Monday, August 4, 2008

about:mozilla - Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1, Localization news, AMO, Canvas text, and more…

In this issue…

  • Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available
  • Reviewing l10N goals
  • Becoming an AMO editor
  • Canvas text goes bidirectional
  • Mozilla funds SA translation team
  • Firefox 3.1: Smart Location Bar improvements
  • Mozilla’s localization dashboard
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available

The first developer milestone of the next release of Firefox - code named Shiretoko Alpha 1 - is now available for download. Shiretoko is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only. For more information, including a list of new features and links to release notes, please see the DevNews blog post.

Reviewing l10N goals

Seth Bindernagel writes, “Last week, a subset of the l10n-drivers team met in Paris to discuss many things related to l10n, including a review of goals that had been set last November before the lead-up to the release of Firefox 3. The goals were ambitious and listed many ways in which the team could create positive impact. Part of our work week was to review these goals and to find out what we did well, didn’t do well, and could do better as we create goals for the upcoming quarter.” Seth’s weblog post continues on to go through each goal in detail, discussing what went well and where things can be improved in the future.

Becoming an AMO editor

Mozilla Add-ons (AMO) is one of Mozilla’s most popular and important sites, and our Add-ons Editors are critical to maintaining a great experience for millions of add-on users. Justin Scott of the AMO team has posted an overview of what Editors do and how to get involved with with that aspect of Mozilla over at Justin’s weblog.

Canvas text goes bidirectional

Eric Butler writes, “The patch for the last of the major outstanding bugs with the WHATWG Canvas text API landed in time for a nearly spec compliant implementation to make it into Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1. I am pleased to say that Canvas now supports right-to-left text and bidirectional text resolution on its text drawing functions.” Canvas has undergone and will be undergoing other changes, as well. More information is available at Eric’s weblog.

Mozilla funds SA translation team

As reported by Tectonic, “South Africa’s award-winning multilingual software developer, Translate.org.za, has been awarded a grant by the Mozilla Corporation to extend its translation tools. Mozilla awarded the grant to Translate.org.za to further its work on Pootle, a web-based translation tool, as well as the Translate Toolkit. The grant also covers a still to be released offline translation tool.” For more details, read the full article at Tectonic, and Seth Bindernagel’s original blog post.

Firefox 3.1: Smart Location Bar improvements

Edward Lee, one of the primary developers of the Smart Location Bar (aka “Awesome Bar”), has written a blog post outlining some of the upcoming Smart Location Bar changes that will appear in Firefox 3.1. “[T]here’s some new ways to change what shows up in the Smart Location Bar such as restricting results to show only your history (and not your unvisited bookmarks) or matching only in the URL instead of also in the title. Additionally, you can see your Smart Keywords queries show up in the drop down.” For details, see Edward’s full blog post.

Mozilla’s localization dashboard

Seth Bindernagel has posted about Mozilla’s new “localization dashboard” that was created by Axel Hecht. “As our team tries to improve efficiency and outreach/service to localizers in our l10n process, this tool will greatly help in how we focus on and respond to community needs related to localization.” Seth’s post goes on to describe some of the features of the dashboard to help you get started.

Developer calendar

For an up-to-date list of the coming week’s Mozilla project meetings and events, please see the Mozilla Community Calendar wiki page.

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 now available for download

The first developer milestone of the next release of Firefox - code named Shiretoko Alpha 1 - is now available for download. Shiretoko is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only.

This Alpha of Shiretoko / Gecko 1.9.1 introduces several new features:

  • Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine
  • Text API for the element
  • Support for using border images
  • Support for JavaScript query selectors
  • Several improvements to the Smart Location Bar
  • A new tab switching behavior

Anyone interested in Shiretoko should read the release notes, as well as the “Firefox 3.1 For Developers” article on the Mozilla Developer Center before downloading. Please use the following links to download Shiretoko:

  • Windows: Shiretoko Alpha 1 Setup.exe
  • Mac OS X: Shiretoko Alpha 1.dmg
  • Linux: shiretoko-alpha1.tar.bz2

We would appreciate hearing about any feedback you have, or any bugs you may find.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

about:mozilla - Executive Director, Air Mozilla, Labs meetup, Firefox 3.1, Community Calendar, and more…

In this issue…

  • Mark Surman and the Mozilla Foundation
  • Air Mozilla, this Wednesday
  • Mozilla Labs Meetup, this Thursday
  • Firefox screencast contest winners
  • Control-Tab: A new (future) feature for Firefox
  • Firefox 3.1: Support for text attributes and spell checking
  • Mozilla Community Calendar
  • Firefox 3.0.1 released
  • Firefox 2.0.0.16 released
  • SeaMonkey 1.1.11 security release
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Mark Surman and the Mozilla Foundation

Mitchell Baker writes, “I’m thrilled to report that we’ve identified the person we believe should lead the Mozilla Foundation into a new stage of activity. That person is Mark Surman, the role is Mozilla Foundation Executive Director. The Mozilla Foundation Board of Directors and Mark would like the Mozilla community and Mark to meet before we make a final decision. We’re inviting interested parties to talk with Mark about the Mozilla Foundation and the Executive Director role, to develop a feel for how well Mark and the Mozilla project fit together.” More information is available at Mitchell’s weblog.

Air Mozilla, this Wednesday

Asa Dotzler will be hosting another exciting edition of Air Mozilla Live on Wednesday July 23rd at 11:00am Pacific time. The guests this week will be Mitchell Baker and Mark Surman. The Air Mozilla broadcast is your opportunity to meet Mark and ask questions about the Mozilla Foundation and the Executive Director role he is currently slated to fill. If you can’t make it to the live broadcast, you can still send your questions in ahead of time by email. More details are available at Asa’s weblog.

Mozilla Labs Meetup, this Thursday

It’s time for another Mozilla Labs Monthly Meetup. This month’s meetup will be held this Thursday, July 24th, 6pm at Mozilla’s office — 1981 Landings Drive, bldg K in Mountain View, California. There will be informal lightning talks and progress updates on the various Labs projects, as well as plenty of opportunity for discussion and hacking. We will be streaming the evening out to the Labs site. If you are in the Bay Area and would like to attend, please take a moment to RSVP by leaving a comment on the Mozilla Labs blog post.

Firefox screencast contest winners

The Firefox screencast contest is over, and there are now 50 new videos to accompany the articles in the SUMO Knowledge Base. The contest team is very happy with the result and is excited to finally announce the winners. For his work on “How to customize the toolbar,” the contest judges chose Cameron Roy as the grand prize winner. Other winners (one for the best sceencast for each article) will be contacted shortly about their prizes. Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest — you’ve helped improve the knowledge base immesurably, and your work will have a lasting impact on Firefox’s 180+ million users. Check out the SUMO weblog post for more information.

Control-Tab: A new (future) feature for Firefox

Jennifer Boriss writes, “Dao Gottwald has been working for a while on his Ctrl-Tab Firefox add-on. Ctrl-Tab has two parts: a filmstrip that allows the user to quickly jump to recently used tabs, and a tab preview mode. These features have been widely used, and lately we at Mozilla have been working to give them a home as a Firefox feature. We’re happy to announce the filmstrip of recently-viewed tabs landed today and will show up in tomorrow’s nightlies as a new Firefox feature.” It is currently expected that this feature will first appear in Firefox 3.1, and there’s lots more information about this new feature and how it will affect Firefox users’ workflow at Jennifer’s weblog.

Firefox 3.1: Support for text attributes and spell checking

Marco Zehe writes, “Friday’s nightly build will include one big new feature in accessibility for Firefox 3.1: Text attributes and spell checking support.” This means that assistive technologies will now be able to get information about the font-family, font-weight, underline style, style, color, and background color of text, and also the language that the text is in, among other things. Additionally, when editing, if a word is misspelled, that word will now include an “invalid:misspelling” attribute. These new features will be fine-tuned over the next few weeks, but the team is looking for feedback if you’re able to help. For more details, please see Marco’s weblog post.

Mozilla Community Calendar

Deb Richardson is putting together a comprehensive list of weekly/regular public project meetings and other events. The wiki page for it is “Community Calendar” on the Mozilla public wiki. The plan is to eventually publish a consolidated version as a shared public calendar that everyone can subscribe to. Please check the wiki page and make any changes or additions necessary.

Firefox 3.0.1 released

As a part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.0.1 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a free download from getfirefox. It is strongly recommended that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3, you will receive an automated update notification shortly. For more information, including a list of changes, please see the Mozilla Developer News weblog.

Firefox 2.0.0.16 released

In addition to the release of Firefox 3.0.1, Firefox 2 has also been updated, and Firefox 2.0.0.16 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a free download from http://www.mozilla/firefox/all-older.html. It is strongly recommended that all Firefox 2 users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 2, you will receive an automated update notification. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

Please note that 2.0.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until mid-December 2008. All users are encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3.

SeaMonkey 1.1.11 security release

SeaMonkey Project News reports that the SeaMonkey project released a new version of its all-in-one internet suite on July 15th, 2008. “SeaMonkey 1.1.11 closes several security vulnerabilities and fixes several smaller problems found in previous versions. With that, SeaMonkey stays at the same level of security as its sibling Firefox 2, which is issuing updates for the same problems this week as well.” The SeaMonkey team urges users of older SeaMonkey versions to upgrade to this latest release. For more information, see the SeaMonkey Project News page.

Developer calendar

For an up-to-date list of the coming week’s Mozilla project meetings and events, please see the Mozilla Community Calendar wiki page.

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Review: oldbar

The new and improved Smart Location Bar aka AwesomeBar displays the results a little differently than in Firefox 2. In Firefox 3 each result is displayed on two lines. The favicon followed by the page title in a larger font on the top line, followed by the URL in green below. In Firefox 2 the results were displayed on one line with the page URL followed by the page title. Click the samples below for full-size images:

Firefox 3 SLB
Firefox 3 Default: Smart Location Bar displays results on two lines: Favicon, Page Title; URL in green

Firefox 2 SLB
Firefox 3 with oldbar:Smart Location Bar displays results on single line: Favicon, URL, Page Title in grey

oldbar is for Firefox 3 only and is about 2K

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Tweak: Fx 3 Address Bar

One of the biggest changes to Firefox 3 is the Smart Location Bar commonly called the AwesomeBar. You are either going to like it or hate it as it is a major change as to how the address bar behaves in comparison to Firefox 2. I am not going to get into all the technical details as to how the Smart Location Bar works other than to say it displays the results based not only on addresses you have type previously (Firefox 2 behavior) but as well as browser history and bookmarks. For more detailed information on the technical workings and frequency algorithm of the Smart Location Bar see this CyberNet News article.

  • Bar Appearance - One of the first things you will notice is each result is displayed on two lines. The favicon followed by the page title in a larger font on the top line, followed by the URL in green below. In Firefox 2 the results were displayed on one line with the page URL followed by the page title. This new format may be a little easier to read, but takes up more room.
    • Oldbar - You can revert back to the Firefox 2 style by using the oldbar add-on (note this add-on only changes the display of the results, not the method the results are obtained). See Review: Oldbar for more information and samples.
    • Number of Results - By default the Smart Location Bar will display a maximum of 12 results based on what is typed in the address bar. You can increase (or in my case decrease) this number by going to a new tab and typing about:config; (if needed click the “I’ll be careful, I promise” button) filter for browser.urlbar.maxRichResults; double-click on the entry and enter the number of results you would like displayed.
  • Removing History and/or Bookmarks - Again it is important to understand the Smart Location Bar displays the results on not just previously typed URLs but your browser history and bookmarks as well. Note: If you make these changes, the Smart Location Bar will still display results on Bookmarks and History when you start typing in the bar, but then will automatically filter based on your settings once you add a couple more letters.
    • Remove Historyand Bookmarks- Like Firefox 2, you can setup so that the address bar only displays results based on addresses you have typed. From about:config filter for browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped; double-click on the entry to change it from ‘False’ to ‘True’
    • Remove Unvisited Bookmarks - Your displayed results will still include your bookmarks, but only those you have visited. From about:config filter for places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus; double-click on the entry and enter ‘0′ (note this is a zero, not an ‘O’). Restart Firefox and clear history.
    • Remove ALL Bookmarks - Your displayed results will only be based on your browser history as well what has already been typed in the Smart Location Bar. With about:config change the following entries to ‘0′ (note this is a zero, not an ‘O’ also be sure to Restart Firefox and clear history after making these changes):
      • places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus
      • places.frecency.bookmarkVisitBonus
This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Coming Tuesday, June 17th: Firefox 3

Whenever we’re asked “when is Firefox going to be released” we endeavor to answer to the best of our abilities, but the truth of the matter is that we’ll only ever ship “when it’s ready”. We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the Internet.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

about:mozilla - Firefox 3 RC2, Governance, Accessibility, Bugdays, Acid3, T-shirts, and more…

In this issue…

  • Firefox 3 RC 2 released
  • Governance and module ownership
  • Jesse Ruderman answers your questions
  • Accessibility testcases now in Litmus
  • Applying SVG effects to HTML content
  • Help test Firefox and join the QA bugdays
  • Five points gained on Acid 3
  • Mozilla T-shirt history project
  • Help Mozilla set a Guinness World Record
  • Firefox Screencast contest continues
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Firefox 3 RC 2 released

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 was made available for download and testing on June 4th. This is a public preview release that is intended for developer testing and community feedback. We recommend that you read the release notes and known issues pages before installing the software. More information about the Firefox 3 RC2 release is available at the Developer News weblog.

Governance and module ownership

As part of the Mozilla Project’s ongoing efforts to manage and maintain the health of its module ownership system, Mitchell Baker posted a proposal in March for updating the way that system is managed. That proposal has now been implemented, and Mitchell has posted the details on her weblog.

Jesse Ruderman answers your questions

As part of the “Ask a Developer” interview series, Asa Dotzler recently solicited questions for Jesse Ruderman, one of Mozilla’s security experts. Jesse has since answered those questions, and Asa has posted the responses on his weblog. Read the full interview on Asa’s blog.

Accessibility testcases now in Litmus

Litmus is Mozilla’s community testing platform that allows anyone to test Firefox or other Mozilla products by running a set of testcases and giving us feedback about whether the test passed or failed. The Mozilla QA team uses these test runs to do basic functionality tests (run before every beta release), full functionality tests (run before releases or release candidates), or at other times to ensure that certain areas of the product behave as expected.

Marco Zehe, Mozilla’s Accessibility QA guru, has created testcases for accessibility features in Firefox 3. If you’re interested in helping test Firefox accessibility, you should check out Marco’s blog post.

Applying SVG effects to HTML content

One problem Robert O’Callahan has been working on recently is that it’s currently hard to use SVG’s features to enhance HTML content. “For example, there is no reasonable way to clip an HTML element to a non-rectangular region, or to apply an alpha mask to an HTML element, or to apply image processing effects such as color channel manipulation to HTML elements. SVG has these features, but they can only be applied to SVG elements.” Robert has been experimenting with better ways to apply SVG effects to HTML content, the first step of which is to make SVG’s “clip-path”, “mask” and “filter” properties work when applied to HTML content. Robert has posted all the details in a full write up on his blog.

Help test Firefox and join the QA bugdays

Carsten Book has written an article talking about Mozilla’s QA Bugdays. We see a huge number of bug reports filed every day by our community of users and testers, and Bugdays are where unconfirmed bugs are either verified or closed. They’re a great way to get involved with Mozilla’s development efforts, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve ever been involved with the project before — anyone can participate and become a valuable contributor. Bugdays are held regularly, and the focus of the work changes from week to week. To find out more about QA’s Bugdays, see Carsten’s blog post.

Five points gained on Acid 3

Now that mozilla-central, the source code repository for the release of Firefox after 3.0, is open, a bunch of patches fixing bugs affecting our score on the Acid3 test have landed:

  • We pass test 30 since we now allow DOM events to be dispatched multiple times (bug 412567, Olli Pettay)
  • We pass test 38 since we now implement the replaceWholeText method and the wholeText attribute from DOM Level 3 Core (bug 421765, Jeff Walden)
  • We pass test 39 since we now implement the :nth-*() selectors (bug 75375, David Baron)
  • We pass test 40 since we now implement the :*-of-type selectors (bug 128585, David Baron)
  • We now pass test 68 (and show the results correctly when Shift-clicking on the A) thanks to a UTF-16 surrogate handling fix (bug 421576, Jeff Walden)

Mozilla T-shirt history project

John Slater is working on a new project, The T-Shirt History of Mozilla. As anyone who’s spent much time around the Mozilla community knows, t-shirts are an important part of our culture. John is working to collect photos of as many different Mozilla or Mozilla-related t-shirts as possible, and has collected 53 so far. Go to Flickr to view the whole collection and if you have a t-shirt that isn’t included yet, send John a note.

Help Mozilla set a Guinness World Record

The Firefox community is always up to some cool, collaborative way to declare their passion for Firefox. What better way to do this than to band together to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours?

All you have to do is download Firefox 3 when it goes live on Download Day — some time in June. In the meantime, check out Download Day Headquarters and pledge to download Firefox 3. We’ll let you know when Firefox 3 goes out the door, kicking off the 24-hour attempt.

Firefox Screencast contest continues

The Firefox screencasts contest launched on May 19th, and is a great chance for you to use your talents and passion for Firefox to help create screencast support videos for SUMO. The SUMO team has compiled a list of the 100 most popular support articles from the knowledge base and are looking for help creating screencasts for all of them. There will be a prize awarded for the best screencast submitted for each article, and one grand prize for the best video overall. The contest only runs until June 15th, so you should head over to the SUMO blog for more information and to get involved!

Developer calendar
Monday

  • Mobile Meeting
  • SUMO Meeting
  • General Status Meeting

Tuesday

  • Thunderbird Meeting
  • Firefox/Gecko Meeting
  • Bug Day!

Wednesday

  • Mac Gecko Meeting
  • Performance Infrastructure Meeting
  • Performance/Leaks Meeting
  • Mozilla 2 Meeting
  • Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
  • Weave Meeting
  • Calendar Meeting

Thursday

  • Thunderbird Bugday

Friday

  • Test Day!

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

What’s Next For Firefox?

With the announcement that Firefox 3 is going to release next Tuesday, June 17th, what’s next? Firefox 3.1 coded named Shiretoko after the national park in Japan.



Shiretoko National Park

It is important to understand that this is going to be the next major version of Firefox 3. Regular usability & security updates will follow the 3.0.X numbering scheme. Mostly what is planned for Firefox 3.1 are features that did not make into the final Firefox 3 (note: this list is subject to change especially items marked with an asterisk *):

  • Visual tab switching*
  • tab searching/filtering*
  • bulk tagging bookmarks*
  • tag autocomplete*
  • support for
  • cross site Ajax requests
  • more power for the location bar
  • added support for CSS 3 selectors
  • improvements to Places



It should take about 6 weeks for the new features to be in place for the first Alpha due out in mid July. The final release should be sometime around the end of the year. What does this mean for Firefox 2? A very fast end of product support. This means updates and support for Firefox 2 will end about six months from the release of Firefox 3 which would be December 17th.  Also with the release of Firefox 3.1 around the same time will start the six-month clock ticking for the end of Firefox 3.0 support.

So, what about Firefox 4? That is about a year and half away at the end of 2009. This is going to a major platform change (much like we saw going from Firefox 1.5 to 2.0 in October 2006). Firefox 4 would “…introduce Mozilla2, an extensive update to the Mozilla platform to feature highlights like ActionMonkey, the merge of Mozilla’s JavaScript engine (SpiderMonkey) and Tamarin, Adobe’s JavaScript virtual machine open-sourced in late 2006.”

News Source:Mozilla Links

  • Firefox 3.1 (Shiretoko) planned features draft
  • Firefox 3.1 targeted for year’s end

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Firefox 3 RC3 Released

Due to the showstopper bug on the Mac OS X RC2 builds, a third Release Candidate was released on Wednesday, June 11th. Mac OS X (Windows & Linux do not need to update to RC3) users can download Firefox 3.0RC3 here.


Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3 Release Notes

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Firefox 3 RC3 Coming

Due to showstopper bug #436575 there will be a 3rd Release Candidate for Firefox 3. This bug which affects only Mac users causes Mozilla applications experience unkillable hangs after installing Mac OS X 10.5.3.  Apparently the underlying issue is on Apple’s side, but the Mozilla developers have come out with a work around/patch to fix this issue. Affected Mozilla applications include:

  • Camino
  • Firefox 2.0.0.14
  • Firefox 3 RC2
  • Songbird
  • Thunderbird



While there will be an RC3 for Windows and Linux builds as well, it is only a version bump, no actual updates will come with RC3. Only Mac builds will have updates with RC3.


Given the timing of this work around/patch, not sure if it is going to be included in the upcoming Firefox 2.0.0.15 release. That build had gone into a code freeze status right around the time this work around/patch was landed. So if it is not included we will likely see a Firedrill release for Firefox 2.0.0.16 (and like with RC3 only the Mac version will have the actual work around/patch. Windows/Linux builds will simply just get a version bump).

Even with this issue, the developers are still targeting a final Firefox 3 release by the end of this month. Also, no word yet when exactly RC3 will be coming out, I suspect by the end of this week.

News Source: MozillaLinks

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

AMO 3.4.3 deployment DELAYED

Due to a database issues (queries taking far too long) the deployment for the AMO 3.4.3 update has been pushed back to June 12th. The AMO 3.4.3 update addressed bug and security fixes along with search improvements, streamlining the editors’ queue, and making it easier to browse and discover themes.

News Source: Mozilla Webdev

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 Released

As mentioned in the Weekly Update 2008-04-28, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 is to be released today. Users will be prompted for an automatic update within the next 72 hours.Those wishing to upgrade now can do so via the Help Menu,Check For Updates option or by downloading the latest release at getthunderbird. Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 contains many security fixes and the full details can be found in the Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 Release Notes.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

AMO 3.4.1 Released

The addons.mozilla.org (AMO) site was updated to version 3.4.1 earlier this week. Some of the more notable updates/fixes in this AMO release include:

  • Added back the application compatibility ranges on the add-on details pages (example: Works with: Firefox 1.5 to 3.0 pre)
  • Due to popular demand, we’ve separated Themes from Appearance-related extensions and Dictionaries & Language Packs from “Language Support” extensions. So, there are a few more categories that appear on the left-hand side menu.
  • Increased the default add-on list size from 10 to 20



Adding back the application compatibility ranges is a much needed fixed. I had discussed the importance of having these details on the AMO 3.2.1 Coming Soon post:

…simply telling the user ‘This add-on is for an older version of Firefox’ doesn’t really help them. It really should say what older version of Firefox it is for. The logic behind this would be so the user could determine if the add-on simply hasn’t been bumped up to the newest version or (in the case for a much older version) the developer has abandoned the add-on.

You can check out the complete list of fixes for the AMO 3.4.1. release on Bugzilla. Look for another update on the AMO site in about two weeks.

News Source: Basil’s Bodacious Blog

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Monday, March 24, 2008

'Stealth' Safari Installation Draws Fire for Apple


Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor




AppleCEO John Lilly on Friday blasted Apple for including the Safari browser in its iTunes automatic update service for Mac and Windows operating systems. Mozilla makes the open-source Firefox Web browser.

Breaching a Trust


From Lilly's perspective, it's important for users to be protected from vulnerabilities. Apple, he argues, is breaching a trust.


"There's an implicit trust relationship between software makers and customers in this regard: As a software maker we promise to do our very best to keep users safe and will provide the quickest updates possible, with absolutely no other agenda," Lilly said. "And when the user trusts the software maker, they'll generally go ahead and install the patch, keeping themselves and everyone else safe."


Lilly's blog post stirred up dozens of comments.


"This is just a sick way of tricking users to download their browser by making it seem as if an update is available for a piece of software already installed. I bet it even takes over as the default browser afterward, which would look very bad on Apple," a commenter named "Kurt" wrote on the Mozilla blog. Meanwhile, "Ian Hayward" said he is shocked and feels "a little less good" about Apple.


Hurting Mozilla's Pocketbook


Apple was not immediately available for comment, but some media pundits suspect Lilly's tirade is as much about money as about security. Mozilla generates significant revenue by putting the Google search box in its browser as the default placement. Mozilla gleaned $66.8 million in revenue from Google last year. That's 85 percent of the organization's revenue.


"From an economic standpoint it could be that this is true, that this is really about revenues to Mozilla from Google, and that's why they are upset. I am sure it's not entirely a cynical thing. I am sure there is a mix of concerns there, one of which is probably economic," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.


Sterling is betting against a mass exodus, or even a significant defection, from
Mozilla to Safari. If Safari became far and away better than Mozilla's Firefox and the browser-using world began buzzing about the Apple software, then it might be a different story. But Sterling doesn't see installing Safari as a danger to Mozilla's market share on Windows machines.


Reactions against Apple may be something else.


"People are reacting to this because it seems very un-Apple-like," Sterling said. "Some people think Apple shouldn't be engaged in this type of thing. It's something people associate with other types of companies, and this is seemingly stealth behavior is unworthy of Apple."


This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Browser Wars Heat Up, Again


Neil McAllister



Browsers were all the buzz over the weekend, beginning with the news that the developers of Mozilla Firefox feel their latest build is ready for widespread general use, despite technically being still only a beta. I'm not ready to make the leap full-time yet myself, but I'll definitely be looking at Firefox's new features in the coming weeks.


Mozilla CEO John Lilly was the first to point out that Apple has now begun offering Safari as an optional download whenever you receive an update to its Quicktime or iTunes software on Windows. It's "optional" in the sense that you don't have to install it, but the installer assumes that you do want it, by default. If you don't want to download and install 50MB of Safari, you need to uncheck the box manually.



This really bugs me. I'm perfectly happy with Firefox, and I see no reason why I should have Apple twisting my arm to load up my system with another browser every time it issues a security update to Quicktime.



And I should point out that it's not just Safari. I made a point to install Quicktime without iTunes on my business PC, and yet I'm still offered "Quicktime + iTunes" every time Apple releases a new update. This is annoying and coercive at best, and at worst it resembles the practices of malware makers.



The shame of it is that Safari is actually a fine browser. Apple should be able to increase its market share on its merits alone, without getting pushy about it.



This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Thursday, March 20, 2008

about:mozilla - Memory usage, QA companion, SXSW, Effortless Good, Year of the Gecko, T-shirts, AwesomeBar and more

In this issue…

  • Firefox 3 Memory usage
  • Mozilla QA Companion released
  • Mozilla at SXSW
  • John Lilly and Mike Schroepfer interviewed by Matt Asay
  • Effortless Good Firefox Add-on
  • The Year of the Gecko
  • Executive Director search update
  • Last chance for free t-shirts!
  • Firefox 3’s AwesomeBar changes for Beta 4
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Firefox 3 Memory usage

As the web and web browsers have matured, people have started expecting different things from them. When Firefox was first released, few people were browsing with tabs or using large numbers of add-ons. As browser usage patterns have changed, so too have Mozilla’s strategies on how to effectively make use of system resources such as memory. A large number of changes have been made to the platform Firefox 3 is built on, including many that aim to reduce the browser’s memory footprint. The results have been dramatic, particularly in the recently released Firefox 3 Beta 4, with tests showing that Firefox 3 now beats memory usage numbers of all other modern web browsers.

Stuart Parmenter discusses Firefox 3’s memory usage in a post on his weblog. Several follow-up posts expand upon the discussion, including on weblogs by John Resig, Tristan Nitot, and Chris Blizzard. Ars Technica has also written an article about this topic.

Mozilla QA Companion released

Mozilla’s Quality Assurance team has released a new “Mozilla QA Companion” Firefox add-on that was created to make it easier for people to get involved with the Mozilla Project by helping to test Firefox. The add-on pulls test cases from Litmus, provides an easy-to-use response form, and keeps users up to date on events such as Bug Days and through live feeds from the QMO site and forums. Chatzilla is also bundled with the add-on, with one-click access to the Quality Assurance IRC channel (#qa). The add-on is currently in beta form so there are still likely to be some minor issues and bugs. See the QA blog for more information and a download link for the add-on.

Mozilla at SXSW

The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive conference happened this past week, in toasty Austin, Texas. Thousands of web developers poured in from all over the country to hear the latest techniques and get to know the web development community a little bit better. Mozilla was well represented: Aza Raskin (User Experience Lead for Mozilla Labs) lead a discussion on designing intelligent user interfaces, John Resig (JavaScript Evangelist) lead a panel discussion on the Secrets of JavaScript Libraries, and Brendan Eich (CTO of Mozilla Corporation) participated in a rousing “Browser Wars” panel, with many of the major browser vendors.

Mozilla also lead a developer get-together giving Firefox users and developers the opportunity to connect. We ran a quick contest to get fun ideas for new Firefox add-ons, and the three winners were:

  • John Refano: “I served you an ad but I eated it” - a spin-off of Adblock which replaces all ads with cute lolcat pictures.
  • Jon Steffens: “Stumble Fake or Not” - displays two panes, one with a real web site, one with a fake one - can you tell the difference? Useful for teaching users to spot possible in phishing attempts.
  • Steve Levithan: “A Firefox 3+ only add-on to leak memory, to remind you of the old days”.

We want to thank everyone who came to our get-together and those who participated in the add-on competition. We had a great time getting to chat everyone and we hope to see you again, next year!

John Lilly and Mike Schroepfer interviewed by Matt Asay

Matt Asay spent an hour with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, and Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering. Matt has put together an extremely interesting write up of his chat with Lilly and Schroepfer, which you can read on the Webware blog.

Effortless Good Firefox Add-on

The Participatory Culture Foundation has released a new Firefox add-on that helps you do good without any effort whatsoever. Simply install the add-on with a click and then anytime you shop at Amazon, a portion of your purchase will be donated to four non-profit organizations — Rainforest Alliance, Save the Children, Grameen Foundation, and the Participatory Culture Foundation. The add-on currently works with Amazon in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, functioning by simply adding a referral code to the URL when you browse on Amazon. When you buy something, the Amazon referral fee is collected by the PCF and distributed evenly among the four non-profits. For more information, and to install the add-on, head on over to the Effortless Good website today.

The Year of the Gecko

Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s Chief Evangelist, has declared 2008 to be the “Year of the Gecko”. Gecko is the platform upon which Mozilla projects are built (including Firefox), and with the new performance gains being made on that platform it’s a great time to start building software with it. Shaver writes, “Fast, small, cross-platform, industry-leading stability, solid OS integration, excellent standards support, excellent web compatibility, great security, ridiculously extensible, a productive app platform, accessible, localized to heck and back, open source from top to bottom: it’s a great time to be building on top of Gecko, and Firefox 3 is just the beginning. Wait until you see what we have in store for the next release…” Read more at Shaver’s weblog.

Executive Director search update

The Mozilla Foundation has been searching for a new Executive Director for quite some time now. Mitchell Baker has posted an update about the process on her weblog, writing, “We suspected that the number of people who can understand and lead something of Mozilla’s complexity and history would be small and hard to find, and we were right.” More information, including an outline of the search so far, is available on her blog.

Last chance for free t-shirts!

March 18th (today!) is the final deadline for updating your add-on for Firefox 3 to get a free t-shirt! Alex Polvi’s weblog has all the details, but act fast — today is the last day the free t-shirt offer is available.

Firefox 3’s AwesomeBar changes for Beta 4

Edward Lee, one of the developers responsible for the new Firefox 3 “AwesomeBar”, has blogged about the new features that have been included in the new location bar behavior for Firefox 3 Beta 4. The adaptive learning system works for the drop down menu without typing any words, so it now benefits from mouse as well as keyboard input. Additionally, the location bar now allows you to search with multiple words, including against tags you’ve added to bookmarked pages. There are other tweaks and features that have been added, much of which is geared towards more advanced users, which Edward discusses at length in his blog post.

Developer calendar

Monday

  • Mobile Meeting
  • SUMO Meeting
  • General Status Meeting

Tuesday

  • Thunderbird Meeting
  • Firefox/Gecko Meeting
  • Bug Day!

Wednesday

  • Mac Gecko Meeting
  • Performance Infrastructure Meeting
  • Performance/Leaks Meeting
  • Mozilla 2 Meeting

Friday

  • Test Day!

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

about:mozilla - Beta 4, Beta 5, Free t-shirts, Dehydra, Seneca College, Prism, and more

In this issue…

  • Firefox 3 Beta 4 ships
  • Firefox 3 Beta 5 schedule
  • Update your add-on for Firefox 3 and get a free t-shirt!
  • Mozilla Foundation grant for Seneca College
  • Dehydra: a new static checking tool for Mozilla code
  • Major update to Prism, first prototype of browser integration
  • Mozilla helps fund GNOME Accessibility outreach program
  • A trio of Mozillians interviewed
  • Latest additions to Planet Mozilla
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Firefox 3 Beta 4 ships

Firefox 3 Beta 4 is now available for download. Please note that we do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download this beta release, as it is intended for testing purposes only. As always, ongoing planning and progress on Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso. For more information about the new features and changes that need testing in this beta, please see the DevNews blog post.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 schedule

At last week’s meeting, the Firefox development team decided that a fifth beta would be required for Firefox 3 based on the number of blocker bugs remaining. This additional beta will ensure that changes that may affect website compatibility or user experience will be exposed to a wider audience for feedback and testing. The string freeze deadline for Beta 5 has already passed, and code freeze is currently scheduled for March 18th. For more information about the beta and its schedule, see the DevNews blog post.

Update your add-on for Firefox 3 and get a free t-shirt!

Alex Polvi writes, “Have an extension on AMO? Does it work with Firefox 3? If so, head on over to AMO and claim your Add-ons Developer t-shirt (also available under Developer Tools > T-Shirt Request). If your extension is not currently compatible, you have until March 18th to claim the swag. Also, if your add-on was developed by a team and you need more than one shirt, please contact us and we’ll do our best to make arrangements.” See Alex’s blog post for more information about updating your add-on and how to get help if you need it.

Mozilla Foundation grant for Seneca College

The Mozilla Foundation has provided Seneca College with a $100,000 (USD) grant to support the on-going collaboration between Mozilla and Seneca’s Centre for Development of Open Technology. At the Centre, Seneca faculty and students contribute to the development of Mozilla software products such as Firefox. This funding will be used to create new curriculum, expand what already exists and prepare the Mozilla curriculum for use by other academic institutions. For a complete list of Seneca’s Mozilla-related courses, projects, and resources, check out the Seneca College wiki. More information about the grant is available through the press release.

Dehydra: a new static checking tool for Mozilla code

Benjamin Smedberg has blogged about a new static checking tool that will help improve Mozilla’s code quality and development cycle. Dehydra, developed by Taras and David, will allow application-specific rules to be enforced at compile time, saving the time and effort needed to track down some easily-made coding errors. Dehydra is still a work in progress, and the team is looking for hackers to help out with the project. For more information about Dehydra, helping out, how to build the tool and more see Benjamin’s blog post, “Statically checking the Mozilla codebase“.

Major update to Prism, first prototype of browser integration

Mozilla Labs has released a major update to Prism that includes the first prototype of browser integration along with new desktop integration capabilities and even simpler installation. Prism is an open source cross-platform prototype that lets users split web applications out of the browser and run them directly on the desktop. This is part of a series of Mozilla Labs experiments into bridging the divide in the user experience between web and desktop applications, exploring new usability models as these lines continue to blur. For more information about Prism and this latest release, see the Mozilla Labs blog post.

Mozilla helps fund GNOME Accessibility outreach program

The GNOME Foundation is running an accessibility outreach program to promote software accessibility awareness among the GNOME and broader Free Software communities, as well as to improve the overall quality of GNOME accessibility. The Mozilla Foundation is one of the sponsors of the $50,000 (USD) project, along with the GNOME Foundation, Google, Canonical, and Novell. The program started accepting applications on March 1st and will run towards the end of the year. People who are interested in participating in the program should check out the project website. More information can be found in the press release.

A trio of Mozillians interviewed

Three Mozilla folk have been interviewed recently: John Lilly was interviewed by Sarah Lacy for Yahoo, Johnathan Nightingale was interviewed by the folks at Crazy Engineers about Firefox and working at Mozilla, and Vladimir Vukicevic was interviewed by InternetNews.

Latest additions to Planet Mozilla

The most recent additions to the Planet Mozilla blog aggregator are: Bryan Clark, Mark Smith, Laura Thomson, Marcio Galli, Gavin Sharp, Code Simplicity, Stephen Lau, Jane Finette, For the Record, and Carsten Book. For more information, see the Planet Mozilla blog.

Developer calendar

Monday

  • Mobile Meeting
  • SUMO Meeting
  • General Status Meeting

Tuesday

  • Thunderbird Meeting
  • Firefox/Gecko Meeting
  • Bug Day!

Wednesday

  • Mac Gecko Meeting
  • Performance Infrastructure Meeting
  • Performance/Leaks Meeting
  • Mozilla 2 Meeting

Friday

  • Test Day!

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

New TBird Engineers

Back in October things were looking very gloomy for Thunderbird. It was a bit of a double-whammy when Scott McGregor, Thunderbird lead engineer and David Bienvenu, developer announced they were leaving Mozilla. These announcements came about a month after, then CEO Mitchel Baker announced the split-off to Thunderbird Mail Corporation (MailCo, now known as Mozilla Messaging). Finally, some good news to report about Thunderbird.


In his blog entry, Progress Update, David Ascher has announced Mark Banner (Standard8 on IRC) has signed on as a full-time on Thunderbird (effective next month).

One of the projects that Mark will finally have time to push on is to beef up the test automation framework and help drive better test coverage for the codebase, which is a crucial step to allow the refactoring we want to do, and facilitate a more agile development model.

Further, Rick Tessner has joined as a part-time build engineer. Rick will be helping with helping with build automation and release automation.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Week Update 2008-03-17

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting:

  • Fx 2.0.0.13
    • Updated Release Schedule:

      • Code freeze (semi-slushy): March 7
      • Builds start: March 10
      • QA starts: March 11
      • Release to beta channel: March 18
      • Final Release: March 25 or March 26

  • Firefox 3 Beta 4
    • Beta 4 Shipped on March 10th

  • Firefox 3 Beta 5

    • Code freeze: March 18
      • 8 P1s remaining, should be able to hit freeze target
      • 46 blockers fixed since last week

    • Builds start:
    • QA starts:
    • Release to beta channel:
    • Final Release: March 27

  • Gecko 1.9
    • 34 P1s, These are bugs that require a beta cycle due to risk:
      • GFX: 2
      • JS: 4
      • Layout: 5
      • Content: 7
      • Platform: 10
      • SVG: 8
      • General: 1

  • Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) - No Report

  • TBird 1.5.0.14 - No Report

  • TBird 2.0.0.13 - Expected Released Date: April 15th
  • TBird 3.0a1
    • Primary goal: get back in a more agile development mode by actually releasing.
    • Planned Code Freeze: April 22nd
    • Blocking & wanted flags for 3.0 and 3.0a1 have been created.
    • See Thunderbird:Thunderbird 3.0a1 for more information



Complete Meeting Notes

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Friday, March 7, 2008

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Announced

The Firefox 3/Gecko 1.9 development team has decided there needs to be a Beta 5 release of Firefox 3.

…based on the number of blockers remaining. This additional beta will ensure that changes which may affect website compatibility and changes which affect the user experience will get exposure to a wider audience for feedback and regression testing.

The string freeze is expect this Friday, March 7th with a code freeze on March 18th. They say Beta 5 will be the last milestone for string changes. No word as of yet on a release date for Beta 5, especially given Beta 4 hasn’t even been released yet.

Source: Mozilla Developer News

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Week Update 2008-03-03

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting:

  • Fx 2.0.0.13
    • Purposed Release Schedule:

      • Code freeze: March 7
      • Builds start: March 10
      • QA starts: March 11
      • Release to beta channel: March 18
      • Final Release: March 25

  • Firefox 3 Beta 4

    • Awesomebar

      • Real multi-word searching
      • Adaptive learning

    • Download Manager

      • Much improved search, multi-word, match on all data available

    • Visual Refresh

      • New Mac rev
      • Separate Vista and XP themes for Windows users
      • More Linux (as always!)

    • Still coming soon (landed and backed out)

      • Save Link As.. filename fixes
      • JSON backup (Ts hit)
    • 114 hard blockers left, working on load balancing and driving number down this week, Places is the current “winner” but they have lots of help.

    • Gecko 1.9 Beta 4 - No Report
    • Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) - No Report

    • TBird 1.5.0.14 - No Report

    • TBird 2.0.0.12 - Released: February 26th

    • TBird 3 - No Report

    Complete meeting notes.

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting:

  • Fx 2.0.0.13
    • Purposed Release Schedule:

      • Code freeze: March 7
      • Builds start: March 10
      • QA starts: March 11
      • Release to beta channel: March 18
      • Final Release: March 25

  • Firefox 3 Beta 4

    • Awesomebar

      • Real multi-word searching
      • Adaptive learning

    • Download Manager

      • Much improved search, multi-word, match on all data available

    • Visual Refresh

      • New Mac rev
      • Separate Vista and XP themes for Windows users
      • More Linux (as always!)

    • Still coming soon (landed and backed out)

      • Save Link As.. filename fixes
      • JSON backup (Ts hit)
    • 114 hard blockers left, working on load balancing and driving number down this week, Places is the current “winner” but they have lots of help.

    • Gecko 1.9 Beta 4 - No Report
    • Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) - No Report

    • TBird 1.5.0.14 - No Report

    • TBird 2.0.0.12 - Released: February 26th

    • TBird 3 - No Report

    Complete meeting notes.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Canadian Firefoxen

Neko, bottom left and Su lin, top.
Photograph by: Rick MacWilliam/Edmonton Journal

More Photos


News Source: David Ascher

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Tip: Transitioning From Netscape 9 to Fx 2

With the recent announcement from AOL that they will end support for Netscape in February, many loyal Netscape users will be looking for a new browser. Since Netscape 9 is based off of Firefox 2 with a few extensions built-in, it would seem moving to Firefox 2 would be the logical choice. However once users Get Firefox, they are going to discover that the social networking features that came with Netscape 9 are not included. While it is not too difficult to get these features installed in Firefox 2, locating them on addons.mozilla.org (AMO) isn’t as easy. The Guru has made this part a lot easier. Back in March, shortly after the time Netscape 9 was announced, the Netscape Add-ons Team registered on AMO and posted the Netscape theme and the 4 standard extensions for Firefox 2. These can be obtained here and include:

  • Netstripe- Netscape Navigator 9’s default theme, packaged for Firefox.
  • Propeller Friends’ Activity Sidebar - The Friends’ Activity Sidebar (FAS) extension helps you keep tabs on what stories your Propeller friends are submitting, commenting, and voting on.
  • Propeller News - Displays the latest news stories from Propeller in a top-level News menu and sidebar.
  • Propeller Sitemail Notifier - The Propeller Sitemail Notifier extension adds a button (shown above in the preview image) to your toolbar that indicates when you have new sitemail messages at Propeller.
  • Propeller Tracker - Follow the latest news, votes, and comments on the news at Propeller with this auto-updating sidebar.

So, what about your Netscape bookmarks? Firefox will not automatically pull your bookmarks over from Netscape. However, it only takes a couple minutes to manually bring them over:

  1. In Netscape 9 go to the Bookmarks Menu and select ‘Organize Bookmarks…’
  2. A new Bookmarks Manager window will pop-up, go to the File Menu and select ‘Export Bookmarks…’
  3. Select HTML (standard) from the list
  4. Choose an easy to find location such as the Desktop to save the bookmarks.html file and click ‘Save’
  5. Close any open Netscape 9 Windows
  6. In Firefox 2 go to the Bookmarks Menu and select ‘Organize Bookmarks…’
  7. A new Bookmarks Manager window will pop-up, go to the File Menu and select ‘Import…’
  8. Select From File and click ‘Next >’
  9. Locate the Bookmarks.html file you saved from Step 4 and click ‘Open’
  10. All your bookmarks from Netscape have been imported into Firefox 2. Close the Bookmarks Manager window

Hopefully this guide will make your transition from Netscape 9 to Firefox 2 a little smoother.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Review: Organize Search Engines

One of the nice features with Firefox is allowing you to add multiple search engines to your search bar. Since the introduction of this feature, more and more sites have added this functionality. As a result some users are bound to have a lot of search engines in their list. This is good and bad. Good in that you have plenty of search engines to choose from when you want to search; bad if you have so many search engines your drop down practically goes off the screen and you have to hunt down the search engine you wanted to use. Organize Search Engines solves this problem by allowing you to create folders (like you do for your bookmarks). Once you install the extension, simply go to your search bar and select from the drop-down ‘Manage Search Engines…‘ A new widow titled Manage Search Engine List will open an interface very similar to that of the Organize Bookmarks.

Keep in mind the Organize Search Engines extension is more designed for those ‘power users’ who have a lot of search engines. For the casual Firefox users with only a few search engines this extension is not very practical. I can confirm it plays well with SearchLoad Options extension and the developer has a list of other search related extensions that this does work with. However there may be some search related extensions that are not compatible with this extension. Should you run into an issue, you are urged to e-mail the developer with this information.

Organize Search Engines works with Firefox 2.0.0.X up through 3.0b3pre and is about 74K.

News Source: Learn Firefox

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Problems loading websites after Firefox update - MozillaZine Forums

When Firefox updates, you typically have to re-allow internet access to Firefox through your firewall.



http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firewalls



12 ways to get fooled by firewalls (by VanillaMozilla) http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2295421#2295421



http://kb.mozillazine.org/Error_loading_websites



If you're using Kaspersky Internet Security, see the following link titled "Kaspersky forums."


Kaspersky forums (Credit goes to Littlemutt for the link)


Firefox: When you cannot connect: http://noise.loud.googlepages/home (by LoudNoise)



Kaspersky Internet Security blocks Firefox from using Domain-Name Service. http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=588264
This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Quicktime/Real/Windows Media Player Issues (Windows) - MozillaZine Forums

Complete Embedded & Streaming Quicktime/Real/Windows Media Player Guide for Windows Users.

Contents
Media

Warp to Introduction

Warp to Media Player Plugins and Missing Plugin Alert

Warp to Audio not playing, but no Missing Plugin Alert

Warp to Letting Firefox Claim it is Internet Explorer

Warp to Viewing Launch video

Warp to Download files instead of opening in browser

Warp to Stream files instead of downloading

Warp to If all else fails...


-------------------------------------------------------------


This media player info here is still being maintained, but it has also been mirrored in the mozillaZine Knowledge Base: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Video_or_audio_doesn%27t_play

Introduction

When surfing the web, it is common to find embedded audio and video that uses Windows Media Player, Quicktime, or Real Player. There are Netscape plugins available for all 3 (usually installed into Firefox when their respective player is installed) that work with Firefox, but compared to the Internet Explorer plugins they are limited and do not always work. In addition, many websites use IE-only techniques (as opposed to standard code, which is supported by all browsers) to embed media.



-------------------------------------------------------------


Media Player Plugins and Missing Plugin Alert

MozillaKine Knowledge Base article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Video_or_audio_doesn%27t_play



The three basic media players (Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Real Player) all have a browser plugin. This allows a browser such as Firefox to open a small media player window inside a web page. Installing a media player does not necessarily mean you also install its plugin - so if, for example, you have Windows Media Player installed and you still get a missing plugin alert on a web page that has a windows media file embedded in it, then you likely lack the Windows Media Player plugin. In addition, there are known issues with each plugin as well as ways you can configure them to make them work better. The following guides are available to help you solve these problems:


Embedded Real Player/Real Alternative by _Jim_

Embedded Quicktime/Quicktime Alternative by _Jim_

Embedded Windows Media in Firefox by Vectorspace

Embedded Windows Media/Launch (Firefox 9.x and 1.0PR) by Vectorspace



In addition, it is more common now for websites (such as Google Video) to use the Flash plugin to embed video clips. The Flash plugin can be obtained from here:


http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows.html#Flash


Click 'Download' to download the full intstaller - it is more reliable than the online installer.


Quicktime vs. Windows Media Player

If you have the necessary plugins and get missing plugin alerts, then its likely that there is a media file that none of the plugins is configured to play. The usual solution has always been to follow the Quicktime Guide to associate those file types with the Quicktime plugin. A user's preference would usually be to associate them with the WMP plugin, but WMP has no provision for changing the file types associated with its plugin.



Now, there is an alternative. Greasemonkey is an extension that lets you to add bits of JavaScript (known as "user scripts") to any webpage to change and customise it's behavior. I've written one called IE Media Mimic: It looks at all embedded media on all web pages, and the ones that (I think) IE would use WMP to play, are modified to open with the WMP plugin, and to play in Firefox more like how they would be played in IE.


At the time of writing, I do not consider it user-friendly enough yet for the average Firefox user, so read the information on its webpage thoroughly before you consider using it.


Since it is still a work in progress, I would appreciate feedback on how good/badly it works (which you should do here:


http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=327437). It also might be updated frequently, so check the version number every now again to see if there is a newer one available. The current verison is 0.8.4. Remember, it requires the Windows Media Player plugin to work so make sure you have it.


Plugin/Extension Conflicts

Some extensions can interfere with the media player plugins - hiding them or preventing them from loading at all. Extensions that conflict with with individual plugins are listed in that plugin's guide.

Adblock

Under Firefox 1.5, Adblock will hide all embedded media - Quicktime, Real Player, Flash, and Windows Media Player - if its OBJ_TABS setting is enabled. The media player will still play if it is set to autostart so sound bay still be audible, but the controls and video image will be hidden. Either disable the OBJ_TABs setting or uninstall it and use Adblock Plus instead.

Amazing Media Browser

This extension has a setting that is enabled by default, to block all embedded objects. For media to work you need to disable that setting or uninstall the extension.


-------------------------------------------------------------


Audio not playing, but no Missing Plugin Alert

MozillaKine Knowledge Base article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Background_music_doesn%27t_play



If a page fails to play embedded audio but you do not get a 'Missing Plugin' alert, then it is possible that the page uses the non-standard 'bgsound' tag instead of the 'embed' or 'object' tag to embed the audio file. There are several ways you can make these pages work, Though I recommend you also e-mail the webmaster for the page and ask him to change it. Smile


You can install the 'BGM Conductor' extension from here: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=369


This extension changes all bgsound tags to embed tags when you view the page, allowing Firefox to detect the embedded audio. While this extension will work in Firefox 1.5.x.x, it needs to be modified slightly before it will install. Instructions on how to do that are here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Updating_extensions#Updating_incompatible_extensions_for_a_new_application_version



Another option is the aforementioned Greasemonkey script IE Media Mimic, which will (among other things) convert bgsound tags to embed tags. NOTE: At the time of writing, the author of IE Media Mimic does not yet consider it user-friendly enough for the average Firefox user - read the info on its homepage thoroughly before you consider using it.



-------------------------------------------------------------


Letting Firefox Claim it is Internet Explorer

MozillaKine Knowledge Base article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Video_or_audio_doesn%27t_play



Some web pages deny you access entirely unless you use Internet Explorer, often because they haven't bothered to test on other browsers, or because they think it only works in Internet Explorer. You can use the User Agent Switcher extension to trick them into thinking you're using IE which may let you into the website, but it it is no guarantee that the website will work.



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Viewing Launch video

MozillaKine Knowledge Base article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Yahoo%21_Music_videos_don%27t_work



Launch requires the ActiveX plugin for it to work in Firefox. See the latter half of the Embedded Windows Media in Firefox guide for instructions on how to install it.



Launch radio (LAUNCHcast) uses too much IE-only javascript, and by all indications will not function in Firefox. At least, no-one yet has been able to get it to work.



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Download files instead of opening in browser

mozillaZine Knowledge Base Article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Changing_media_handling_behaviour



With most media files, if you click a link to them you will be prompted to download them. For media files associated with some plugins (Acrobat, Quicktime, Windows Media and Flash files, for example), they will open automatically inside a browser window or in an external player instead.



If you wish to change this behaviour:

Firefox 1.0.x

Go into Firefox Options, and in the bar on the left click the Downloads icon. Click the 'Plug-Ins' button that is below the 'File Types' box, to reveal the list of file types that will open in the browser with the associated plugin instead of downloading. Disable the desired file types by clicking on the checkmark and they will give a download prompt instead. This will not effect media embedded in a web page - only links to the files themselves.


Firefox 1.5.x.x (Including Deer Park, the 1.5 Betas, and the 1.5 Release Candidates)


Go into Firefox Options, and in the top bar click the Downloads icon. Under 'Download Actions' click the 'View & Edit Actions' button to reveal the list of file types that will open in the browser with the associated plugin instead of downloading. Select a file type that you would rather have download or open with an external application and click 'Change Action...'


*If you want the file to open with the default external program for that file type, select "Open them with the default application"


*If you want the file to open with an external program other than the default, select "Open them with this application" - you will then be prompted to select the application to open them with.


*If you want the file to give a standard Open With/download to download prompt then select 'Save them on my computer'




Note: some of the file types listed there (such as all file types associated with the Windows Media Player plugin like .wma, .wmv, etc), if enabled/set to open with the plugin will, when clicked, automatically download and open the file with an external program instead of playing in the browser.



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Stream files instead of downloading

mozillaZine Knowledge Base Article: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Streaming_media_%28Firefox%29



In both Internet Explorer and Firefox, you can click a download link and have the browser open the file in a program, instead of just donwloading it to a specified location. In the case of media files however, IE can have a media player stream the file whereas Firefox will still download the file first before opening it (or Firefox will open it in the browser with the associated plugin, if there is one).



Firefox can duplicate IE's behaviour in several ways. One is with the DownloadWith extension. It is an extension that lets you choose another program to download a file by right-clicking on the link . If you specify a media player for a media file type, then the player will stream the file.


Install the enhanced version of the extension from here: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=203


And use the sample downloader settings that correspond to the media player that you use: http://downloadwith.mozdev.org/configurations/configurations.xml


While this extension will work in Firefox 1.5.x.x, it needs to be modified slightly before it will install. Instructions on how to do that are here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Updating_extensions#Updating_incompatible_extensions_for_a_new_application_version


It can be configured to automatically stream links, but I haven't figured that out yet.



The Launchy extension will also allow this. When you right-click on a link, Launchy will provide you with a list of external programs that you can use to open the link. Right-click on a link to a media file, and you can open it directly with a media player without downloading it first.


The extension can be obtained from here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=81


If you want to use an external application that Launchy does not list, see its homepage for instructions on how to add it.



A third method is to follow the Quicktime Guide to associate the desired file types with the Quicktime Plugin. When you click on a link to such a file, Firefox can use the Quicktime Plugin to stream it within a browser window instead of prompting you to download it. Once it has fully downloaded (once the slider is fully grey) you can just click File > Save Page As to save the file.



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If all else fails...

Despite the web standards and all these guides, many sites have embedded media that will only work in Internet Explorer. If a media file has been embedded using too much non-standard html/javascript, then it will not play in Firefox no matter what you do. This is unfortunate, but there is nothing to be done but use Internet Explorer to view the page in question. Of course, convincing the webmaster of the site to start supporting Firefox can't hurt...



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keywords: ActiveX Active-X plugin Real Player RealPlayer Quick Time Quicktime Alternative Windows Media Player Mediaplayer WMP 6.4 7 9 10 stream streaming embed embedded embedding Launch Yahoo Radio Launch Launchcast Video mp3 wmv wma asf asx mov ra rm ram rpm midi BGSOUND



Thanks to _Jim_ for taking the time to write his guides and test pages, Konstantin Svist for his BGSOUND to EMBED Extension, and AnonEmoose & rtmjr50 for their input and help.
This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Review: Tab Effect

Tab Effect is a novelty extension, but seems to be very popular (at least at my office). Using DirectX 8 adds an effect when the current tab is changed. The effect is hard to describe, but there is sample picture on the AMO page. Not sure how long I will keep this one installed before the "novelty" wears off.


Tab Effect works with Firefox 1.5-2.0.0.x and is about 38K.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Firefox 3 Beta 3 now available for download

Please note: We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 3 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.

Firefox 3 Beta 3 is now available for download. This is the eleventh developer milestone focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:

  • Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security including support for Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager.
  • Improved ease of use through: easier add-on discovery and installation, improved download manager search and progress indication in the status bar, resumable downloading, full page zoom, and better integration with Windows Vista, Mac OS X and Linux.
  • Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart bookmark folders, location bar that uses an algorithm based on site visit recency and frequency (called “frecency”) to provide better matches against your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.
  • Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, JavaScript 1.8, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.
  • Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 350 memory leak fixes, a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks, and reductions in the memory footprint.

(You can find out more about all of these features in the “What’s New” section of the release notes.)

Testers can download Firefox 3 Beta 3 builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 30 different languages. Please be sure to read the full release notes before using this preview release. Developers should look at the Firefox 3 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3 Beta 3 milestone announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

about:mozilla - Mobile team in Tokyo, SUMO, privacy policy, a trio of releases, and more

In this issue…

  • Mozilla mobile team in Tokyo
  • SUMO - now with l10n!
  • John Lilly appears on GigaOM show
  • Candidate revisions to Mozilla’s web site privacy policy
  • Firefox 2.0.0.12 released
  • Camino 1.5.5 released
  • Seamonkey 1.1.8 released
  • XPCOM reference updated
  • Developer calendar
  • Subscribe to the email newsletter

Mozilla mobile team in Tokyo

Christian Sejersen and Jay Sullivan of Mozilla’s mobile team will be in Tokyo to present at Mobile Monday Tokyo on Feb. 18th. They will be talking about Mozilla’s mobile strategy and showing off various prototypes and working models. Unfortunately the event is not free but you can register at the Mobile Monday Tokyo website.

SUMO - now with l10n!

The support.mozilla Firefox Support website now has better localization tools. There’s more work to be done, of course, but a number of important advancements have been made, including automatic language detection based on a browser’s accept-lang setting, the ability to hard-code locales into page URLs, and several improvements to other tools and processes. Lots more information about the recent changes is available on the SUMO blog.

John Lilly appears on GigaOM show

John Lilly, the new CEO of Mozilla, appeared on last week’s GigaOM show where he talked about the recent executive changes, the upcoming release of Firefox 3, Mozilla’s mission, the new “MailCo” Mozilla subsidiary, and several other topics. The video is just under fifteen minutes long, and is available through Revision 3.

Candidate revisions to Mozilla’s web site privacy policy

Mozilla’s websites have grown to be some of the top visited web sites in the world, and this massive increase in traffic has maxed out the capabilities of the current web analytics tools. New tools have been selected that will scale up to meet the new requirements, but are such that some changes to existing website privacy policies are required. Basil Hashem has blogged about the proposed changes and is seeking feedback from the Mozilla community. For more information, including links to the proposed changes and forums for providing feedback, please see Basil’s weblog.

Firefox 2.0.0.12 released

Last Thursday saw the release of Firefox 2.0.0.12, the latest security and stability update for Firefox 2. It is recommended that all users upgrade to this latest release in order to take advantage of the latest batch of security fixes. If you are still running Firefox 1.5.0.x, you are highly encouraged to upgrade to the Firefox 2 series as Mozilla ceased supporting Firefox 1.5.0.x in May 2007. Simply choose “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu to begin the upgrade process. More information about this release, please review the Firefox 2.0.0.12 release notes.

Camino 1.5.5 released

The Camino project has recently released Camino 1.5.5, a maintenance release that contains a number of security and stability updates for the browser. It is recommended that all Camino users upgrade to this newest release. More information is available in the Camino 1.5.5 release notes.

Seamonkey 1.1.8 released

Last Thursday, the SeaMonkey project released a new version of its all-in-one internet suite. This latest release closes several security vulnerabilities and fixes several smaller issues discovered in earlier versions. All SeaMonkey users are urged to upgrade to this newest version. More information is available through the SeaMonkey blog.

XPCOM reference updated

Last week Neil Deakin blogged that the XPCOM Reference on XULPlanet has been updated to reflect the most recent XPCOM changes and is now up-to-date for Mozilla 1.9 and Firefox 3.

Developer calendar

Monday

  • Mobile Meeting
  • SUMO Meeting
  • General Status Meeting

Tuesday

  • Firefox/Gecko Meeting
  • Bug Day!

Wednesday

  • Mac Gecko Meeting
  • Performance Infrastructure Meeting
  • Performance/Leaks Meeting
  • Mozilla 2 Meeting

Friday

  • Test Day!

Subscribe to the email newsletter

If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.

This content was originally posted on http://fffacts.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

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