Venkman is supported by a framework designed to reduce the amount of overhead required to write a JavaScript application. What follows is an overview of the functionality provided by the framework.

• Defining a command. The first step in creating functionality is to define a command. Commands are the boundry layer between the User Interface and the Application, as well as the Plugin to Application boundry. Commands are self documenting, and describe their argument lists in a machine (and human) readable manner.
  
  
• Dispatching a command. Once you have definied a command, you'll probably want to execute, or dispatch it. Commands that take arguments that can be expressed in a string can be dispatched with a single argument. Arguments such as JavaScript objects can be passed as well.
  
  
• Defining a menu. You'll want to provide users access to many of your commands. This usually involves placing it in a menu somewhere. Adding a command to a menu is as easy as placing the command name in a menu specification.
  
  
• Working with context menus. Context menus often carry a specific state with them. This state can be used to determine what menu items are available, and what parameter to pass to commands dispatched from the context menu.
  
  
• Content and objects behind floating views. Floating views require you to define XUL content nodes, and an underlying object to control it.
  
  
• Localization utilities. Applications often need to be translated to other languages. Venkman automates the process of importing messages from a string bundle as application variables. A single function provides a simple way to replace format specifiers in dynamic messages.
  
  
• Preference management. Reading and setting preferences is reduced to reading and writing a property on a special preference object. No preferences are written to disk until the user changes them.
  
  
• File map. An annotated list of the files referenced by the pages above.