Burning Chrome

Say hello to my IDL friend...

I really like XULRunner's elegant simplicity. No clutter around your environment, and it starts with a clean slate every time you call on it to run a XUL app. For those who develop applications with flat chrome, this is very nice.

One thing I've noticed missing, though. Creating your own component IDL's requires something that doesn't come with the nightlies: the XPIDL compiler.

I should have seen it coming. Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Your average XULRunner user won't need it -- it's strictly a development tool. Plus, anyone who's really developing entirely new applications should probably have compiled their own build.

If only my laptop could compile XULRunner... Microsoft VC6 has crashed at least three times trying to complete a XULRunner compile. So, I've decided to compile a standalone XPCOM application from Mozilla 1.8 branch, and hope that compiles IDL files well enough for XULRunner. That, and I have to teach myself how to use XPIDL... I only hope Chapter 8 of Creating Applications With Mozilla is still up-to-date, and that XPIDL-generated code in one Mozilla executable works just as well in others.