https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Electrolysis%2FBrowserBinding 2026-09-28T16:31:23Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.39.10 https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Electrolysis/BrowserBinding&diff=218079&oldid=prev 2010-04-23T19:00:03Z

<p>Created page with &#039;XUL applications use the &lt;code&gt;&lt;browser&gt;&lt;/code&gt; to create a browse-able web content widget. The &lt;code&gt;&lt;browser&gt;&lt;/code&gt; XBL [http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/…&#039;</p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>XUL applications use the &lt;code&gt;&lt;browser&gt;&lt;/code&gt; to create a browse-able web content widget. The &lt;code&gt;&lt;browser&gt;&lt;/code&gt; XBL [http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/content/widgets/browser.xml binding] exposes many useful properties.<br /> <br /> ==Background==<br /> <br /> In the world of Electrolysis, a browser enables out-of-process web content using the &lt;code&gt;remote&lt;/code&gt; attribute:<br /> <br /> &lt;browser remote=&quot;true&quot; ... /&gt;<br /> <br /> Out-of-process web content breaks many of the XBL properties. The DocShell is not valid so many of the core properties fail: &lt;code&gt;webNavigation&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;webProgress&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;contentWindow&lt;/code&gt; &amp; &lt;code&gt;contentDocument&lt;/code&gt;. These properties make up the foundation of many other properties as well.<br /> <br /> ==Objective==<br /> <br /> We can create an IPC-aware XBL binding, which extends the current &lt;code&gt;&lt;browser&gt;&lt;/code&gt; binding. The goal would be to override as many properties as possible, so the properties either work - or throw errors. We should not silently fail or cause errors far from the root cause.<br /> <br /> The IPC-aware XBL binding would live in the same XBL file the current non-IPC binding lives. We can use the &lt;code&gt;remote&lt;/code&gt; attribute to enable the IPC-aware binding.<br /> <br /> ==The Plan==<br /> <br /> The IPC-aware binding would use a content process script, loaded in its constructor using &lt;code&gt;messageManager&lt;/code&gt;. The content process script would setup some utility code that would send or receive messages from the chrome XBL binding.<br /> <br /> Some examples of content script helpers include:<br /> * WebProgress: Used to send the current URI from LocationChange which the XBL uses to implement &lt;code&gt;currentURI&lt;/code&gt;. Also used to update the &lt;code&gt;canGoBack&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;canGoForward&lt;/code&gt; properties.<br /> * DOMEvents: Used to listen for some DOM events, like DOMTitleChanged, and send a message back to chrome XBL. The XBL then uses the data, setting &lt;code&gt;contentTitle&lt;/code&gt; for example, and then also re-dispatches the DOM event into chrome.<br /> * WebNavigation: Used by the XBL to implement nsIWebNaviagtion-based methods like &lt;code&gt;goBack&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;goForward&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;loadURI&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;reload&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;stop&lt;/code&gt;.<br /> <br /> The current work is happening in {{bug|560827}}.</div>

MarkFinkle