Customer Reviews

Rapid Application Development with Mozilla

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most good programming books have clear examples and good Appendices.

This book, unfortunately, decided to take the examples and the Appendix and shuffle them together.

Code examples for the 'Note Taker' application are hard to follow on first read through. Too much detail is given for tag options (that should have been in appendices), and the example app is never displayed in full.

It may just be me, but I learn quicker if I can see something practical and then have it explained. I can identify pieces of a puzzle much better if I know the context of each piece beforehand.

It may be "Rapid Application" Development, but I'm afraid it isn't Rapid "Application Development" in my opinion. It's obviously written by someone with a deep understanding of Mozilla application development - I just wished that they had tested it on some Mozilla newbies and taken on board feedback before publishing!

I have amassed a large collection of guidebooks, learn-by-example books, and technical reference manuals over the years. I have a fairly short temper when it comes to poorly written books, so I tend to feel them out either at the book store, or if possible, online.

RAD w/Mozilla is no exception. I downloaded the free PDF version from the publisher's website, and have for the last 4 hours, been beating myself senseless trying to make heads/tails of the example code. In a word: Useless.

While the book itself is written in easy-to-read manner gramatically, it absolutely fails as a step-by-step guide for building an app with Mozilla.

Quite simply, the author has spent zero time, or so it seems, consolidating his examples. The slipshod manner in which he presents the examples, by scattering a piece here, a piece there, leaves the reader completely lost as to the continuity of the code. I find myself backtracking from chapter three to chapter two in order to make any sense of the NoteTaker code, and even then, nothing coalesces.

Don't buy this book, it's just awful. Instead, download the PDF available on the publisher's website. Either way, you, the reader, absolutely must follow each section of the book alongside the Errata on McFarlane's website. Without this, the book is nothing more than kindling.

This is one of the most fascinating technical books I've read in some time. This book teaches something you want to know about, if you are a web programmer. Your education is not complete without it. You can definitely handle this, too. Discover why RAD on Mozilla is cool.

Nigel McFarlane's book offers an introduction to the vast of the capabilities of the Mozilla browser. Want to build an application? Download and install a copy of Mozilla (it's free), get this book, and start exploring Mozilla's vastly sophisticated application development framework. You don't need deep expertise in Mozilla internals to get applications started. I am working on a project for a client that will emphasize graphics. This book is helping me get started with it, even though I have no deep knowledge of Mozilla's workings. I'm now dabbling with XML User Interface Language (XUL), XML Binding Language (XBL), and Resource Description Framework (RDF), thanks to this book. I'm also getting indirect exposure to Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), MathML, and Chemistry Markup Language (CML), as an unexpected side benefit. The Mozilla.org developers have implemented to some degree these interesting and deeply complex XML-related standards.

The book is easy to read. McFarlane is able to take extremely complex material and explain it in a way most people will understand. Go ahead, read the first few of Chapters 1 and 15: they will draw your interest and bring you into the next paragraph and the next. You can pick up this book, read the introductory material, and go right into Mozilla and start working. You will understand what McFarlane is talking about. The writing format should sustain your interest in experimenting and learning more and then going on to do your own applications.

I personally appreciate the choice of font, line spacing and font size. It seems easier on bifocal equipped older folks such as me. Each chapter begins with interesting diagrams referred to as "Not Perfectly Accurate (NPA) diagrams". They help you see how the chapter topic fits in to the application class object framework being discussed. There are all the things you come to expect of a good tech book: numerous screenshots, well-laid out tables, plenty of source code to dabble with. The publisher has done an excellent job of laying out and producing the book. There are very few typos compared to those littering many other technical books.

This book is going to give programmers using the Mozilla platform for applications a competitive edge. Mozilla, today, is available in many forms and is widely deployed. AOL deploys Mozilla in those stupid tin CD cans, and that gives Mozilla enormous critical mass. You can download Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird right now if you would like lighter-weight browser or email clients, respectively. Mozilla is catching on, and it is getting better every day. I highly recommend that you buy and read this book and then do some apps with Mozilla.

McFarlane suggests you visit his web site http://www.nigelmcfarlane.com/ , and it doesn't exist. Some readers might buy a book on the strength of the topic, the book examples, and the author's promise of downloadable source code. It can be disappointing not to see the promised web site and source code. But don't worry, the publisher offers downloadable source code through http://authors.phptr.com/mcfarlane. My other concern is that I wish this book were physically a bit larger in size. I like 8.5 inch X 11 inch page formats for books with a lot of screen shots and tabular data.

An overall must-have book.

Nigel McFarlane has produced one of the most extensive books on application development using Mozilla that I have seen. His writing style is easy to follow and he wisely walks the reader through the creation of a useful example program. Longtime programmers will recognize the traditional "Hello, World" program as a starting point for learning how to program Mozilla. From this small beginning he moves the reader forward to writing a complete program. The coverage of Mozilla is thorough and provides the reader with all the basics they need to have a solid foundation in Mozilla. The XML User interface Language (XUL) is clearly described, the available tools extensively described and explained, and all the other important areas are covered including Listboxes, Chrome, Overlays, Trees, Events, Forms, Menus, Layout, Scripting, RDF, Bindings, XPCOM, and anything else you may need to know. This will not make you a Mozilla expert but it will give you all the basic information you need to program basic applications and understand more advanced books and articles. "Rapid Application Development with Mozilla" is a highly recommended purchase for anyone interested in programming web applications with Mozilla and Nigel McFarlane is the right author to take you to your goals.

This book is packed with a great deal of information about the various objects and tags available for development, but not particularly well organized for those who are just trying to learn this platform. As mentioned in a previous review, much of the content dealing with all of the available options and styles would have been more appropriately placed in an appendix, and more detailed code examples should have been provided. The chapter on RDF (which is probably one of the most difficult aspects of Mozilla programming) was poorly done. The author goes into excessive detail of the most fundemental aspects that even a beginning programmer would glaze over then suddenly jumps into this very confusing syntax leaving the reader lost in space. You will need to go to the XUL Planet site for better instruction.

Overall, this book would make a great reference for those already familiar with this platform, but those learning it will have to find supplemental material for good instruction.

Surely the browser wars are over? Microsoft's Internet Exploreer won, right? Certainly, on desktops, IE is said to be on over 90%, with the rest divvied up between Netscape, Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera and sundry others. Plus, by now most browsers have the same core functionality. So on your desktop, regardless of what browser you are currently using, why switch to another type anyway? As opposed to following the upgrade path for your browser.

Given all this, you might askk why we need a book on Mozilla? Game over, right? Well, Mozilla has become far more than just a browser. It is now a chassis or platform upon which to quickly develop applications. It has a library of over 1000 objects, GUI and nonGUI, that have been extensively tested. The idea is that you can then easily write your application in JavaScript, using this library. By the way, JavaScript is the only choice. You might compare Mozilla to java and its now large library, or to C++ and its Standard Template Library.

The book points out repeatedly that this is open source and free. Here, free is the operative word. Because, as McFarlane is careful to note, for the typical developer, open source Mozilla is moot. If you want rapid development, you have neither the time or inclination to acquaint yourself with the source at a level that you can usefully change it.

The book does not seem to say the following, but I offer it as extra guidance. If you want to compare Mozilla with a Microsoft product of similar functionality, then that is not IE. Rather, it might be Visual Studio .NET. Also, in the open source arena, another alternative to Mozilla is Eclipse, donated by IBM. Eclipse is also extensible, but where you program in Java.

This book gives a very thorough introduction to the Mozilla platform. Some familiarity with XML, CSS and especially javascript and programming in general is certainly useful.

It takes a little time to get used to McFarlane's style, and the structure of the book. If you're in a hurry you might be better of with the O'Reilly Mozilla book.

This book looks quite thorough from a theoretical point of view. It even comprises a small overview of javascript.
Fundamental concepts of the Mozilla platform, like XUL, XBL, RDF, XPCOM and the structure of Mozilla applications, to name just a few, are explained thoroughly and clearly.

If you're serious about Mozilla programming, and have the patience to get a firm grasp of the basics, this is an excellent book.

Finally, a good book about application development with mozilla is available. Cross out the 'Rapid' from the title if you don't like it, because the book actually covers application development with mozilla in general (although it really is rapid with mozilla ;) ).

This book is a must for anybody out there who's up to develop user interfaces or lightweight, portable applications and doesn't want to use Eclipse and Java.
Virtually everything you need to know is covered in clear and unmistakeable descriptions. Examples are included and the good structuring helps using the book as a reference.

Five gold-stars to you, Mr. McFarlane! Within one day your book made it into the hall of fame on my bookshelf!

As a software professional, I thought I knew about Mozilla. I was under the impression that it was nothing more than the open source version of the Netscape browser. But after reading this book, I was quickly corrected in my thinking. Mozilla isn't just a browser. It's a software development platform that combines XML, scripting, and objects in order to allow for rapid application development of web-enabled applications. While browsers can be part of that application, there is much more there than I originally thought.

The book starts out by explaining XML User-interface Language, or XUL. This is the foundation of the design layout of Mozilla applications. JavaScript manipulation of the document object model is then covered so that you can build logic into your applications. The concepts of RDF for data storage and XPCOM for object management round out the major new concepts you'll learn. Throughout the book, you will build an application called NoteTaker that will allow you to create "notes" about web pages that will pop up whenever you display that web page. The examples are clear and the end product of the application is something that is actually useful when you get done with it.

Conclusion
If you are looking for an open-source platform for rapidly building web-enabled applications, you should explore the use of Mozilla. And if you do, this is the perfect book to get you started.

If you're thinking about learning XUL, this is a must have. I haven't been able to put the book down since it arrived at my door. The best part of it yet has been the explanations about javascript. This is as valuable for XUL as it is for normal web development. I've already started and almost completed building my first mozilla application.