Using Mozilla Prism on Moodle Instance

I was reading the PAPER version of the May 19, 2009 E-Week, when I came across an article by J. Rapoza about Mozilla Prism.  Prism comes in two flavors–a firefox extension and a stand-alone application.

The purpose is to take a web app and run it in its own window, stripped of all tool bars and assorted browser enhancement clutter.  Supposedly, you can enter different parameters and add them to the desktop, the task bar, and the quick launch bar.

I selected the stand-alone version and installed it.  Once you extract, you will need to send the shortcut to the desktop for convenience.  When you launch, you can put the URL of your choice into the dialog box and select an icon.  It said that the fav icon of the website would be automatically used, but it didn’t work for me.  I got a default globe instead.

Prism is meant to use with web applications.  One web application that I use quite a lot is Moodle!  So I decided to test it with Prism.  I launched the application, added our instance into the URL box, and saved.  Unfortunately, every time you run it, you get the scary box that says this publisher is unknown and you are running a security risk by proceeding.  But if you click run anyway, it will bring up your application.

Moodle looks like this in Prism.

All the toolbars are gone (which means, of course, that if you NEED a toolbar as a matter of course, you probably should not be using prism for that particular website.)  The application is running in a separate window (so if your browser crashes, this window should not be affected).  The prism Moodle is accessible from my tool tray or from a convenient icon on my desktop.  In all other respects, Moodle works just like it always has.  Any link that opens in a new window also opens in a new Prism window.

As I worked with it awhile, I noticed that I missed being able to search, open new tabs, copy and paste, and bookmark sites as I created resources to add to my course.  I could certainly do that, but it required me to switch back and forth between windows rather than tabs.  I remember how long it took me to get used to tabs!  This was like going backwards.

I did like the cleaner interface, however.  I had more screen space since there were no toolbars.  I thought that for making screen captures in Camtasia or Captivate, it would be nice to have the more streamlined interface.

If you have tried it out with other applications, let me know which ones and how you liked it!