Development resources - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Development resources

From MozillaZine Knowledge Base

Websites that are useful for Mozilla development. This knowledge base also has a few articles on extension development.

Contents [hide] 1 XUL 2 XBL 3 JavaScript 4 DOM 5 XPCOM / XPConnect 6 CSS 7 RDF 8 Books 9 Others

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XUL

XML User Interface Language, widely used in Mozilla to specify user interfaces in a platform-independent way

• XulPlanet the premier resource for XUL and general Mozilla development on the internet
  • Introductory document
  • XUL elements reference
• XUL page at developer.mozilla.org
• XUL Programmer's Reference XUL programmer's reference from mozilla.org (slightly dated)
• mozilla.org XUL documentation contaning many links to resources, a lot of which are no longer maintained
• Chapter Two: XUL Layout from Rapid Application Development with Mozilla

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XBL

Extensible Binding Language

• Introduction to XBL from XulPlanet's XUL tutorial
• XBL page at developer.mozilla.org
• Chapter Fifteen: XBL Bindings from Rapid Application Development with Mozilla
• XBL Specifcation from mozilla.org
• mozilla.org XBL documentation much of whch is unmaintained

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JavaScript

An interpreted language, used for scripting UI in Mozilla

• JavaScript page at developer.mozilla.org
• Chapter Five: Scripting from "Rapid Application Development with Mozilla" —a great introduction to JavaScript and its place in Mozilla.
• ECMA-262 Edition 3 (PDF) the formal JavaScript specification
• JavaScript Central at Netscape Devedge
• JavaScript Language Resources at mozilla.org

• Douglas Crockford's JavaScript links
• JavaScript Optimization Techniques
• JavaScript Closures
• Articles from this knowledge base related to JavaScript

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DOM

Document Object Model, an interface that allows scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of (HTML/XML) documents

• DOM page at developer.mozilla.org
• DOM Specifications from the w3c DOM Working Group
• Mozilla AOM Reference - A guide to the HTML/XUL DOM as implemened in Mozilla
• XulPlanet Object Reference generated from the source code
• Gecko DOM Reference
• What does each DOM Level bring? - Gives an overview of the different DOM Levels and the support Mozilla offers for each of them.

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XPCOM / XPConnect

Cross-platform Component Object Model and A bridge to XPCOM components for JavaScript

• XPCOM page at developer.mozilla.org
• XPCOM Reference - XulPlanet's guide to to the XPCOM interfaces implemented by Mozilla, generated from the source code.
  • How to instantiate XPCOM components and services.

• Using XPCOM in JavaScript without leaking - essential reading for all XPCOM / JS developers
• mozilla.org XPCOM page containing a variety of links to useful XPCOM documents.
• Mozilla-JavaScript wiki unofficial, XPCOM + JavaScript documentation & samples
• Chapter Sixteen: XPCOM from Rapid Application Development with Mozilla

• Creating XPCOM Components - A book for developers wishing to create their own XPCOM components in languages such as C++, JavaScript and Python.
• A chapter with examples of C++ and JavaScript components from Creating Applications with Mozilla.
• Creating a C++ XPCOM component step-by-step tutorial on .
• PyXPCOM - developing Python XPCOM components

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CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

• CSS Specifications from the w3c
• CSS page at developer.mozilla.org
• Mozilla.org page on CSS
• The list of Mozilla-specific CSS properties

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RDF

Resource Definition Framework

• mozilla.org RDF documentation somewhat unmaintained but with many useful links
• w3c RDF page with specifcations and links to articles for beginners
• Introduction to RDF from XulPlanet's XUL tutorial
• Introduction to RDF model from XulPlanet. General information for beginners.
• ESW wiki, RDF and Semantic Web wiki
• RDF page at developer.mozilla.org
• Chapter Eleven: RDF from Rapid Application Development with Mozilla

• How to create In-memory RDF from remote XML

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Books

A bound publication of 49 or more pages that is not a magazine or periodical.

• Creating Applications With Mozilla O'Reilly's reference - released at about same time as Mozilla 1.0 and avaliable online as a collection of HTML files.
• Rapid Application Development With Mozilla. Available as a set of compressed PDF files and online as a collection of XHTML files. More up to date and more detailed than the O'Reilly offering.

• has a list of Mozilla and Firefox-related books.

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Others

Various useful links

• LXR - Search the Mozilla source code
• Packaging Firefox/Thunderbird Extensions - A reference for the Firefox 0.9+ packaging format
• Organized Links to Existing Content - categorized list of mozilla.org docs.