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Getting started with gluon
What is gluon
Gluon is a build tool and documentation for creating firefox-based browsers. Its goal is to simplify the process of creating web browsers to encourage competition and development within the space.
Getting help
If you are having problems with following these instructions, or with gluon in general, please contact us. You can create a discussion on github, ping @trickypr on the Fushra Discord.
System requirements
- OS: Linux and MacOS (If you are using windows, take a look at the Windows Guide)
- Gluon dependencies: NodeJS and npm
- Browser dependencies: Will be handled by bootstrapping
Getting started
The first thing you are going to need to do is to install Gluon. As it is a nodejs program it can be installed through npm or yarn.
npm install -g gluon-build@next
# or
yarn global add gluon-build@next
# Note: Linux and mac users may have to run the above command with sudo
Now create a git repo and clone it to your local machine. Then run the following:
gluon setup-project
This will ask you a variety of questions in relation to your project setup. Firstly, the release of the browser you want to bind to.
? Select a product to fork › - Use arrow-keys. Return to submit.
❯ Firefox stable
Firefox extended support (older)
Firefox extended support (newer)
Firefox developer edition (Not recommended)
Firefox beta (Not recommended)
You can change what version you are bound to at any time. Pulse Browser currently uses the stable releases, but if you want a lower workload, the newer Extended Support releases might be good for you.
Then next is the version of the browser you want to use. By default melon will populate this with the latest version available, which we recommend using. Simply click enter to accept.
? Enter the version of this product › 102.0.1
Next it will ask for the name of your browser. Avoid references to Firefox or other Mozilla brands, as this is likely to lead to trademark and copyright issues down the road.
? Enter a product name › Gluon Example Browser
Vendor is the company (or solo developer) who is creating the browser.
? Enter a vendor › Fushra
The appid follows reverse dns naming conventions. For example, Fushra owns the domain fushra.com, so our browser is com.fushra.browser.desktop. If you do not have a domain, you can use your username / psudomim as the appid, e.g. trickypr.watermelon.
? Enter an appid › dev.gluon.example
Next you need to chose a starting template for your browser. You can go with userchrome, where you apply css changes to firefox or custom html, where you have to write everything (tabs, navigation, search boxes) yourself. We generally recommend userchrome for new users, as it has the lowest learning curve. Additionally, you can chose to use no template.
Now you have created the directory structure for your project, you can build it for the first time. First, ask melon to download the firefox source.
gluon download
If you are running this for the first time, you will need to install the firefox dependencies. You can do this via boostrapping:
gluon bootstrap
After the source code has been downloaded, the changes to firefox described in the source code must be applied.
gluon import
Finally, you can start building the firefox source code. This takes around an hour and a half on my computer, but the binary output will be cached, making later builds faster
gluon build
Now you can finally start the browser!
gluon run