XPToolkit Project

Vision: We make cross-platform user interfaces as easy to build and customize as web pages.

Elevator Story: straight up or touchy-feely.

Who are we, and what are we doing here?

Owners: Who is in charge of what module?

How do I get plugged in? We want all our discussions to be open to the net, and captured for the benefit of those who join later. We need your help.  Please discuss anything/everything about this project on the XPFE newsgroup.  If we're not keeping you in the loop, YELL at us!  If all else fails, squeal on us to our manager.

Where do I start? Here are the important documents you should read to get up to speed on how to write code using the XPToolkit.

• Architectural Outline
• XUL Language Spec
• Broadcasters and Observers
• Dialog Cookbook

Project Documents:

Executive Overview:	Handout from a recent meeting with our executive sponsor at Netscape (and he bought it!).
Project Goals:	Just a few high-level goals.
Schedule:	No dates, due to Netscape's need to keep ship dates confidential.  Please let me know your thoughts on this, I'd like to be able to add dates for tasks at least.  (PDF format)

Requirements:

Toolbars	Toolbar requirements, spec, and examples
Menus	What we are providing in our menu service.
Progress Bar	Meter or barber pole: no more cylon.
Image Button/Menu Button	Buttons that execute commands or show menus/trees when clicked on.
Necessary Widgets	A rather complete list of widgets, with screens shots that identify them, but aren't the UE-approved appearance.
XP Widget Set	User Experience spec for Netscape's GFX widgets.
<your widget/service>	Please explore requirements before designing.

Engineering Documents

Architectural Outline:	XPToolkit 101, a required prerequisite.
Architecture Brown Bag:	A talk given by Scott Collins (MP3 format).
XUL & RDF:	An essay on the implementation of AOM, by David Hyatt
Command Architecture:	How menus & widgets execute commands
Broadcasters and Observers	Broadcasters, Observers, and You
Content and Focus	Handling Focus with Context Nodes
Drag and Drop Architecture:	Requirements,Spec, Design doc all-in-one
XUL Language Spec	Beginning XUL
XUL Window Language:	Also dated, and in need of update.
AppServices/AppCore:	Here's the beef on how to hotwire a widget.
Dialog Cookbook	How to write a dialog
Birthing a Widget	How to write a new widget.
The Widget Plan	Written to justify our approach. Somewhat dated.
Widget Implementations:	GFX or Native?  This doc tries to sort it out. A bit dated.

Widget Specifications

Toolbar Spec	Syntax and examples for the toolbars
Tree Spec	Syntax and examples of trees
Menu Spec:	How menus work.
Progress Meter Spec	Syntax and examples for a progress meter
Image Button/Menu Button Spec	Syntax and examples for buttons

Older Stuff that may still be of some interest.

And now for something Completely Different...