Now that Webkit is fully opensource... Zotero for Safari

Christophe S · May 28, 2008

Hello,

Sorry to ask about something that was already asked plenty of times and answered in the FAQ, but the main reason was about the "non-open" code from others browsers. So, now that Apple released the full source code of Safari as open source, would it be possible to think about a Zotero for Safari?

dstillman · May 28, 2008

The FAQ entry may be a bit misleading. The open-source, cross-platform nature of Firefox was a primary consideration in our choosing it as a platform, but it is the Mozilla platform's extensibility, with technologies like XUL, JS, XPCOM and mozStorage, that allows us to create Zotero. Safari doesn't have an extension architecture: Safari "extensions" are unsupported hacks that rely on private, undocumented, reverse-engineered APIs (which is why they often break between versions). They're also compiled, Mac-only bundles built in Cocoa/Objective-C, as opposed to cross-platform, script-based extensions. And, of course, there's no Linux version of Safari at all.

Also, for what it's worth, Safari isn't open-source; WebKit, the underlying engine, is. In other words, you can't build your own version of Safari.

Timoslav · July 30, 2010

Hi guys,

I guess there is a new reason to discuss the Safari issue. Now, that Apple released the Safari Extension Gallery, it could be possible to provide custom extensions. What about Zotero? Some news about that?

Thx!

ajlyon · July 30, 2010

No. The current development team doesn't have the resources to completely rewrite Zotero. As has been stated time and again, motivated developers or deep-pocketed supporters are welcome to work on extensions for other browsers that could interface with stand-alone Zotero (which will run in XULRunner or Firefox) or with the server.