start the webapp, add ability to show specialized icons in the tray or dock and ability to display notifications.
Platform with extensions: I don’t want to download a full browser runtime for each webapp. I do want to be able to add some custom code/features that are not directly supported in the webapp. I should be able to install one runtime and then get packages or extensions for each webapp. Think Firefox extensions or Greasemonkey scripts. These extensions should be able to tweak the SSB UI as well.
Open external links in real browser: If I click a link in the webapp that opens a new site, don’t change my webapp browser window. Open all external links in my default/real browser.
In summary, it’s a very streamlined (I mean streamlined) browser, meant to do one thing: serve up a web application. Currently, what’s bothering me is that I’m only able to run a single instance of Prism, and only a single web app at a time.
For now, I’m just going to have it open to Gmail all the time. This way, I can command+tab into my email client. Gone are the days of opening a browser and typing command + 1 or typing gmail.com in Quicksilver. Wee!
What’s the Point?
I hear you. What’s all of this hype for? So I get a crappier browser that does less. However, I feel like bridging that gap between the web apps, only accessible by typing out an address or clicking/shortcut keying into a browser window, and desktop apps, accessible by command + tab or running the application by double clicking on an icon (or single-click on the Dock), is going to be very important in the future. This takes a web application and gives it it’s own container (its own separate process), which makes it behave a lot more like a desktop application.
Hey. Didn’t you deride me about wanting to have a separate “app” for my webapps not too long ago? I’ll admit that just from the things you’ve pointed Prism seems like a more comprehensive solution, but the basic goal is the same as what I was talking to you about – Hana. Although I’ve now started to use Fluid (Fluidapp.com). Both are really basic apps that use webkit but they all serve a similar purpose, no? There is another one that I used to use called Mailplane, which is an app specifically for Gmail, which is great if you have multiple Gmail accounts.
I actually don’t remember when I “derided” you, heh. Can you clarify so I can tyr to see if I didn’t know what I was talking about?
About Fluid, it’s looks great. I can’t get it work, but it seems to be pretty good.
Also, I’m working on another post about desktop vs web applications, so be sure to check that out.
Deride was probably the wrong word.
Fluid definitely needs to be fleshed out and polished. I’ve got it working with Gmail/Gcal/Facebook right now. It’s nice that it uses the icons – too bad the resolution looks really crappy in the dock. Prism still sounds like a more full-fledge solution, so I’ll have to look at it sometime soon in the future.
As for webapps – I still like having everything available to me offline. At the very least as a backup if not synchronised. That’s why I wish something like Google Gears would roll out more. Of course, even better would be ubiquitous, reliable, high-speed internet access.
PS. The font in the comment text box is small and horrible. Is that something on my end or yours?
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