Using Mozilla Prism on Linux

Filed Under Mozilla

Mozilla Labs recently released the Prism prototype for Linux. What is Prism? From the site:
“Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.” The site holds a lot more detail, here. If you are familiar with Webrunner, it is now this. Oversimplifying it, Prism gives you a web browser without all the “browseriness”. You click an icon and it looks just like an app on your desktop. You get a title bar and browser window and the web app itself. The concept is to turn web applications into desktop apps.

Initial reaction to Prism itself has included excitement, yawns, typical “Opera has been capable of this for years!” comments and controversy. I figured I would try it out on my Mandriva 2008 system and write about my experience.

Installation was very simple:
1. Download Prism
2. Extract with “tar -xvjf prism-0.8-linux.tar.bz2 -C /opt ”
3. From the terminal type “/opt/prism/prism”
4. Done
You can create a shortcut on your desktop to the executable for convenience sake. I simply dowloaded and extracted it to my home folder and run it from there. I’m sure there are a variety of ways you can install and run it.

Running Prism:
A box opens up, showing you this:

You then put in the URL of the web application or site and give it a name. You can decide if you want to show the location bar, show status notifications and progress, and enable navigation keys. You are also given a choice to create a shortcut to the desktop. Windows users can also create a shortcut to the start menu and quick launch bar. Windows users also can choose an icon and have a mysterious “Advanced” button. The Linux client lacks these options but we can make any of that happen ourselves, with the exception of “Advanced”, which I cannot tell you about until I have the patience to boot into Windows.

Using Prism:
For something billed as a “prototype”, it has worked very well for me. Here is a breakdown of my limited use.

Apps that worked perfectly:
Google Apps (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Docs & Spreadsheets)
Zoho
30boxes (which always makes me think of the “Weeds” theme song”)
37signal’s Backpack (I am a calendar app whore)

Problematic but workable:
Gmail worked fine, except when I tried to compose a message. I had to switch to “Plain Text” in order to write an email.
Yahoo Mail gave me trouble, when I switched to Yahoo Mail Classic I had no problem.
Once I got flashplayer running, I was able to use YouTube.

Not working:
Buzzwords, the online word processor.
Pandora. I read someone has it working, I don’t know if it is on Linux though. No worky for me.
Since this isn’t billed as a final version, my complaints about what works or didn’t work are better filed as bug reports. I will say I was surprised at the success I had. It was pretty smooth sailing.

Thoughts:
I like Prism. It has become part of my daily routine. It seems counter intuitive, but I like the idea of stripping the web apps out of my web browser. Running four fat apps at once in different tabs has always bugged me. Now I can use my browser for web surfing, Prism for accessing web apps. People that have been screaming about what a memory hog Firefox is, this is one way to combat it. Not ideal, but it is one solution. It is nice to click an icon on my desktop and be brought to 30boxes. It makes it feel like I am using a program. Typing this and reading it, I realize it makes absolutely no sense, but it is the way it feels.

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Using Prism is like using a toaster oven as opposed to using the whole oven, Firefox. A one cup coffee maker instead of making a whole pot… you see where I am going with this. As much as I like it and think others will, it isn’t even what is important about Prism to me. What is important about Prism to you, then? Glad you asked.

*Distributions can use Prism to make their own “Newbie Edition” ala gOS. The initial success of gOS is undeniable. Prism is the same idea behind gOS’s icons, only executed better. The mythical grandmother that we are all trying to convert to Linux can just click the MySpace button or Google Maps button and so on and so forth. A big barrier to Linux adoption then no longer exists. They see things they are familiar with. Lets just hope grandma’s webcam works with Linux! Granny Hotornot will be good to go. Kidding aside, as I’ve argued in the past, it isn’t the grandmas we should be chasing. It is the YouTube generation. Customized Prism launchers to their favorite sites will help pull in the less technically savvy of their ranks.
* Distributions can make money from Prism. Prism allows you to drop a “GMail” or “Facebook” or whatever icon right on the desktop. This could turn into a revenue stream for the distributions. It might be worth it for Zoho to get a leg up on the other online office suites by buying some real estate on Mandriva One, for instance. Mandriva then benefits by saving space on the One disc, keeping OpenOffice.org off but available as a download after installation. Google would be hard to beat here. If I were starting out, like Buzzwords, I’d jump in before Google gets in. I can think of a bunch of online apps that would benefit in this way.
* Making your cross-platform web app just got easier. It seems like it would be fairly trivial to bundle prism with your own .app link. Distribute it and you are good to go.

Overall I am happy with Prism. I do find myself using it regularly. Obviously, if you prefer to have these apps running in a browser then you won’t find it compelling. You could tweak your browser yourself to run like Prism. I think Prism has a bigger upside for Linux than Windows or OS X, for the reasons stated above. I’m glad to see Mozilla trying some new things. Some of the future ideas, like Firefox 3 integration and offline data storage and 3D graphics hardware access sound very interesting. Give it a try, you may find yourself surprised like me and using it daily.

Pictures below are Prism running YouTube and of the ugly default icon created.