Creating Python GUI Applications using XULRunner

About XULRunner

Setup

Running

Customizing

Packaging

Useful Resources

FAQ

About XULRunner

XULRunner is a Mozilla runtime package that can be used to bootstrap rich applications such as Firefox and Thunderbird. It provides an innovative technology that developers can use to enrich and integrate their desktop applications. Applications can be written in any Mozilla supported technologies, such as HTML, XHTML, SVG, XUL, CSS, JavaScript and of course Python.

Python comes into play in two areas in a XULRunner application. One is through XPCOM, a cross platform language-agnostic application communication layer and the other is through the DOM, which can be used to control user interactions.

Examples of XULRunner Applications

There are a lot of exciting applications that are built on top of the Mozilla application architecture, here are some rather cool examples:

Firefox (a web browser)

Thunderbird (an email client)

Songbird (a music player)

Miro (a streaming video player, uses Python/XPCOM)

Komodo Edit (and Komodo IDE, uses Python/XPCOM)

Check out the XULRunner Hall of Fame for a more comprehensive list.

Special thanks

Special thanks to Mark Hammond, who has been the main developer and continuing driver for the Mozilla Python related work (PyXPCOM and PyDOM). Through his work the rest of us can enjoy using the greatest programming language (Python) with one of today's most versatile UI toolkits (XULRunner).