Python + Mozilla/XUL/...

[Trent Mick]

[A.M. Kuchling wrote]
> On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:38:44 -0800, 
> 	Trent Mick <trentm at ActiveState.com> wrote:
> > cool. I can now generate high-quality (using XUL, CSS, etc.) and capable
> > (using PyXPCOM components) UI fairly quickly in Komodo. Sometimes the
> > lack of documentation in the Mozilla world is frustrating. But, as you
> 
> My stumbling block has always been debugging XUL; once my interface
> reaches a certain complexity level, errors in the XUL resulting in no
> display, but there's no indication of what the error is.  Have you run
> into this, and how do you cope with it?  Is there a XUL
> error-message-spewing console that I'm missing?

Touche. Beyond the feedback for non-well-formed XML there isn't much
feedback on XUL errors. There *is* the debug view of rendered XUL: put a
debug="1" attribute on any tag. This will render the XUL with little
spring graphics trying to show you how the padding, flex, etc, are
working. Mostly though it is a matter of a large learning curve, getting
experience on what works, using XUL in the Mozilla tree as inspiration,
and a lot of small trial and error experiments.

Mozilla *does* have a logging framework sprinkled lightly (and I think,
inconsistently) around, that can be turned on with certain build
options. We haven't looked at that for XUL rendering though.


Trent


-- 
Trent Mick
TrentM at ActiveState.com