74292 - XUL to Aqua layer

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 117584

(Core :: XUL, enhancement)

Description

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

Mac users have two major problems with Mozilla that are blockers in terms of
browser selection:
1) Non-Mac-like UI
2) Performance

Currently, Fizzilla's menus are native, yet they are described in XUL making
them easier to maintain. I suggest this same approach be extended to the rest of
the browser window chrome. That is the information about the UI elements that
are there would come from XUL, but they would be displayed using the native UI
toolkit instead of Gecko.

Benefits:
1) Aqua look
2) Could still use XP JavaScript implementations of the commands bound to the UI
elements with XBL
3) No style system overhead--better performance
4) Less layout engine overhead--better performance

Comment 1

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

As discussed with Hyatt, this would be implemented by writing a plugin that
implemented the various native form controls, and then making the XBL talk to
the plugin instead of the XML.

We support that right now. Someone just has to write the plugin (hard) and the 
XBL to plugin glue code (easy).

This even works with theme switching.

Comment 2

[Patrick C. Beard]

We could also use the theme protocol to implement much of this. It can be used to 
draw buttons in various states, scrollbars, progress meters. This would save 
having to invent yet another plugin architecture.

Comment 3

[David Hyatt]

You do still have the style system overhead, even with native widgets.

Comment 4

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

beard: could you show me the relevant XBL file to do that? (I'm curious, if I
saw a sample I might be able to spot any problems. Don't worry about the XBL
file working; I'm just curious as to what it would look like.)

It's not that we just want the _look_ of native widgets here -- we want the
actual widgets themselves, including all their native key bindings, mouse 
handling behaviour, native drag and drop behaviour, and what have you.

Comment 5

[Adam Masri]

Is this a duplicate of bug 73812?

- Adam

Comment 6

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

This is not a duplicate of bug 73812. Setting dependency, although some folks
might disagree.

Comment 7

[Greg K.]

Ian, could this same concept be applied to connect with the OS 8/9 Appearance Mgr.?

Comment 8

[Patrick C. Beard]

Ian:  I don't know the necessary XBL, but the protocol handler I wrote lets you 
write various URIs like this:

theme:button?title=OK&width=100&height=32&pressed=false
theme:button?title=OK&width=100&height=32&pressed=true

This would produce a PNG image that can be used whereever other static skin 
images would be used. I chose PNG to properly communicate the alpha channel, 
because Aqua uses alpha blending extensively.

Comment 9

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

beard: that wouldn't handle things like mouse clicks and keyboard bindings
correctly though.

Comment 10

[nnooiissee]

this would seem to depend on bug 117584

Comment 11

[Greg K.]

In fact, this should probably be a duplicate of bug 117584, since that
accomplishes what this was intended to do.

Comment 12

[Anthon Pang]

Yes, the creator of the Pinstripe theme for Aqua used nsTheme.

http://www.kmgerich.com/pinstripe/pinstripe.html

Comment 13

[Greg K.]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 117584 ***