Creating Applications with Mozilla

This was the first Mozilla XUL book that I read; I now have Nigel McFarlane's book as well. I find it useful to have more than one reference book as I can often find things in one that are not in the other.I found this book quick and easy to read and a good introduction whilst also going into sufficent detail.Importantly for me it contains information on how to go about creating a remote application to run over the Internet and using serverside PHP, neither of which have I seen mentioned elsewhere.The book is not perfect but it is useful and I think some of the other reviewers have been unduly harsh; I am glad that I was not put off.

This book gives a solid grounding in the principles involved and acts as a primer to the nitty gritty of producing a XUL application. In practice, XUL is pretty easy but it's easy to be caught unawares which is where a book like this comes in. If you've ever wondered how to extend Mozilla with a new button, or why your chrome doesn't work, or why Mozilla ignores it, or how to write a new chrome application then this is the book for you. Learn the principles of XUL and things fall into place very easily.I am puzzled that other reviewers claim XUL and Mozilla are not ready for mainstream since the fact that an entire browser, mail, chat, editor, JS debugger and hundreds more third party extensions and apps have been written using it demonstrates it is. It certainly needs tools and add robustness, but it is already a viable and strong technology for producing platform neutral applications. It is well worth the money, however it should be revised to reflect the latest Mozilla developments. As an added bonus, the source for this book is actually online so you can evaluate it yourself at books.mozdev.org before buying it.